What Is the Treatment for Substance Abuse? A Family Guidebook
designed for loved ones of those who struggle with drug or alcohol abuse. provides information on substance misuse, its signs, various forms of therapy, and recovery. focuses on the worries of kids whose parents have substance use or abuse issues.
explains how drug and alcohol addiction affects the entire family. outlines the process of substance abuse treatment, how family interventions can be a first step toward recovery, and how to assist kids in households where alcohol or drug misuse is a problem.
assures adolescents whose parents use drugs or alcohol that “It’s not your fault!” and that they are not alone in their struggles. presents a list of resources and advises teenagers to seek out emotional help from other adults, school counselors, and youth support organizations like Alateen.
Children whose parents or the parents of their friends may have substance abuse issues are given information on alcohol and drug addiction. encourages children to take care of themselves by talking about their issues and joining support networks like Alateen.
A Guide for Caring for Your Family Member After Emergency Room Treatment After an Attempt
helps the family deal with the fallout after a relative’s suicide attempt. explains how to decrease risk and assure safety at home, provides a list of follow-up treatment-related inquiries to make, and defines the emergency department treatment process.
For those recovering from mental illness or addiction, family therapy can be helpful.
examines the function of family therapy in the treatment of mental illness or drug addiction. explains who performs family therapy sessions, how one usually goes, what a typical session looks like, and how effective it is in helping people heal.
In This Article...
When is a Cancerian sad?
Due to the complexity of their emotions, which can change from intense happiness to intense melancholy in a matter of seconds, cancers are infamous for being depressing. When a Cancer feels uncomfortable or unwelcome, they hide behind their shells.
Why do Cancers feel such sadness?
Many cancer patients experience sadness. They experience a sense of loss regarding their health as well as the life they led before to learning they had the condition. You can continue to feel depressed after your treatment is over. This is a typical reaction to any severe sickness. Working through and accepting all of the changes that are occurring could take some time.
You can feel exhausted, have little energy, or not want to eat while you’re depressed. These emotions may fade or weaken with time for some people. However, these feelings could intensify for certain people. The unpleasant emotions persist and interfere with day-to-day existence. This can indicate that you’re depressed. Some people are unaware that depression is a treatable medical illness. Some people’s experiences with cancer treatment may have made this issue worse by altering how their brains function.
Getting Help for Depression
Depression is treatable. The symptoms of depression are listed below. Consult your doctor about treatment options if you experience any of the following symptoms for longer than two weeks. It’s crucial to discuss these symptoms with your doctor because some of them may be caused by medical issues.
emotional symptoms
- persistently depressing emotions
- feeling numb on the inside
- feeling uneasy or trembling
- a sense of guilt or of unworthiness
- feeling as though life has no purpose or being powerless or forlorn
- feeling irritable and depressed
- having trouble focusing and feeling disoriented
- sobbing frequently or for extended periods of time
- concentrating on concerns and issues
- no longer interested in the pastimes and pursuits you once loved
- finding it difficult to enjoy simple pleasures like food or time spent with family and friends
- Considering harming oneself
- Considering murdering oneself
the body changes
- unplanned weight gain or loss that isn’t connected to a condition or treatment
- issues with sleep, such as difficulty falling asleep, nightmares, or sleeping too much
- rapid heartbeat, dry mouth, increased sweating, gastrointestinal distress, and diarrhea
- variations in energy
- an ongoing feeling of tiredness
- other aches and symptoms besides headaches
Your doctor might prescribe medication to help you feel less tense if they suspect you are depressed. They could also suggest additional specialists to you. Don’t feel like you need to manage these emotions by yourself. It’s crucial for your life and health that you receive the assistance you require.
Cancerians: Are they depressed?
There are several reasons why someone with cancer might experience occasional depressive symptoms or at the very least, feel at danger of developing such symptoms. Cancer forces us to face our mortality and all of the related anxieties and losses. It has the power to upend your entire universe, disturb your daily routine, and jeopardize the roles, purposes, and objectives that give your life meaning and fulfillment. Cancer treatments may have disabling side effects and, in certain situations, may damage your body permanently. You experience additional emotional distress since not only are you affected by cancer, but also your loved ones.
Many cancer patients experience depressive periods. Depression lowers your resilience, makes dealing with cancer more difficult overall, and may interfere with your ability to adjust in general. It can also weaken your desire to live and erode the bravery, tenacity, and resolve you need to battle cancer and undergo the required medical treatments.
Depression is the exact opposite of what you need, which is strength and stamina, a hopeful outlook on the future, inspiration to push through cancer treatment, and the drive to stick with it. Therefore, depression poses a major risk to everyone coping with cancer. Happily, depression is preventable, and if it does strike, there are powerful treatments available.
The Nature of Depression
Most of us have experienced depression at some point and are familiar with its symptoms. The most frequent complaints are losing interest in previously enjoyed activities (even a simple pleasure like listening to music can get boring to you); feeling down, blue, or depressed; crying easily; and feeling exhausted and overpowered with paralyzing exhaustion.
A depressed individual may have morning fatigue or apathy on some days, making it difficult for them to get out of bed. You might feel depressed and despondent, start to look forward to death as a release, and consider taking your own life. Because of the self-hatred you have formed as a result of being sad, depression can make you feel worthless and guilty at times. Concentration difficulties, decision-making challenges, and memory issues are a few of the mental issues that come along with depression. Loss of appetite and libido, sleep issues, migraines, and digestive issues are a few of the physical concerns.
Causes of Depression
Psychological or biological factors may contribute to depression. The psychological causes are brought on by gloomy situations and experiences, whereas the biochemical (or clinical) causes are due to abnormalities in the brain’s neurochemistry. Depression is linked to a physiological alteration in the brain, regardless of the underlying cause.
When life events have particular implications for the person involved, depression may result. For instance, a person who experienced maltreatment as a youngster can believe they are unworthy of love or a fulfilling life. Depression can then result from unconscious or conscious thoughts and feelings of unworthiness. The feelings of helplessness, hopelessness, and victimhood are additional ideas that frequently accompany depression. These ideas and emotions are a result of traumatic experiences in the person’s life (although the person may not remember these events). In addition to triggering negative thoughts, these experiences may also alter the brain’s biochemistry, which exacerbates melancholy.
When you’re depressed, you can typically pinpoint the issue or recognize the negative thoughts that are bothering you ” (e.g., “Nothing will make a difference). Depression, though, can occasionally appear suddenly. Folks have “come down with sadness in ways that feel comparable to getting the flu, and they might not even be aware of the cause of their despair. This is due to the psychological contributing elements being unconscious or the depression being completely brought on by alterations in the brain’s neurochemistry.
Cancer and Depression
Simply because having cancer can be a gloomy experience, cancer patients frequently develop depression. There is typically more to it than that, though. Clinical depression is uncommon among cancer patients. They feel scared and upset to varied degrees, but this is not depression. There are psychological or biological factors at play when cancer results in depression. These factors are manageable and understandable.
Because of the different meanings that the sickness takes on as a result of the circumstances or psychological context in which it occurred, having cancer can lead to depression.
Cancer affects the whole individual, not just the physical body. As a result, you consider it to be a part of your private life. Your experience of cancer is colored and given a particular meaning, tone, or feeling by the personal issues, themes, perceptions, and emotions that are ingrained in your own personal history.
The responses to cancer diagnoses in persons of all ages provide the best illustration. A significant emotional investment in a lengthy future and a sense of incompleteness about their lives are common among cancer patients in their thirties. To them, the cancer may seem like a threat to that future and all the aspirations and purposes it carries. On the other hand, patients in their eighties typically bring a sense of closure to their experience of cancer along with a realization that their future is likely to be relatively brief; to them, the same cancer may feel more tolerable due to the long life they have previously experienced.
Age alone does not, of course, determine how you experience cancer or if you develop a depressive disorder. The examples that follow show other ways that your psychological environment can cause depression.
Depression might develop if other misfortunes in your life make the sadness you feel after receiving a cancer diagnosis (for yourself and your loved ones) seem worse than it actually is. In this instance, the context in which the cancer is experienced is a sad life history prior to the cancer. A long history of abuse, misery, or frustration may have culminated in the cancer. Many past emotions can be tapped into or reactivated by it. The depression that develops is partly brought on by having cancer, but it also results from one’s own life history and the emotional baggage that comes with it.
Imagine you had just finished or were about to finish a significant life goal. It’s possible that you toiled for years to accomplish your aim. After this significant accomplishment, you receive a cancer diagnosis. As a result, you might have felt like your plans were being derailed, that the odds were against you, or that your aspirations were costing you something. These are the connotations that cancer may have for you based on the circumstances surrounding its occurrence, and they might lead to depression.
There will inevitably be some physical pain and damage to your body as a result of cancer treatment. Of all, returning your body to health is the ultimate purpose of treatment, but doing so has a cost. The cost can be rather high at times (such as a mastectomy, head or neck surgery, bone marrow transplant, or skin damage from radiation therapy). Patients’ reactions to the physical side effects of cancer therapies vary, and depression is occasionally one among them. Our perceptions of ourselves are partially influenced by how we look and how we move. The loss we experience (sometimes to our self-esteem, sometimes to our position and identity) when they are affected by cancer can be extremely distressing.
In our society, it is common to believe that a person’s fate is somehow related to their deserving. Unfortunately, a cancer patient may be impacted by this supposition, which is frequently extremely subtle. We frequently believe that we are deserving of our good fortune when things are going our way. Cancer is a misfortune that can lead us to question whether we truly deserved our good fortune. Therefore, it is normal for cancer sufferers to question what went wrong. Some patients have believed that getting cancer was a method of bringing things back into balance because they felt that things were going too well for them, that life was too simple for them, or that they were happier than most others. About her illness, one woman stated: “It’s all of my resentment and bitterness that I’ve repressed spilling out. Another patient believed it to be a manifestation of his hatred of himself. One described it as “a pitiful effort on my part to get the attention I’ve never had. Such concepts may result in depression.
As was already established, depression in cancer patients might also have biological origins. Cancer-related emotional side effects may alter the brain’s biochemistry. Chemotherapy medications, hormonal therapies, anti-inflammatory drugs, painkillers, and radiation therapy can all result in biochemical alterations.
It’s not a given that being depressed means you’re not managing or adjusting as you ought to. As this may provide you the chance to confront and work with the emotional traumas from earlier years, it is frequently important and psychologically good for underlying sentiments to surface.
Depression is dangerous, regardless of the cause, especially to your quality of life and will to live. There are actions you can take to make it less severe.
What You Can Do to Protect Yourself
When dealing with cancer, there are four critical measures to safeguard oneself from depression:
- Try to become conscious of your feelings, then acknowledge and share them with someone you care about. Suppression of unpleasant and distressing emotions frequently leads to depression. According to research, cancer patients who express their emotions honestly and receive support from others are far less likely to experience depression.
- Keep in close contact with your loved ones on a regular basis and ask for their assistance. Studies have shown that social support acts as a potent defense against depression and feelings of loneliness.
- Participate actively in improving your emotional and physical health. In order to completely understand and accept the treatment plan, discuss the treatment alternatives with your doctors. You should also take additional therapy possibilities into consideration (such as acupuncture, better nutrition, herbal medicine, meditation, and guided imagery). The hopelessness and inactivity that frequently characterize depression will be countered by your active participation in your rehabilitation.
- Make an effort to exercise as much as you can. Exercise’s physiological and psychological advantages work to counteract the negative effects of a serious disease. Exercise raises endorphin levels in the brain, which are natural mood enhancers, which is one explanation for this (see Chapters 32 and 33 on exercise and massage.)
Why do cancers prefer to remain alone?
Similar to the crab that represents the sign of Cancer, if a Cancer has had a series of catastrophic emotional blows, their natural impulse will be to isolate themselvestypically in their own homes. A Cancer is frequently isolating oneself from people who aren’t members of their family.
Being cared for by a family member is the most important thing a cancer needs to heal, therefore it would be highly unusual if they sought out total seclusion.
Why do cancer cells die alone?
Because of how sensitive cancers are, the world can occasionally be a harsh and cruel place. Cancer patients need some solitude to heal because they are unable to handle continual stimulation and negativity.
Pisces (February 19 – March 20)
Although they enjoy social interaction, Pisces also enjoy solitude. They are in their brains a lot of the time.
Pisces spend a lot of time alone creating and are highly inventive. Pisces tend to be lazy, so if attending a social function requires dressing up and leaving the house, they’ll choose to stay in bed and unwind instead.
Are cancers heartless people?
The presence of this name on the list could surprise you. You might be wondering how someone with the Cancer zodiac, which is renowned for its warmth, could be cold. However, the emotions of the Cancer can actually make them icy. They exhibit a highly emotionless nature when they have been injured or duped.
In this situation, they will behave as if the person who betrayed them no longer exists. A special space in their life or in their heart can never be made again if they have once subjected someone to this emotional blackmailing. This zodiac harbors resentments and will do whatever it takes to make sure their adversary is made to pay for what they did to them.
What are the cancer’s flaws?
Due to their extreme sensitivity, cancers frequently end up misinterpreting others’ words or actions or taking things personally. A Cancer needs to be forthright about their sentiments rather than internalizing them and making assumptions because even the smallest changes in someone’s energy could make them anxious.
Why do Cancers cry all the time?
Cancer. Cancer develops a cry-baby persona in an effort to cover up their errors. Or they turn to crying when they don’t want anyone to bring out their errors, even in that circumstance. They have discovered that crying is the quickest way to refute any accusation.
Are depressive disorders more prevalent in cancers?
The state of one’s mental health and wellness can be significantly impacted by a cancer diagnosis. Cancer therapy, rehabilitation, quality of life, and survival may all be hampered by depression and anxiety. We contend that higher therapeutic importance should be given to the prevention and treatment of co-morbid depression and anxiety in cancer patients. We synthesize prior systematic reviews on cancer and prevalent mental illnesses, concentrating on depression and anxiety, for context and to bolster our claim.
We looked through numerous electronic databases for reviews from 2012 to 2019 that were pertinent to cancer, depression, and anxiety. The incidence of sadness and anxiety, risk factors that may lead to the development of prevalent mental disorders in cancer patients, and potential care and treatment choices are just a few of the topics covered. We also offer a number of suggestions for additional studies. Along with characteristics connected to the illness and the treatment received, a variety of personal, psychological, social, and contextual factors may play a role in the development of depression and anxiety in cancer patients. Estimates vary owing to a number of factors, including the treatment setting, kind of illness, and time since diagnosis. It is frequently noted that the prevalence of depression and anxiety is higher among cancer patients compared to the general population. In general, there aren’t enough high-quality research on the mental health of cancer patients after treatment and among long-term survivors, especially for the less common cancers and younger people. Research addressing low- and middle-income groups is few, and there are few studies using a prevention-focused approach.
Conclusion
As more people survive with and beyond cancer, there is an urgent need for research into the potential implications of long-term and late effects of cancer treatment on mental health and how these may be averted.