Eating Disorders and Depression Symptoms

All the symptoms of eating disorders are really depression symptoms.

What is depression?

In a nutshell, we feel depressed when our needs are not met. More and more of us are finding that it is difficult to meet our most basic needs in our modern, hectic society, when we are so busy and have so many conflicting interests and responsibility that we rarely have time to stop and consider what we want or need from life in order to be happy.

Depression symptoms arise from the conflict between the way in which we are living our lives and the way we would like to live them.

The symptoms vary in severity according to how great that difference is and how much we believe ourselves to be in control of changing that.

Depression symptoms can be greatly alleviated by changing our mindset, and believing that we can bring about the changes in our lives which would make us happier.

This alleviation is furthered by us then putting those changes into action.

They are of course worsened when we feel that there is nothing we can do about them, and that changing our circumstances will not change the way we feel.

When you are suffering from an eating disorder, it is very difficult to believe that changing elements of your life will change how you feel.

Your mindset is such that you believe the only way to be happy is to have control over food, weight and body shape.

It's not such a difficult mindset to understand.

Can you remember being faced by bullies at school?Did you ever have enough and think to yourself, "Oh well, if I can't beat them join them?"

So many of us in our modern society give in to various forms of bullying without realizing we're doing so.

We stay in jobs where we are mistreated and badly paid - because we feel we should. We then spend all our hard earned money on the latest fashions because we feel we won't be accepted if we don't.

We race along, trying so desperately to conform to all the standards which society expects us to meet, and we never seem to just stop.

Those with eating disorders go that bit further. They are usually in a situation where they are being bullied on a personal level, and that combined with the mass bullying of the media and fashion industry with it's perpetual focus on and manipulation of the female body, give rise to the feeling that one is not good enough and that the bullies are right.

Does Giving in ever work?

Part of overcoming an eating disorder, as with any form of depression is the realization that you can't please all of the people all of the time, and that unless we can accept ourselves as we are we are unlikely to please anyone at all.Those with depression symptoms have put pleasing others before their 'soul purpose' in life and have put their own needs on the back burner.

Our real needs can never be met by harming or depriving ourselves. The only need that an eating disorder can seem to fulfill is that it will somehow keep the criticism of others at bay. The anorexic or bulimic believes that by losing weight, they can't be attacked for being fat or taking up too much space, and will be more likely to gain the approval, understanding and protectiveness they need from those in their lives.Those with binge disorder and/or bulimia believe that they can keep pain and harm caused by negativity around them at bay by gaining the comfort they so sorely need from food.

This just can't work. Food is to sustain us and to provide pleasure to our taste buds.

People are for comfort, but if we are to truly value ourselves, we must take responsibility for allowing the right people into our lives who are able to offer us what we need.

Depression symptoms, in short, are caused by our attending to false needs instead of real ones.The way through is to accept that they are part of a state of mind, which any of us can fall prey to, but which we can all, with commitment and self-belief, escape from.

I was lucky enough to come across a site the other day run by Shayne and Lori, a married couple, who have a phenomenal amount of information on depression and ways of overcoming it.If you require more information or advice about depression symptoms and how to overcome them I highly recommend that you pay them a visit by clicking the link.