Love is as critical for your mind and body as oxygen. It's not negotiable. The more connected you are, the healthier you will be both physically and emotionally. The less connected you are, the more you are at risk.
It is also true that the less love you have, the more depression you are likely to experience in your life. Love is probably the best antidepressant there is because one of the most common sources of depression is feeling unloved. Most depressed people don't love themselves and they do not feel loved by others. They also are very self-focused, making them less attractive to others and depriving them of opportunities to learn the skills of love.
There is a mythology in our culture that love just happens. As a result, the depressed often sit around passively waiting for someone to love them. But love doesn't work that way. To get love and keep love you have to go out and be active and learn a variety of specific skills.
Most of us get our ideas of love from popular culture. We come to believe that love is something that sweeps us off our feet. But the pop-culture ideal of love consists of unrealistic images created for entertainment, which is one reason so many of us are set up to be depressed. It's part of our national vulnerability, like eating junk food, constantly stimulated by images of instant gratification. We think it is love when it's simply distraction and infatuation.
One consequence is that when we hit real love we become upset and disappointed because there are many things that do not fit the cultural ideal. Some of us get demanding and controlling, wanting someone else to do what we think our ideal of romance should be, without realizing our ideal is misplaced.
It is not only possible but necessary to change one's approach to love to ward off depression. Follow these action strategies to get more of what you want out of life—to love and be loved.
* Recognize the difference between limerance and love. Limerance is the psychological state of deep infatuation. It feels good but rarely lasts. Limerance is that first stage of mad attraction whereby all the hormones are flowing and things feel so right. Limerance lasts, on average, six months. It can progress to love. Love mostly starts out as limerance, but limerance doesn't always evolve into love.
* Know that love is a learned skill, not something that comes from hormones or emotion particularly. Erich Fromm called it "an act of will." If you don't learn the skills of love you virtually guarantee that you will be depressed, not only because you will not be connected enough but because you will have many failure experiences.
* Learn good communication skills. They are a means by which you develop trust and intensify connection. The more you can communicate the less depressed you will be because you will feel known and understood.
There are always core differences between two people, no matter how good or close you are, and if the relationship is going right those differences surface. The issue then is to identify the differences and negotiate them so that they don't distance you or kill the relationship.
You do that by understanding where the other person is coming from, who that person is, and by being able to represent yourself. When the differences are known you must be able to negotiate and compromise on them until you find a common ground that works for both.
Focus on the other person. Rather than focus on what you are getting and how you are being treated, read your partner's need. What does this person really need for his/her own well-being? This is a very tough skill for people to learn in our narcissistic culture. Of course, you don't lose yourself in the process; you make sure you're also doing enough self-care. Help someone else. Depression keeps people so focused on themselves they don't get outside themselves enough to be able to learn to love. The more you can focus on others and learn to respond and meet their needs, the better you are going to do in love. Develop the ability to accommodate simultaneous reality. The loved one's reality is as important as your own, and you need to be as aware of it as of your own. What are they really saying, what are they really needing? Depressed people think the only reality is their own depressed reality. Actively dispute your internal messages of inadequacy. Sensitivity to rejection is a cardinal feature of depression. As a consequence of low self-esteem, every relationship blip is interpreted far too personally as evidence of inadequacy. Quick to feel rejected by a partner, you then believe it is the treatment you fundamentally deserve. But the rejection really originates in you, and the feelings of inadequacy are the depression speaking.
Recognize that the internal voice is strong but it's not real. Talk back to it. "I'm not really being rejected, this isn't really evidence of inadequacy. I made a mistake." Or "this isn't about me, this is something I just didn't know how to do and now I'll learn." When you reframe the situation to something more adequate, you can act again in an effective way and you can find and keep the love that you need.
愛對你的情緒和身體來說，跟氧氣一樣重要。這點無需置疑。你和別人關系越緊密，就會越健康，不僅在身體上情緒方面也是如此。而如果與別人越疏離，對健康的威脅就會越大。
同樣，你擁有的愛越少，在你的一生中更可能經歷抑郁。愛，可能是最好的抗抑郁藥，因為陷入抑郁最重要的原因之一就是感覺沒人愛。大多數抑郁的人不愛自己，也感覺不到有人愛他們。他們還總是把注意力集中在自己身上，這大大降低了他們的吸引力，也使得那些讓他們學會去愛的機會白白溜走。
在我們的文化里，人們盲目相信愛情是可遇不可求的。正因如此，那些郁悶的人總是守株待兔，被動地等著別人來愛他們。不過，愛情并不是這樣。得到愛、維持愛，必須走出去、主動地學習一系列專門的方法。
我們中的大多數人通過流行文化中來了解愛情。我們開始相信愛情是突然到來、讓我們猝不及防、無力招架的東西。不過流行文化中的理想愛情包括了很多為了娛樂效果而特地制造出來的、不現實的情景，這也是我們陷入抑郁的一個陷阱。我們天生就有脆弱的一面，比如大嚼垃圾食品、總是能被那些立即讓人滿足的畫面所打動。我們認為那就是愛情了，而實際上那只不過是分心或是迷戀。
而這樣的結果之一是，當遇到真愛，會讓我們沮喪和失望，因為有太多的事情和流行文化告訴我們的理想不同。有些人要求高、有控制欲、想讓別人做出那些我們以為理想的戀愛中應該發生的那些事情，但他們并沒有意識到，這種“理想”是一種錯誤。
為了不在抑郁，改變我們愛人的方式不僅可能而且也是必須的。遵守下面這些行動原則，能讓你在生活中獲得更多——愛和被愛。
* 認識到沉迷（limerance）和愛情的區別。沉迷是一種深度迷戀的心理狀態。在這種狀態下，人們感覺良好，但這種感覺很難持久。沉迷是瘋狂迷戀的第一個階段，這時候荷爾蒙被高度調動，一切都是那么美好。沉迷平均會持續六個月。它能發展成愛情。愛情往往從沉迷愛是，不過沉迷卻不是總會變成愛情。
* 認識到愛是一種后天習得的能力，而不是從荷爾蒙或者情緒直接演變出來的產物。Erich Fromm把它乘坐“意志行為”。如果你不學會愛的技巧，很容易會沮喪，這不單是因為你不能和對方心靈相通，還因為你會經歷很多的失敗。
* 學習良好的交流技巧。這是產生信任、加深默契的關鍵。越會交流，也就越少抑郁，因為你會感到自己被了解、被理解。
兩個人之間總會有些根本的差異，不論他們多要好、多親密。如果你們的關系發展正常，這些差異就會浮現出來。接下來要解決的問題就是明確這些差異，并協調差異，這樣兩個人之前才不會有距離、關系才能維持下去。
你要了解另一半從何處而來、是個怎樣的人，還要能表達你自己。發現差異之后，你們還要協調這種差異，直到找到一個對兩人都可行的方法。
把注意力放在另一半身上。與其注意自己得到什么、對方如何對待自己，不如去了解對方的需要。為了他/她自己好，對方到底需要什么？在我們這個自我中心的文化中，學習這種能力并不容易。當然，也不要在這個過程中迷失自我，你還要確保自己有足夠的自我保護。幫助別人。抑郁讓人們過分關注自己，他們總不能走出自我的藩籬去學習如何去愛。如果能夠更關注他人、學習如何去應對、滿足別人的需求，你也會在愛情中做的更好。掌握適應現實環境的能力也很重要。所愛的現實和你自己的現實同樣重要，你需要和了解自己一樣去了解對方的實際情況。他們到底說的是什么？到底需要的是什么？抑郁的人總認為唯一的現實就是他們自己抑郁的這個現實。主動去挑戰自己內心的欠缺感。對拒絕敏感是抑郁的重要特征之一。自尊感低的結果是，將每次關系的曇花一現，都解釋為自己的原因，認為是自己沒用。總是很快就覺得被伴侶拒絕，你就會相信這是你本來就該承受的。但實際上，拒絕實際上來自于你自己，這種無用感是抑郁在說話。
認識到內心的聲音雖然強烈但并不是現實。跟它針鋒相對。“我并不是真被拒絕，這才不能證明我沒用。我就是犯了個錯。”或者這樣，“這不是針對我，只是我不知道該怎么做，現在我會去學。”當你重新理清情況，進行更為合理的解釋，你將能能有效的行動，找到并擁有一份自己需要的愛情。
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