Behavioural activation: fighting depression

If you are thinking about dying, or about hurting yourself, do not read this text now: talk to someone straight away. Contact your country's emergency services, a helpline, your doctor, or go to an emergency department. Tell someone close to you, even if it is hard, even if you feel ashamed. This programme is not an emergency service and does not replace a clinician. It supports care: if you have not yet seen anyone, reading these pages must not delay that appointment. Depression can be treated, and the suicidal thoughts it produces do pass — but they pass with help, not on their own.

1. Before you start

You wake up tired. The day is a wall. What you used to enjoy does nothing for you — you know it, you remember it, but the feeling no longer comes. Tasks pile up, and each undone thing becomes further proof of what you already think about yourself. You tell yourself you will get back to it when you have recovered a little energy, when you feel better, when the desire returns.

It does not return. That is the heart of the problem, and it is exactly what this programme targets.