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.

爱对你的情绪和身体来说，跟氧气一样重要。这点无需置疑。你和别人关系越紧密，就会越健康，不仅在身体上情绪方面也是如此。而如果与别人越疏离，对健康的威胁就会越大。

同样，你拥有的爱越少，在你的一生中更可能经历抑郁。爱，可能是最好的抗抑郁药，因为陷入抑郁最重要的原因之一就是感觉没人爱。大多数抑郁的人不爱自己，也感觉不到有人爱他们。他们还总是把注意力集中在自己身上，这大大降低了他们的吸引力，也使得那些让他们学会去爱的机会白白溜走。

在我们的文化里，人们盲目相信爱情是可遇不可求的。正因如此，那些郁闷的人总是守株待兔，被动地等着别人来爱他们。不过，爱情并不是这样。得到爱、维持爱，必须走出去、主动地学习一系列专门的方法。

我们中的大多数人通过流行文化中来了解爱情。我们开始相信爱情是突然到来、让我们猝不及防、无力招架的东西。不过流行文化中的理想爱情包括了很多为了娱乐效果而特地制造出来的、不现实的情景，这也是我们陷入抑郁的一个陷阱。我们天生就有脆弱的一面，比如大嚼垃圾食品、总是能被那些立即让人满足的画面所打动。我们认为那就是爱情了，而实际上那只不过是分心或是迷恋。

而这样的结果之一是，当遇到真爱，会让我们沮丧和失望，因为有太多的事情和流行文化告诉我们的理想不同。有些人要求高、有控制欲、想让别人做出那些我们以为理想的恋爱中应该发生的那些事情，但他们并没有意识到，这种“理想”是一种错误。

为了不在抑郁，改变我们爱人的方式不仅可能而且也是必须的。遵守下面这些行动原则，能让你在生活中获得更多——爱和被爱。

* 认识到沉迷（limerance）和爱情的区别。沉迷是一种深度迷恋的心理状态。在这种状态下，人们感觉良好，但这种感觉很难持久。沉迷是疯狂迷恋的第一个阶段，这时候荷尔蒙被高度调动，一切都是那么美好。沉迷平均会持续六个月。它能发展成爱情。爱情往往从沉迷爱是，不过沉迷却不是总会变成爱情。

* 认识到爱是一种后天习得的能力，而不是从荷尔蒙或者情绪直接演变出来的产物。Erich Fromm把它乘坐“意志行为”。如果你不学会爱的技巧，很容易会沮丧，这不单是因为你不能和对方心灵相通，还因为你会经历很多的失败。

* 学习良好的交流技巧。这是产生信任、加深默契的关键。越会交流，也就越少抑郁，因为你会感到自己被了解、被理解。

两个人之间总会有些根本的差异，不论他们多要好、多亲密。如果你们的关系发展正常，这些差异就会浮现出来。接下来要解决的问题就是明确这些差异，并协调差异，这样两个人之前才不会有距离、关系才能维持下去。

你要了解另一半从何处而来、是个怎样的人，还要能表达你自己。发现差异之后，你们还要协调这种差异，直到找到一个对两人都可行的方法。

把注意力放在另一半身上。与其注意自己得到什么、对方如何对待自己，不如去了解对方的需要。为了他/她自己好，对方到底需要什么？在我们这个自我中心的文化中，学习这种能力并不容易。当然，也不要在这个过程中迷失自我，你还要确保自己有足够的自我保护。帮助别人。抑郁让人们过分关注自己，他们总不能走出自我的藩篱去学习如何去爱。如果能够更关注他人、学习如何去应对、满足别人的需求，你也会在爱情中做的更好。掌握适应现实环境的能力也很重要。所爱的现实和你自己的现实同样重要，你需要和了解自己一样去了解对方的实际情况。他们到底说的是什么？到底需要的是什么？抑郁的人总认为唯一的现实就是他们自己抑郁的这个现实。主动去挑战自己内心的欠缺感。对拒绝敏感是抑郁的重要特征之一。自尊感低的结果是，将每次关系的昙花一现，都解释为自己的原因，认为是自己没用。总是很快就觉得被伴侣拒绝，你就会相信这是你本来就该承受的。但实际上，拒绝实际上来自于你自己，这种无用感是抑郁在说话。

认识到内心的声音虽然强烈但并不是现实。跟它针锋相对。“我并不是真被拒绝，这才不能证明我没用。我就是犯了个错。”或者这样，“这不是针对我，只是我不知道该怎么做，现在我会去学。”当你重新理清情况，进行更为合理的解释，你将能能有效的行动，找到并拥有一份自己需要的爱情。

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