Often
when people write about depression, they rely heavily on metaphor to
describe the phenomena. This, I've found, isn't entirely
satisfying because you don't alwaysshare the writer's feelings about
whatever they are comparing to. For example, Winston Churchill
talked about the "black dog" of depression that stalked him
through life. Personally, I like dogs of all colours and they
cheer me up quite a bit. I'd be inclined to turn around and
scratch behind its ears, myself. I liken depression more like
sinking in quicksand. You can either let it happen or struggle
against it, but you will still end up paralyzed and suffocated.
But who knows, there may be people out there who find quicksand
comforting and womb-like. Like a warm bath, it is... So,
putting metaphor aside, I will write about some of the thought
patterns that I experience. This is by no means a comprehensive
list!
"I've made a mess of everything" - I get like this when, while depressed, I fail to do something that I meant to. It starts with beating myself up over the one thing, but often turns into a laundry list of all the similar times I've not done something, followed up by a damaging conclusion about my character. A recent example: it was a nice day and I "should have" taken my cat Jasper out for a stroll as we hadn't been for a while. I just didn't feel up to it, so I didn't do it. I started thinking about all the other times when I hadn't taken him out, and then what a sad and disappointing life he's had because of me and how, in conclusion, I am a selfish, lazy person who should never own a pet and should have let another person buy Jasper because he would have been so much happier if he'd been allowed to roam free. Jasper, meantime, was siting next to me purring....
"I
just can't" - This caused me to miss a LOT of school when I was
younger. Everything kind of lumps together into a gigantic
ordeal and can't be seen as a series of small things that actually
might be manageable. Mind you, high school is a bit of an
ordeal, isn't it? A more mundane example. A few years
back when I was depressed, I had run out of food at home. Every
day for maybe three or four days, I would think about ordering pizza.
Then I'd picture myself picking up a phone, dialling, telling someone
what I want, changing out of my pajamas to answer the door, walking
downstairs to get the pizza etc. It was too much in aggregate, if
that's the right word, so I would scrounge through the freezer and
get some stale bread to make toast, which was just about at the limit
of my energy.
"Even
if it does get better..." - I know, as anyone does who's ever
thought about it, that no emotional state is permanent. The nature of
feelings is that they are constantly in flux. So when someone says,
as my wonderful doctor used to, that no matter how bad I feel, I know
that it won't last forever. A depressed person will counter,
either verbally or mentally, that after the depression abates,
whatever more positive state of mind follows will also not last, and
that the depression is bound to come back. Over and over again.
Which, when a person is in pain, is not easy to contemplate. My
belief is that this thought pattern leads to suicide more than any
other. It can also lead to apathy during therapy and maybe
non-compliance with appointment schedules. And there really
isn't any good way to combat it because for most people who have had
clinical depression, it is a fact. Unfortunately, it's a fact that
gets a lot of airplay when you're depressed. A few weeks ago, I
had a dream where my dream self was in a bad way and was visualizing
an endless series of grey days ahead of her without any respite.
I woke up in the middle of the night, and thought, "oh, come on!
Isn't it bad enough that I have to think this way all day?
Can't I at least get a break when I sleep?" Then I feel
back asleep and had an absurd Bollywood-like dream in which I didn't
even appear. Thank god for answered prayers! (Or, as many
non-native English speakers say, "Thanks god!" which I find
delightfully direct.)
One
more. "This has nothing to do with you" - which is
really hard for people around the depressed person to deal with.
Depression is a very internal experience. As opposed to manic
states, or schizoid ones, the person with it is not in denial at all,
but really can't see how it's anyone else's concern and why do they
need to explain themselves to anyone. I think this is a
self-preservation technique, because a depressed person is
overwhelmed with how they themselves are feeling, and can't even
begin to think about other people. Often suicides will say / write
things like "everyone will be better off without me", which
is an extension of the same thing, along with the "I've messed
everything up" thought. It's all mix-and-match for us
depressive types and you never know what's coming up next.
Let's
face it, it's all hard. I probably know some people who have never
experienced any sort of emotional trouble in their lives, but in all
likelihood, they didn't register on my radar as someone interesting
whom I would like to know better. My massage therapist, also lovely
and wonderful, would talk about the emotional body as a container,
which expands to contain as much feeling as you will let it. When
you allow yourself to experience large emotions without reservation,
you are increasing your ability to know all emotions more fully. We
damaged people, through and not in spite of our flaws, can become
something quite wonderful, eventually. As Leonard Cohen says: There
is a crack in everything. That's how the light gets in.
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