When it comes to the subject of depression, and specifically what it means to suffer from depression, we do well to remember that – as is true in all cases of seeking a cure – that each situation, each person, each experience, each life, is different.
Depression is no different. Although the notion that it is a condition to cure might not be the way or look at it. It might be that depression is the body/minds attempt at a cure to a psychological dis-ease.
While environmental factors, such as diet for example are not to be underestimated, this article is more concerned with the more psychological dimensions of depression. It is designed to invite consideration and is by no means intended to be exclusive or definitive theory.
The cluster of symptoms with which depression is often defined extends beyond the experience of sadness and all of its potential for pain and into the realm of apathy and nihilism too – the ‘I just don’t care anymore’ fog that seems to obscure any sense of meaning or value in life.
From such places there seems nowhere to go.
There appears to be no version of oneself worth being. No version of oneself one can imagine being that is happy or well. It is not uncommon that this lack of imagination is sometimes construed as central to the problem itself.
Imagine
For some people, depression might seem like a problem of the imagination: A deficit in being able to consider a better life, as though the simple act of fantasy and action might be enough to offer a cure.
“Cheer up.” They might say. “It’s not as bad as it seems…”
Instead, the one suffering can sometimes imagine nothing else other than how they feel. They simply cannot imagine anything else. They feel how they feel, and feeling how they feel, fighting to change how they feel, the struggle of believing that they should feel something more, or different, is the very thing that exhausts them. They want to feel different but the truth is, the truth is that they don’t.
Those with more energy can try to fix the situation by forcing themselves to think and act towards something better. They do try to imagine a better life and then take active steps towards it. They imagine a perfect partner, a perfect career, a perfect body – a dream life to be aimed towards. Sometimes it is failing to live this dream life that causes the state of depression in the first place. Worn out from failing to live up to some hypothetical standard exhausts them, emotionally, physically, and mentally, to the point that something in them gives up. The intelligence of the psyche – or at least the aspects to which they are unconscious – forces them to stop; to rest, to retreat from the world.
Again, is this the illness, or the body/minds attempt at a cure?
Living the Dream
The trouble with dream lives is that that is just what they are, dreams; they are not yet real. This is not to say that to have a dream is wrong, rather that it is how and what we attach to those dreams that counts. If you imagine an ideal version of yourself, a version of yourself that will be happy when… (fill in the blanks), then you stop relating to who you are in the moment.
I don’t mean that every desire or drive you might have to change yourself or your life is wrong, more that, when you believe that there is a version of you that you need to be in order to be happy, fulfilled, etc, then to what degree are you loosing a connection to who you are in the moment?
The difference then could be as simple as two words – want and need. That a desire to want to be different, and to act towards that, is healthy and reasonable. It is also fair to say that in order to achieve certain goals in life we might need to change too. However, it seems that the greater the distance between the version of ourselves that we believe we need to be and the person we actually are, the greater the pressure we place on ourselves. In the majority of cases this creates unnecessary levels of stress, and these prolonged states lead to illness.
Is it unreasonable to consider depression as the body/minds attempt to slow us down rather than let us burn ourselves out?
Some ways of living seem to cause some people to set themselves up to fail. I don’t believe people do this on purpose. It is often and idea, a belief, a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow that steers them. When this idealised goal is in conflict with the truth of who and what they actually are, a truth they do not want to accept for fear of what it might mean, then suffering ensues.
Perhaps for a while they press on towards the thing they believe they need, and for a while things work out for them. But, if and when they fail (because it is only human to err and make mistakes) they can find themselves slipping backwards into despair. “I am a failure. Why did I ever believe I could be X.” etc.
As I say, every individual case will vary, but this scenario is not uncommon. If a person has low self esteem or a low sense of worth, any concept of themselves that they are attempting to repair with their chosen dream, can feel like a life or death struggle. When mistakes are made it can be all too easy for them to continue assuming that such mistakes are qualities of their character rather than results of specific circumstances. Any time someone identifies with their emotions to the degree that they believe that their emotions are them, rather than signals there to guide them, they loose touch with themselves. They believe they are the signal, and forget they are the one receiving the signal.
Signal vs Noise
It is in this way that a person can get caught in a trap, a self fulfilling prophecy. “I have failed, therefore I will always fail. Therefore, I am a failure.”
This is not true. This is an assumption.
While our assumptions might be wrong, we are not ‘wrong’ for drawing them. Often it is a simple fact that we are holding onto false beliefs, or acting according to old patterns of behaviour that – while attempting to protect us in many cases – have been keeping us stuck. As I said at the outset, every case will be different in detail.
What is fair to say is that we have evolved to make predictions about ourselves and our environments. We recognise patterns. We learn to distinguish between the things that harm us and the things that will heal. Our development as a species has led to ever greater degrees of complexity in the rules we have had to anticipate. Instead of needing to know which berries are poisonous, or what dose, we had to learn all sorts of complex social behaviours in order to survive. Where once our ancestors could just pick food off of trees, we now find ourselves pushing metal trollies through illuminated caves filled with all our material needs. We had to learn how to ‘buy’ our needs, with all the rules that accompany it.
Across the board, from an instinctual base that is tens of thousands of years old, we must now navigate a path through life that accommodates a multitude of acceptable and unacceptable behaviours. Status and economies that span the globe in complexity and nuance, much of it the constructs of institutions that feed off of peoples compliance and their desires, shapes our perceptions of the world; and our perceived options.
Is it any wonder people get confused?
Rules are for Fools and the Guidance of the Wise
Some of the rules we learnt as children we may even have misconstrued. Others were taught to us, instilled in us, even beaten into us. How often these rules were for our benefit I will leave you to consider. Were they there to serve us in the discovery of the unique and exquisite patterns of our souls, or were they designed to steer towards conformity, to align us with the social and economic pressures that those who taught them to us were under?
In such a way, we can, as people, end up living a life that is a lie. Not all the time, but often, where it would serve us better to do otherwise.
To make matters worse, it sometimes takes us years to realise this.
We live our lives following rules that we never question because we believe that that is just how the world is. All the time, deep down, there is a part of us that knows this is not aligned with the deeper truth of what life is, or what life means, to us.
An example. It is considered good etiquette in some cultures not to place your elbows on the table during a meal. We are taught not to do this and might never question why. “Because it is good manors.” We are told, never realising that the custom originated from a time when table tops did not have legs fixed to them, but were balanced on trestles. Anyone leaning on the table with their elbows could upset the entire feast. Food on the floor. Party ruined. Off to the stocks with you. Subsequently, take your elbows off the table please.
The point being is that we can end up believing we must live life in a particular way because, “That’s just what we do…” Without ever questioning if there is a better way for us.
An Invitation to Transform
My invitation to you is to consider that for some people suffering from depression, this is what is happening.
Life, the way they are living it, the way they believe they need to be living it, deep down is either meaningless, currently unrealisable, or of no value. This is because the way they are living is not their life – it is not the result of the truth they have discovered in themselves, but rather, a belief that they are trying to live, because “That’s just how everyone else is doing it.” Or “That’s just what we do.”
Depression, in the vast majority of cases I have encountered, appears to be the result of an over attachment to an idea about how a person believes their life should be, rather than how it actually is.
Helping them to realise this, helping them to realise who they really are – validating their actual experience of being alive – is the transformation and the healing of the soul that psychotherapy offers (Psyche=Soul. Therapy=to heal).
Put simply, it is about inviting the person to find out who they are. To enter into a relationship with discovering their own truths; what they love, what they believe to be right, and what they recognise needs to be done in life – for them.
Of course, if you have ever experienced depression to any degree, such an option is not always clear. Navigating life out in the world, with the complexities of social status, success, and complex social rules, can seem overwhelming. Finding the courage to discover and follow your own path amid the prospect of ridicule and derision from the group, or the fear of failure, takes courage and effort – sometimes monumental effort.
Sometimes it can be a case of meeting someone who has, or who is living their life in such a way.
Knowing that you are not the only one, knowing that others who have faced similar challenges and are now living life in fuller ways, more at ease in being themselves than before, sometimes this is enough.
In conclusion
I heard a great interpretation of depression – that if someone was experiencing depression, what they were seeking was Deep Rest. As if the signals of life, of all they things and states and versions of themselves they were trying to live up to was wearing them out, because it was not genuine.
Depression in this instance then is the body, the deep intelligence of the body and mind, forcing the individual to rest. To stop that part of them that is trying to be something or someone they are not. To stop trying to ‘Live the dream’ but to be themselves; to be with themselves. To be with the actual feelings they feel, the actual thoughts they think, to accept themselves fully. To find the truth of themselves in that deep rest.
This post is by no means an attempt to explain all states that resemble depression or all causes, simply, as stated at the outset, it is an invitation to consider that this is what it might be in some cases.
AND…
The degree to which you might be experiencing any of these symptoms, then this post is here to let you know that you are not alone on your journey. There are others who have trodden a similar path to the one you are currently on. For them, as is more than likely true for you, their suffering led to a transformation – a transformation for the better.
While it might not seem that way at the time, that itself seems to be part of the journey.
Travel safe & be well.
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