We live in a time and culture where we have more toys, gadgets and technology than at any previous time in history. We have busier lives, more money, more choices, more mobility, more options for amusement and entertainment and communication, learning and work than ever before. But at the same time it is a fact that most people in our western culture have been or will be depressed at some time in their life. Depression today is more prevalent than at any time in our history. So what’s going on here? The answer may be that we have quit thinking, quit listening to our hearts and minds and shifted to an outward focus that has made us more ‘human doings’ than ‘human beings’.
Depression is a condition of “not feeling”, of avoiding feelings…it results from real feelings / emotions being repressed. Depression is not an emotion in itself, but rather a defense against other unwanted emotions. Depression is not a virus, or something we catch, that falls out of the sky. There are reasons for it. For most of us the reasons, or even that there are reasons, is unrecognized until we begin to investigate. Depression most often seems to come on us from ‘nowhere’ or for no reason. We just one day realize that we are not functioning as we used to function. For some the awareness begins with the comment from a friend or co-worker noting that we don’t seem to be ourselves anymore.
Depression frequently begins with a catastrophic event in ones life. Such as a significant loss or disappointment. It can be the loss of a parent in childhood through death or divorce or any number of events throughout life. It can also be a ‘learned’ way of relating to life that we experienced in our home environment early in life. While occurring early in life the real effect may not be realized until early adulthood. Generally situations in our life, at any stage, that are too painful to fully acknowledge or that we have no ability to process as they are so overwhelming at the time.
For men particularly, outbursts of anger may in fact be a symptom of underlying depression. Women may more often find themselves crying at odd moments and for no apparent reason. These and other symptoms, such as the well known malaise that we most associate with depression, are each indicators that in some area of our emotional life we have shut down our awareness of pain and are avoiding dealing with an important event or issue in our life.
The problem comes because we cannot just shut off one emotion or ignore losses and hurt in our lives and expect to continue normally with the same level of happiness and fulfillment. All of our emotional life becomes effected over time. Think of it as the waves of the ocean… the peak of the wave is joy, happiness etc. The low places between the waves are negative emotions. (anger, grief, sadness) . In order to stop feeling those ‘low places’ of the waves, you must also stop the high peaks…. So you feel no anger, sadness perhaps, but you also lose the experience of the joy, happiness, and other positive emotions! The ‘sea’ is calm, flat, boring, depressing. Nothing is moving. Sailing ships used to get stuck at sea for weeks when they got caught in the “doldrums”, when no wind would blow for days to fill their sail…they could go nowhere.
That is how depression is. You have little or no motivation, no energy, you usually want to sleep more, or can’t sleep when you need to, and are able to accomplish less and less. Nothing gives you pleasure, nothing excites you; your affect is flat to sad. Your work, school and relationships suffer the consequences.
Grieving is not the same as depression, but it can feel the same and result in many of the same symptoms, loss of sleep, loss of appetite, poor concentration, etc. In grieving there is no secret what we are hurting from. The grieving process can take on average, 2-3 years to complete and we usually will recognize the reason for our malaise.
Depression however is the result of pushing down negative feelings we don’t like or are in fear of feeling and expressing, with or without our conscious recognition that we are doing this. Much of the time the underlying emotion that is not being expressed is anger. I believe that depression is most often a defense against either pent up anger/rage or profound sadness. Our reaction is often completely automatic as a way of “protecting” ourselves. We don’t like to cry, so we refuse to allow those sad feelings to manifest. We keep our mind off of the sad things or the angry feelings that we may feel helpless to do anything about by working harder, playing more and pretending nothing is bothering us. The title of the book by Karol Truman states the problem another way, “Feelings Buried Alive Never Die…” As the title indicates, hoping that these unhappy or painful issues in our past will go away and not cause us a problem if we just ignore them does NOT work for long. They always rear their head again in some fashion to keep us stuck, defeated in our lives and even can make us physically ill if we don’t process them in some way.
Long term these conditions begin to present in other ways in our life. Some people will find themselves gaining weight. Others may find no enjoyment in eating and lose weight. More serious consequences can be the onset of bodily symptoms of disease. It is now recognized by medical researchers that 75% to 90% of visits to primary care physicians are for ‘stress’ related diseases. In other words, up to 90% of these visits are due to unmanaged stress in our lives. Of these a high percentage are a result of depression, which is nearly epidemic in our current culture. It’s been said that our bodies express what our minds harbor.
Dos and Don’ts:
It follows that if depression is related to buried feelings and “forgotten” painful events and an unawareness of our internal process that he solution must lie in the path of greater self-awareness.
DO assess where and on what issues you may have repressed feelings. What have you experienced that angered, saddened or scared you that you pretended it didn’t matter/ that you are not acknowledging? It might be a person, a relationship that we are angry about, or a loss you pushed out of our mind a long time ago, and never talked about or a pending “danger” that you have not processed the feelings even within your own thinking.
Once you locate where in your life the sadness began…(at what point did you first begin to “slow down” or loose our joy) you are in a better position to know where change is needed. One way to begin this process is to increase your awareness of your internal dialogue. Generally it is not so much the event that occurred but what we are telling ourselves about it, what we are choosing to believe about it or how we interpret the event that is most upsetting.
DON”T “awfulize” the situation, event or your memory of it. One thing we all tend to do in our internal dialogue, “self-talk”, blow them up into bigger than life issues. We make them worse than they actually are or were. This causes us to feel worse, not better, unnecessarily.
DON’T second-guess yourself. It is easy to play a scenario over and over in our mind, second-guessing decisions we’ve made and can do nothing about. This is essentially beating your self up for no reason. When we are depressed everything we see looks much worse than it is. This then creates anxiety and deepens our depression.
DON’T label or judge your circumstances. We are all very good at judging things on the superficial face of an event. We get a lot of money unexpectedly and we judge this to be “good”, we have an accident with our car and we say that’s “bad”. Yet later on we may find that the money we received led to great troubles, or the accident brought about events that led to us to meeting the love of our life? Labeling events superficially and then reacting to that label is a prejudicial process that leaves us with feelings we don’t always want. On the other hand accepting events simply as neither good nor bad, leaves us open to see where life leads without our jumping in to make ourselves feel bad for no reason. Judging daily events moment by moment can leave us feeling like an emotional yo-yo, being jerked up and down by every whim of circumstance.
DO take time to process your day-to-day life. Live in the moment. We have become a very intense and fast paced culture in recent decades. While we have more leisure time and time saving devices, we continue to try to do more in less time than earlier generations. We even talk faster! Always looking for shortcuts. Yet what we do not do is take more time to THINK.
DO find someone to talk to. A counselor or trusted friend that will listen and not judge you or the events. (these friends are usually rare). Talking out what is continually churning inside makes a world of difference. Our fears of talking to a counselor are only a way to stop ourself from getting past the pain. Making the first call is the hardest part, but do it anyway ~ for YOU!
DO take time to be thankful! Whether you struggle with depression or anxiety, giving thanks is a way to abruptly change your feeling state. Speak out the things you are thankful for OFTEN. It may be the food you have, the warm home, a bed to sleep in, a car to drive, someone that loves you, your health…. So many of these things we too often take for granted. Yet 90% of the people in the world would be over-joyed to be where you are, even to have your problems. Give thanks to God for His blessings on your life. The times you’ve forgotten about when a prayer was answered. The fact is we are incapable of giving thanks and feeling miserable at the same time. Giving thanks will immediately shift your focus from depressed to blessed. But it must be from the heart, not just your head.
DO begin to practice awareness of your internal self-talk. We all have a constant internal dialogue going that we often pay little attention to. It is up to each of us to CHOOSE what we are saying to our self at any given time. Just as, hopefully you wouldn’t allow just anything to come across your TV or computer screen and accept it as truth, neither should you believe everything that goes through your mind… If you hear negative, self-depreciating comments throw them out; refuse to buy into them by stating the positive truth. Counteract negatives with positive affirmations.
The Bible speaks to this issue when it says in Philippians 4:8 that we should focus our minds on “whatever things are true, honest, just, pure, lovely and of good report; and if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things”. This would seem to leave little room for fear, self-criticism and false beliefs about ourselves. If you'd like to talk further about depression or any issue in your life, call me. I'll listen and help you work through your challenges.
By Carey Taylor, M.A.
www.psychconsultant.net