Depression

I could sit here and tell you a tale of the adventures I've been having the past few weeks, about my upcoming birthday, or about what the next few weeks hold for me.  I could tell you how my computer went kaput, was resurrected, then stopped its usefulness again, then was revived, and now comes to life when it so pleases.  I could tell you about how much I've been dreaming and sleeping, about how easily my anxieties show up in my dreams.  We could talk about self-efficacy, its importance in child development and how I have seen this carry through to adulthood in some of my friends.  I could share with you my thoughts about what should be included in educational curriculum for children that was lacking when I was growing up and if I ran a school what subjects I think should be covered.  But all of these topics...their interest subjective to each reader's palate...would be smoke and mirrors for what has been circumnavigating my mind the last so many days.  When I was 18 years old someone I knew told me a story that came to mind a few minutes ago.  The story was about first love and what happened when that love fell off the radar.  This was in the time before the internet when our only form of communication was phone and handwritten letters.  Losing this love could have driven the storyteller, a teenager at the time crazy.  But after many unsuccessful efforts to locate her and after much time had passed one night he made a decision.  He took something of hers that was always with him and in the middle of the night went out to campus and threw it away.  I don't remember anymore what I said after hearing this story, but I bet I wondered how he could have thrown something of hers that meant something to him away and I know for sure that up until this very moment over a decade later I did not glean the lesson from this story for while we may intellectually understand something with our heads for me in order to truly and fully embrace the lesson I must understand it in my heart.  That has always been my downfall because my heart is not a disciplined guide; she wants to meander all over the place at her own desire.  This story is not about love, living an undisciplined life, men, family, etc.

I once heard someone in the medical profession compare depression to diabetes.  They were discussing how to help patients overcome their shame about taking anti-depressant medication.  Simply put the argument was that we would not judge a diabetic for having to take insulin and as brain chemistry may be highly individualistic anti-depressant medication should be framed in the same way.  I would later utilize this framework with my own clients.  Social work and psychology are at times as foggy and murky as the fields of spirituality and religion can be.  Sadly I have countless stories about the pitfalls of the social work system and how the people in the system and those that operate it fail each other.  But most people who are not personally affected do not care...it is a NIMBY situation...not in my backyard.  This is clearly the start of a much longer post or perhaps a paper on the deficits of the current social welfare programs for mentally ill people in the United States.

What I really wanted to focus on today is depression and anxiety.  And what I'm doing today is taking it from its prominent position and placing it on the mantle, in the backdrop.  Winston Churchill called his depression Black Dog.  Many public figures have written about or discussed their own battles with depression...William Styron, Elizabeth Wurtzel, Andrew Solomon, David Foster Wallace.  I don't read any of these pieces.  Usually our media only samples us the stories that are the most extreme in nature, the most salacious.  Susan Smith was the big case that put postpartum depression and psychosis on the map.  So when people hear about depression it seems to have to be in moderate or extreme levels in order to be taken seriously.  Episodic depression I believe takes places at some point in everyone's lives...due to the loss of a loved one, job loss, health issues, trauma, etc.  But chronic depression, the kind that impairs quality of life, but with which the person can still continue their daily activities is not something that is given much recognition outside of the mental health community.  It is common to find people that have no language to discuss either their personal experience of having depression like this or people who lack the ability to show empathy because they don't believe in it.  There should be a Hallmark card for someone struggling with depression because there is a common list of things that one hears when trying to talk about it with someone who doesn't believe in depression.

Buck up.

Stop being so sensitive.

Nothing is wrong.

You're lazy.

You overanalyze things too much.

You're not trying hard enough.

...and the list goes on.  Depression is not an excuse.  Maybe the people who cry wolf and utilize it as such when they really aren't depressed dilute its real meaning for the rest of the population that suffers from it.  Depression is a real condition.  It takes months, years off people's lives.  It costs companies millions of dollars every year in lost productivity.  It impacts children and parents.  For some it may put up walls or cement others to where they stand.  It impacts our physiology.  It hurts our relationships.  It stops our growth.  For some the vibrancy may take on a pallid tone, but for others it may take the color out of their lives altogether.  The problem is that depression carries such little value or legitimacy in our culture that we typecast it as other things, thereby not identifying and addressing it for what it is.  People say that depression is a choice, as if it is a box you check identifying yourself as Democrat, Republican or Independent.  But depression isn't a choice.  Depression overall can't be generalized into one size fits all.  Treatment varies depending on what the variables are in each individual's case.

The origins of this post rest in self-directed learning.  Depression may always be a part of the landscape, but it isn't the leader on the journey.  By relegating its significance and role in your company to a different position on your org chart you see if transformation is possible.  Compartmentalizing it allows that person inside you the freedom and space you need to develop and blossom, thereby aiding you in better managing that with which you struggle.  

The storyteller that day shared with me a story of strength and choice, the choice to change that which had pulled him off balance, to return once again to emotional equilibrium so to speak.  But this choice meant giving up his dream, giving up his first love, and not ever knowing what really happened in their story that led to this end.  Making a choice and taking control of one's life to steer it back onto a course that gives you what you seek (fulfillment, purpose, love, joy, etc.) seems to never be black and white.  Sometimes the edges are rough, we have to let go against our will, but maybe in order to live the most productive life possible (depending on how you define productivity I guess) the goal simply must be to do all we can to get back on track at all costs.