Posts Tagged ‘dealing with depression’
From Nowhere
Luckily, I don’t bet on my sports fan hunches. I didn’t expect the Gopher football team to snatch the victory in their game Saturday afternoon. I didn’t expect the Blue Jays to lose Game 7 of the World Series. I firmly doubted the Vikings were going to get the better of Detroit yesterday.
I was not surprised that the order to once again change the clocks back an hour to Standard Time would disorient activities associated with my sleep, the feeding times for animals, and bedtime for Asher. It seems to me that an agreement will never be reached to settle on a year-round, consistent time rule in the USA.
Humans are so intelligent, we should leave the clocks alone and change the hours of our activities if there is a need to do things only when it is light outside. Another option would be to put a big mirror out on the edge of Earth’s atmosphere to reflect sunlight on our population centers for the hours when natural daylight is shorter than our lifestyles demand.
We had some fine-looking moonlight glowing through the clouds last night after the hour-earlier sunset had transpired.
Cyndie and I spent the middle of the day yesterday seeing Jeremy Allen White’s impersonation of Bruce Springsteen in the movie “Deliver Me from Nowhere.” I went in with little knowledge of the storyline and came out much better informed about the Boss’s struggle with depression in the heyday of his early success.
It was a powerful depiction of how the weight of childhood stress can become too much to carry as adults if never addressed.
A lot of improved health can be achieved when seeking help from professionals sooner in our lives. I sure wish I had recognized my condition a lot earlier than I did.
Having successfully treated my depression has helped me immensely to cope with common stresses, like twice-a-year clock changes, for example. I might whine about it, but it doesn’t push me into the dark world of dysfunctional thinking that was a hallmark of my experiences.
Being delivered from nowhere is a precious thing, indeed.
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Feeling Small
Last night, Cyndie and I finished the 5th episode of the streaming Apple TV+ documentary series “The Me You Can’t See,” about mental health, hosted by Oprah Winfrey and Prince Harry. There are so many issues people live with that we cannot know about unless the person chooses to talk about them.
It’s been so many years since I gained control over my depression that I don’t talk about it so much. That documentary makes me think I should discuss my experience more regularly than I do. The folks who participated in the series exposing their struggles to the world showed laudable courage in sharing what is traditionally kept secret.
Three thoughts of my suffering spring to mind instantly when I contemplate the years when I was sliding deeper toward clinical depression.
- Triggered beyond my ability to cope, I stepped outside one of the basement doors of the lake house into a dark winter night wearing no outdoor clothing and laid down, curling into a fetal position in a snow drift, desperately yearning to vanish from existence.
- A Monday morning when I couldn’t muster the resources to get out of bed, finding I wasn’t able to do more than utter a grunt in response to a query from my wife as to whether I was going to get up or not. It was later that morning, alone in the house, that I sat on the end of the bed, called our clinic, and asked to be seen. When the voice on the phone asked for a reason, I choked on the words, and she made the appointment available for as soon as I could get there.
- Some period of time after treatment with Prozac and Psychiatrist visits had occurred, I found myself sitting downstairs by the door to the garage with car keys in my hand. After years of imagining suicide as a way to fantasize my way out of the doom and gloom I was drowning in, this was the first time I took a physical step toward acting on the idea. Luckily, in realizing that, I seemed to scare myself straight.
I was already aware that the onset of treatment didn’t automatically stop depression instantaneously and that sometimes things can continue to get worse before they get better, so I used having car keys in my hand as the turning point from the worst to a blessed incremental improvement toward freedom from the beast.
Early in the talk therapy sessions, I learned that my suicidal fantasies needed to be banned. That was a habit that had been perfected starting when I was very young, and it took a while to break it. Eventually, when visions would pop into my head, they came across as comical to me and carried no weight. It got easier and easier to banish them as quickly as they came. In time, it just stopped happening.
Hoping to free myself from living on Prozac for the rest of my life, I asked my psychiatrist to let me stop taking it. She pushed back and convinced me to stay the course. I agreed to respect her wishes if she agreed to consider it a future possibility. The next time I asked, she agreed to wean me off under close supervision.
Compared to the mental health challenges depicted in the documentary, mine feel small, even though I know it’s illogical to measure one person’s experience against another. We are all seeking a resolution of our burdens in a way that works for us.
One way is to look directly into the eyes of whatever monster is looming and which you’ve been avoiding. It (in my case, depression) doesn’t have the power over you that you think it does. Marshaling the courage to look right at it cuts it down to size and can make it much more manageable to address, especially when you have trained professionals for support along the way.
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Barely Enough
It has been two weeks now since I instantaneously and possibly irrationally set forth on an expedition of sorts to live in complete seclusion from political news. Completely unprepared, I threw myself into this odyssey as a mechanism of self-preservation. Two weeks is a pretty small sample size since I could potentially need to keep up this practice for years, but it has paid dividends thus far.
However, my avoidance of news has fallen short of overcoming the sadness that subtly paints the background of each moment, knowing that the very thing I am ignoring continues to exist and wield its negative influence on the world.
For most of my life, I have escaped periods of deep angst by fantasizing about imagined outcomes. In my most unhealthy periods of depression, the scripts usually involved outcomes where I no longer existed. Since treating my depression, I have been practicing healthier fantasies.
I like to imagine…
- a world filled with honesty, truthfulness, equity, justice, love, peace, and an endless wealth of happiness.
- that every child is nurtured in a healthy way by people who love them.
- no person being forced to live in a situation of housing insecurity.
- religions of the world wouldn’t lead people to do harm to others or act in conflict with the guise of their teachings.
- no countries fighting wars, period.
- all employers offering profit-sharing and opportunities for employee ownership.
- credit card companies never trying to entice me with spam messages and snail mail but being willing to take my application whenever I decide it’s what I want.
- every kid who ever wanted a puppy could get one and pets always come already house-trained and obedient to commands.
- a world where professional athletes don’t do post-game interviews after victories, where they try to use words to describe feelings that no words can describe. It would be a bonus for me if they don’t first thank their god for the win. Heck, it’s my fantasy, they just won’t.
- sadness not having the advantage over happiness in people who experience depression.
- that everyone who I fondly remember senses that I am thinking about them and feels the love I send.
- human bodies not giving out before a person’s spirit and soul are ready for the end of a life’s journey.
- no food insecurity anywhere on the planet.
- as long as I’m imagining, ice cream can be eaten at any time in any amount with no negative consequences.
- there are no precious metals or jewels that humans seek and value for vanity or status.
Will Steger & Paul Schurke navigating, “North to the Pole,” Crown Publishers, 1987
- humans not having disturbing problems over sex and sexuality.
- governments working transparently and ethically for their citizens’ best quality of life.
- people not living in fear and not experiencing unfounded fears about possible worst outcomes.
- being able to watch the news without psychological pain over what is actually happening.
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Can you see how hard it is for me to stay in the positive when I am imagining my happy fantasy world?
It is a long journey into my wilderness of news avoidance, with constant course corrections and frequent healthy reframing of my view of the world. I feel like I should have gotten sponsors and stocked custom thermal insulated outerwear, cool-looking boots, and plenty of high-quality foods to sustain me on this journey of news-free exploration.
For the moment, what I’m working with seems like it’s barely enough.
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Greatest Accomplishment
I’ve been contemplating a life well-lived after remotely participating in a funeral online last week and then learning of an anticipated death in our friends’ family. Being in the phase of life when I’m closer to my death than I am to my birth, it occurs to me that my greatest accomplishments are quite possibly behind me as opposed to yet to come.
Most days, I feel that my greatest achievement happened when I took action to get treatment for depression. After many years of self-denial about what I was battling, receiving the confirmation of a professional diagnosis was the key that opened the door for my journey toward healthy thinking. Initially relying on medication and talk therapy to interrupt a life-long pattern of dysfunctional thinking, I eventually gained enough command of my faculties to cope on my own, medication-free.
One book I found helpful is “Undoing Depression: What Therapy Doesn’t Teach You and Medication Can’t Give You” by Richard O’Connor.
I still need to treat my natural inclination toward depression every day with healthy thinking, a reasonable diet, regular exercise, and good-quality sleep habits, but reaching the point where I don’t require support from the medical health industry is something I am proud to have achieved.
Last November and December brought a fresh challenge for me in managing the chemicals bathing my brain in the face of grief and fatigue. The combination of needing to first put down our cat, Pequenita, and then our dog, Delilah, mixed with striving to cope with Cyndie’s unexpected injury pushed me to my limits. I was the sole person tending to the horses (during which two highly stressful horse-health challenges arose), cleared snow after two significant snowfall events, and took over all tasks caring for Cyndie and the house while she is laid up.
The physical fatigue left me susceptible to allowing my old familiar depressive behaviors to return. I don’t find that worrisome because years of good mental health have provided a fresh setting for “normal” that I use for reference, allowing me to notice when intervention is warranted. I have a variety of options to employ but the key to being able to self-treat my depression is the “noticing” and consciously changing something in response.
Mostly, I change my thinking. My thoughts are a major trigger to the chemical reactions going on in my brain and body. Sometimes I just need a nap. Often times I just need more time. Especially when the trigger is grief.
Speaking of grief, the horses were giving me some grief recently. This is a case where it would have been nice to have a camera recording what goes on under the overhang when we are not around.
Somehow they picked up the grate in one of the slow feeder boxes and turned it sideways. I guess they’ve got some great accomplishments of their own to neigh about.
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Painful Loss
I knew Jennifer to be a precious, congenial, and amiable person, despite the experiences she lived through that drove her to multiple treatments for mental health concerns. Every time I saw her again after long absences, that remarkable dose of her true spark and desire to gain full command of her wellness glowed anew.
My idealistic goal of loving everyone on this earth is not always effortlessly achieved. Jenny was not one of the difficult ones. I loved her as easily as anyone.
It is devastating to have learned that she took her own life this week.
Those of us who knew and loved Jenny are experiencing the pain of losing the sound of her laughter, for good this time. It is we who must now reconcile the mental turmoil of the various roles we played in her life, of opportunities now vanished, hopes tarnished, with the burdens of sudden grief pressing down upon us.
As a person who has enjoyed great success in breaking free of the oppressive mental weight of depression, with all of its distortions of perception and its focus on imagined perils, I suffer deep heartbreak over instances where the interruption and amelioration of the affliction are unsuccessful.
There is debate about whether depression is curable or not, but there is general agreement that it is treatable. Good health requires maintenance, and being treated by professionals for depression can be a project of a lifetime.
In a way, good health habits are a self-directed form of treatment that keeps my depression at bay. It doesn’t feel focused on depression prevention for me because my healthy practices bring so many other rewards beyond just keeping my mind free from the dark dysfunctions that define the affliction.
Put simply, living healthy serves as a vaccination against the ills of depression for me.
It feels important to me to accentuate the time component of dealing with depression and frankly, all other aspects of a journey toward optimal health. I am profoundly moved by the length of time and variety of avenues Jenny navigated in her efforts toward health and well-being.
Good health does not happen in an instant as a result of a momentary desire to be healthy. It is a process that requires firm determination to stay on task for days that become weeks, then months, and ultimately, years. I often point out that a goal of getting healthy should be referenced against the number of months or years we allowed bad habits to weaken our muscles, add excess fat, compromise our livers, overtax our hearts, rob us of needed sleep, and ignore or misinterpret our full range of emotions.
May we always remember the best about loved ones who are no longer with us and seek inspiration from those fond memories for a determination to strive for our own optimal health in a journey that we renew every morning for the rest of our days.
Amen.
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For any occasion involving thoughts of suicide, free 24/7, confidential services are available:
call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline (800-273-8255), or text the Crisis Text Line (text HOME to 741741).
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Virtual Hugs
Flip the calendar. It’s another year. And here I sit, isolated from all but my wife. This doesn’t feel any different than the year that ended two days ago. Our cat, Pequenita just gave out a yowl of objection from the other room and Cyndie immediately responded with an admonishment to Delilah, sight unseen.
Once again, the dog was trying to play with the cat in the manner that dogs like playing. Pequenita has not once shown the least bit of interest in playing like dogs, including this morning. I wonder if I can teach Delilah to give virtual hugs.
Stuck in continued isolation for the unknown future, I am feeling inclined toward practicing increased focus on nurturing my metaphysical energies to travel the universe so I can mingle with the essences of all those whose vibrations resonate with mine. My heart loves others and I want to send that out in a virtual hug of your energies, all over the world.
But that is not all. I also want to send that love to those whose vibrations don’t resonate with mine. Like it or not, you just might get hugged.
Like the arms of my favorite tree, the reach is up and out in every direction, branching out in too many separate forks and arms to count.
We are all connected. Our thoughts and energies infectious. I don’t know if my love and wishes for peaceful feelings hold the power to eliminate anxieties and emotional pain in others, but maybe they can give a moment of pause. Provide a window of opportunity to choose a preferred alternative.
This may sound all too sanctimoniously philanthropic, but consider the possibility that there is a fair amount of selfish interest in my intentions.
I am seeking this path as a way of helping myself evade a tendency for doom and gloom. I don’t suffer so much from anxieties, but I tend toward a despondency of disheartened hopelessness.
I strive to love others as a means of avoiding a slide into my self-centered depression.
It’s what I can do from wherever I am, whenever I need. It’s choosing to make the world a better place no matter what virus or corruption or neglect is wreaking havoc at the time. It’s allowing myself to be happy in the face of misery.
In that, I see this as a win-win situation. Loving you helps me.
<virtually hugging you right now>
May you feel peace into this new year. May dogs and cats find a way to love each other, at a comfortable distance.
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Relative Something 