I’ve hesitated for many months writing this post, because I know that my experience is not the only one out there, and I know that talking about depression as a helpful thing might seem like I am making light of many other people’s horrific experiences with depression.
But still, I have my experience, and I’ve been wanting to write about it, even though it (and my resulting thinking on depression) is perhaps a bit radically unconventional. Please don’t read this as my thinking I’ve got the final word on the subject. I don’t. But I do have (more than a few) words on the subject, based on my personal experiences and observations and readings, and they’re just getting more and more muddled sitting inside my own head. Hence, the attempt (again) at trying to sort them out by putting them in writing.
(1) I have frequently seen depression compared to other illnesses, but most of those comparisons tend to fall short for me. In my experience, I have found depression to be most analogous to physical pain. And just as I think about pain as my friend, not my foe, so I think of depression.
I believe that depression is our built in warning system that something is going wrong. If I burned my hand and could take a pill that totally numbed the pain but, otherwise, allowed me to function normally, my hand would not only not heal, but would likely deteriorate further. Pain is what screams out to us “Stop” when we are damaging something in our bodies. Pain also serves as a boundary and guideline throughout the healing process.
Now, I’m aware that sometimes the pain system malfunctions. And I believe the depression-pain system also can malfunction. I’m not ignoring that possibility. But I do believe we err in primarily thinking of depression as a malfunction rather than a healthily functioning pain-warning and healing-guiding system.
(2) I believe that depression is not only a warning signal similar to pain, but also a built-in recovery system. Calling things like the sadness, lethargy, brain fog, etc., “symptoms” of depression is accurate from one angle. But from another, it misses the possibility that those things, by nature, force us to slow down, or even stop.
I hear people talk about how paralyzing depression is, how little they can accomplish, and I have experienced those very things myself. But, at some point, I began to realize that my body was beginning to restore itself as I gave in to those “problems”. I’ve heard about doctors inducing a coma in burn victims which makes the body almost completely shut down, allowing all of the patient’s strength to go into the healing process. The coma also prevents the person from damaging their tissue further by doing anything.
I have, at times, experienced depression as something near to a walking coma. But, out of that, I found that what the lethargy did by preventing me from doing all the essential things I thought I had to do, was allow healing and rebuilding to happen.
There is, of course, a complication with giving in to the “problems” of depression and receiving them as gifts, allowing me to rebuild. And that is that depression is chemically rather spiraling. The brain chemicals of depression do seem to be self-repeating and self-defeating.
I’ve addressed this by being rather intentional in my depression. I let myself shut down as much as I can (which is almost always I little more than I think I should). And then I build in a “snap out of it” feature into the plan. Obviously, one cannot just snap out of depression, but I do make use of some of the things that others have found helpful when they are depressed. I try to eat better, exercise a tiny bit, listen to a funny radio program (CarTalk is my anti-depressant of choice, if you must know), visit with a friend.
I make myself do those things, even though I don’t feel like it. Now that’s not a novel way of dealing with depression, but the difference is that I only make myself do those things AFTER I’ve intentionally taken the space to be as depressed as my body is screaming it needs to be.
For me, this means that I will often take an entire Saturday (and sometimes part of Sunday, too) to be therapeutically depressed. And I really do see the payoffs in feeling deeply restored afterwards. I’m hardly ever as happy as I am when I come off of letting myself be as desperately sad as I feel the need to be. And I also find that I experience a peak of restored energy after letting myself be as physically lethargic as my depression is screaming out for me to be, for a period of time.
I don’t actually like being depressed. It feels miserable and awful, just like being in physical pain does. But I’ve found that “giving in” to the pain, and feeling it, as is, is, for me, one of the most effective ways of walking through the pain towards healing and rebuilding my strength.
Have you ever had an instance where you can’t give into depression?
Hi Milly. Thanks for asking a question that helps me clarify something I was feeling, but couldn’t organize in my brain enough to put words to–I am not speaking definitively about all depression, all the time.
What I’m really pushing at is that I’m thinking that we should think a lot more of the time about listening to and giving in to depression as an intentional response. I don’t think it can be the only response, and my thinking here is certainly not a panacea–Depression is complex, and addressing the depression by giving in to parts of it is also complex, just as I think that is true of any response to depression.
Perhaps when I say giving in to depression, I’m not talking about giving up, and maybe I’m not even talking about giving in to the depression, but rather to some of the specific things that flow out of the depression–for example, the lethargy and, sometimes, the paralysis. I think that often when we are lethargic, it is because our bodies need us to be–even if our kids, employers and friends clearly need us not to be. Those are complexities that don’t have easy answers. But what I’m pushing back against is primarily listening to the outside demands before paying at least some attention to the body’s demands that it is trying to communicate by the lethargy, intense sadness, withdrawing, etc.
I’m also talking about “giving in” to depression intentionally, rather than accidentally. Also, I don’t think you can “give in” to depression effectively in isolation from at least one other person.
And that needs to be the point of another post. If we are wired with depression the same way we are with pain, we are also clearly wired for relationships. Somehow I believe those wirings interact in important ways, even when they seem to be in conflict, such as in depression.
And the other thing is that, like I said in the post, depression is a spiraling kind of thing–from what I understand, the chemicals eventually “learn” to go down one route, when that route is used enough. So, I would suppose (and have read at least one doctor who firmly believes it) that it is possible to be depressed enough to make depression the default. This is because of the brain’s plasticity, and is a pretty impressive argument for “nipping depression in the bud” rather than giving in to it for a prolonged length of time.
However, I don’t think the brain is plastic in only one direction, e.g., towards depression.
Well, these thoughts are a bit disjointed, and hopefully I’ve answered your question, to some degree (if I didn’t, the answer is “yes”
).
Thanks again for asking. It helps me keep processing my thoughts on this topic. Do please keep dialoging with me on this topic, if you’d like. I don’t mind being pushed back against in my thinking (as long as I can keep pushing back, too
). It’s what helps me think more clearly, humbly and accurately–thinking with other people.
I’m told that I should be depressed. Its great have a dad who’s been in the field. I know that with my sister’s cancer that pills will be shoved at me at some point. I’ve always and will always turn them down. I believe in feeling it.
I do wonder how we know when we slipped. I remember when a man that I loved died and another left for a new life that I slipped a bit. I threw myself into work and made way too many life changes for that mood. Being single without children I could do that and recover from the snap decisions well.
Being a single mom I have to be careful
I’m pretty big on feeling it, too, but the point of my post is not anti-antidepressants.
My point is more that I think we need to not always, and certainly not automatically, view depression as a malfunction of something. It is, at least at times, a natural, functioning response to something else that is malfunctioning.
I often hear depression compared to diabetes, and antidepressants compared to insulin.
In the paradigm I’m thinking of, depression is comparable to pain, and antidepressants are analogous to pain relievers. One may choose or not choose to take medicine to relieve the pain, but in most cases some pain remains, and I believe that pain and the limitations that come with it have a useful (though obviously annoying) purpose. It is, therefore, important, to learn how to live with/cope with the pain or depression that remains with us even after taking relieving medicines, and also, I believe, how to listen to the protective instructions of the pain or depression.
Because I think of both pain and depression as important in similar ways, I would recommend the following thing to keep in mind when taking either antidepressants or pain medication: During the healing process (healing from the thing that triggered the pain or depression) you will have to be intentional in building in to your life both the passive and active healing mechanisms that pain and depression would have forced on you. So, pain medicine and antidepressants can help relieve some of your misery (I think they clearly take the overwhelming edge off of pain). But in the places the pain is relieved, one has to be careful not to “overwork” the point of injury, until it is healed again.
For example, I get bad headaches when I haven’t drunk enough water. I can actually feel a good bit better just by taking a strong enough pain pill. But, if I do that, I need to make myself do what the headache would have forced me to do:
(1) passively–stop doing things to further strain my body until I’m rehydrated. Even though I might feel relief from my not-enough-water headache, I can’t just go out and play in the sun without changing something else. The headache would have naturally kept me from hurting myself further that way. But with the pain reliever, I’ll need to be intentional about actually recovering, instead of just feeling better.
and (2) actively–I need to do something about the cause of the pain and not just relieve the pain itself. So, if I relieve the headache pain, but don’t rehydrate myself, I’m still actually suffering.
I believe with depression there is a similar need to “be down” and cut back on performance pressures, even if one takes antidepressants to relieve some of the darkness, lethargy and paralysis of the depression. The kinds of non-functioning that depression’s woes would have forced on you are still often important, I believe, at least to some degree, in recovering from the actual thing that caused the depression.
I cringe writing these things, because I’m not thinking of this paradigm as either a black and white thing, nor an “alternative” cure-all to depression. Even though I do feel pretty strongly that sometimes intentionally giving in to depression can be a more effective path through depression than always fighting against it.
Again, this post is not a campaign against either antidepressants or pain medicine. Instead, I’m trying to explore the possibility that depression is not a malfunction, but rather a very miserable but necessary functional response (in some ways, even a gift) to surviving some of the things in life that really DO malfunction.
I agree that you need time to give in to what the cause is.
I know that my words are not describing what you said to a tee but I’m late for bed and have living in a hospital.
I’m all for figuring out what has taken me down but I think that it could be dangerous to allow yourself to hit the bottom. Finding your way back could be a long journey.
Then again what do I know because I pull myself away from that edge. Then again I might someday have a breakdown because I don’t allow myself to fall.
Do you think that two people who give in to depression can live together? It seemed that my ex was always sad and I was always bouncing around. He seemed to hate that. I would think that tw unhappy people would make for a dark home.
Milly, I’ve actually thought quite a lot about your last point, but it’s not stuff I find easy to put into words or generalize about. Still, you asked, and I should give a fair shake at thinking back at you, out loud.
First, I don’t think two sad people are quite exactly the same as two unhappy people. And I don’t think two sad people automatically makes for a dark home.
And then, below that, I’m not sure that dark home would be the worst case scenario. I think lonely home would be the worst case scenario. I think two sad people can be “with” each other in real and valuable ways. I think a happy person can be with a sad person in real and valuable ways. I think a sad person can be with a happy person in real and valuable ways.
All of those ways will look very different. But I don’t think those differences are the thing that makes the most crucial difference. To me it’s more a question of Do I know how to be sad or depressed and still with you. Or Do I know how to be bouncy and happy and still with you.
BTW, I think of “with” as a verb, and not only as a preposition. Withing is one of the best gifts two people can give each other.
I’ve believed for a long time that it’s not true that if one person in a relationship is down that the other person must stay up. These days, I’m discovering the rightness and richness of my suspicion. There is great freedom in being oneself and doing that with someone else, without having to calculate whether I’m too down for the other person or too up for them.
Having said that, I realize that it is often hard for people giving in to depression to be able to with. But I really don’t believe it’s totally impossible. I have found it possible to draw close and lean heavily into others even when I’m depressed and finding very little joy (the bouncy kind of joy, at least
) in relationships in general. But still, in those moments, there is a deep and comforting satisfaction in being able to lean heavily (and gratefully) into those I’m close to.
It ends up costing them something and I’m not oblivious to that, either (in fact at times that has made me want to pull back–the fear that my downness is costing those around me too much). But, the other thing I’ve discovered is that even when I’m depressed and weak, it is possible to also be being leaned in to. And I’ve discovered that I can handle that, can give that, even when I can’t give much else.
And so, out of brokennes and even depression, I see and experience real relationship, going two ways, just as it can happen in a context of lightness and happiness and ongoing delights.
I’m not sure that I could ever be with someone who is continuously morose ever again. I can take a moment in time such as dealing with divorce and a sister dealing with cancer and most likely death. I’ve had moments due to these things in my life but I find joy every day. I think that is a difference I look at things differently. (Picture my friends laughing in agreement) I can be at work and have a good time. I know that I most likely sound a bit horrid but I do find moments that keep me up like Joe insisting on waiting for me so that we can share a smile and a few kind words. I think that those of us who stay up 99.99999 percent of the time think so very differently.
I just don’t think that having a dark house is good for my children or me. I’m in no way saying that we should act like ‘it’s all good.” I believe in feeling it when it happens. I felt like the cow who was upside down saying “No really I’m ok.” I even said that I felt like that last week when I was camping in the hospital taking care of my sister. Now that I’m at home and able to talk to friends, hang with the kids and friends, and clean my house I feel better.
Is it denial? Could be. Yep I said it.
I know that my sister isn’t going to be cured without God making it happen. All the doctors on the team can’t take all that cancer away. I don’t know that He will cure her. I know that He will take care of her.
I don’t know if my son is going to need a hip replacement but I know that God does. BTW it looks great and we are optimistic.
I think that’s the difference I look at the brighter sides in our lives.
My ex also spent money to make himself happy. I try to do something creative. I will admit that I use to try to sleep it off. I made that go away, it only makes it harder. I’d also worry that if I’m worried about me then my children aren’t getting what they need.
I see your points about being together but I think that a dark house can hurt the kids if not handled properly. I think you are doing a great job at it and I’m sure finding a balance.
As the cow said really I’m ok
e–
i have a friend who worries a lot. i don’t tell her not to worry, which is pointless and useless. i do treat her worry as, as you say about depression, a signaling device about certain conditions; conditions that she wants to change in some fashion. the worry seems to act to move her to a ‘change-ready’ position.
so the question i ask her, after listening a while, is ‘what is the message this worry is trying to send you?’
perhaps depression, like worry, is a messenger.
scott
Hi Scott, Nice to hear from you again. And thanks for summarizing so succinctly one of the directions I’m going in my thinking on depression–that of depression as messenger.
I think it’s possible that depression can move us to a change-ready position. But, at the same time, depression is so often paralyzing, that if the purpose is to serve as a messenger of what needs to change, it’s not, ultimately, a very directly effective messenger, because it so often leaves people without the energy or motivation to change the thing it’s giving a message about.
At the same time, in some ways, I think it’s that paralysis/lethargy/inability to change, which is also part of the function of depression. Whether it be grief or over-stimulation, I think it is possible that depression knocks us into lethargy because we need lethargy to heal. And that perhaps, if something needs changing, it’s less doing something else, and more stopping doing for a time.
I wonder, then, if depression is both a messenger and its own enforcer? In that sense, maybe it’s different from worry.
In another sense, though, I wonder if it’s not the same thing to different degrees. I read somewhere, a long time ago (so I can’t remember the details) about a physiologic similarity/relationship between anxiety and depression, particularly in the area of elevated cortisol levels. Is the cortisol a cause or effect of anxiety/depression? I wonder if depression isn’t just an ongoing warning messenger (but louder) of what worry is trying to say. I’m not trying to generalize about all depression, but I think it’s possible in some cases that the depression is just an ongoing manifestation of worry that wasn’t paid attention to…
Milly, One of the difficulties of writing about depression (and one of the main reasons I’ve waited on writing posts I was thinking about) is that there are so many stories, and in telling mine and arriving at generalizations from it, I run the risk of treading heavily into someone else’s story. I do hope I am not doing that to you here, and I hope you will tell me if you experience me in that way.
I am really sorry for the sorrows you experienced living in a dark house and I’m not trying to rosify depression as something fun to live with and certainly not trying to lay out a formula which implies that living in a house of darkness and depression is always a doable or healthy route.
There are no formulas, really. And there are depressed people as well as non-depressed people who cannot find a way to live their realities in connection with other people–whether it be their miserable realities or their joys. That is not a hopeful way to try to be in relationship, and I’m not even sure if it’s possible to do at all.
I have worried at times and wondered how my own worries and weights affect my ability to care for my children. To that, I have two answers. One, because of the relationships I’m in, I really have received so much practical help from friends who pick up the slack and carry things I can’t, in a similar way that my being in a body case would be awful for my newborn baby, but some–not all–of what I would be unable to give really could be given to my child by the loving arms and hands of others. There would still be a very real loss and cost to what I couldn’t give them, and that is a grief in parenting with depression.
But, there is also a second reality, and that is that I don’t believe it is a detrimental thing for children to learn how very much they need the people and relationships in their lives. I also think it is not awful for them to learn that they can live life well, even when encumbered by brokenness, depression, anxiety, whatever. They don’t have to be useless, purposeless people even when they are suffering realities (whether physical or emotional) they keep them from being as productive in obvious ways as we value in our culture. If my children learn some of what it looks like to love and be loved well, while being depressed, I think that is a good thing. I’m not advocating being depressed just to “teach the kids a lesson”
! But I do think there are more things that I can teach my kids than just “how to be depressed” when I am depressed!
Well, I’m rambling and I do hope I’m not trampling too heavily into your experiences. I hope you can hear that I’m speaking out of my thinking and experiences, and grateful for your sharing of your thinking that comes out of your experiences. These thoughts are not at or against you, and I appreciate how you keep sharing your disagreements/ differences in thinking, which helps me keep considering my own perspectives. It really is one of the nicenesses of relationship.
Eclexia
Nope not trampling on my toes.
I was afraid that I might in asking if you thought it was good to have two people who are prone to depression living in the same house.
I think that a lot of us afraid to give in to depression. Sort of like opening the flood gates. :-}
I learn from others incites. I tend to think differently than others in case you didn’t notice.
e–
i think it’s neat that you feel the control to decide whether or not to listen to depression’s message, as it were. i think for some, it’s a loud noise that can’t be turned off or avoided– the messenger is always shouting, as it were. you seem to feel some power about your choices about responding to the messenger and the message, and i think that’s a very fortunate thing.
scott
e–
came across this thought in my journals, but i can’t tell you where it’s from:
part of depression is the strong, strong feeling that the story you are experiencing is the only possible story; you can’t imagine a different story for yourself and the world.
In the mental health field, there is currently a lot of talk and writing about “mindfulness.”
I am still trying to better understand this concept and practice it in my life, apart from how it is practiced and used within eastern religions. I know that as a Christian, I have difficulty figuring out how to “spoil the Egyptians” (taking the good and appropriate parts of something that might be corrupt or against God…kind of like avoiding “throwing the baby out with the bathwater”).
What you are describing, however, is very similar to what I understand about mindfulness it applies to mental health counseling/therapy…instead of fighting against emotions that we do not like, or do not deem acceptable, we allow ourselves to feel the emotions and be okay with any emotion…while not acting out of emotions.
For example, anger is often labeled as a “negative emotion.” However, anger is not inherently good or bad, it just is. The problem comes when we act out of anger. Anger is just an emotion not a fact. Just because I feel angry does not mean that I have to act angry, but I also do not have to pretend that I do not have the feeling of anger.
I’m not sure this is coming across clearly, but I appreciate you writing because it has helped me think of depression in a different way. For me, it is easy to think this way about emotions like anger, but much more difficult for me to think this way about depression (probably because it hits closer to home for me).
~Michelle
I think culture helps, too, Michelle. Anger has become a much more acceptable emotion than depression.
I read an interesting book by Dan Allender that talked about how we reflect the image of God in our negative emotions as much as we do in the emotions we think of as positive. It’s an interesting thing to ponder.
Depression is really, really miserable. But I’m not sure it’s something that needs to be fixed or eradicated, at any cost. Not because I’m a glutton for pain, but because I’m inclined to think that getting rid of depression (or pain) at any cost, ends up costing us some other things, too…
I’m still thinking on all of this myself, and not too convinced about my own soapbox