I’m in the midst of one of those pesky paradigm shifts. You know… those times when the shoe just doesn’t fit any more, your words don’t quite ring true anymore (even to yourself), and you have to look around and reassess the direction you are headed, the rules you live by, or – heaven forbid – the meaning of life. 
 
Okay, I’m not questioning the whole meaning-of-life thing. Everyone knows the meaning of life revolves around owning the entire Dan Fogelberg album collection, right? So we don’t need to go there. But I’m finding that I need to rethink my relationship with depression. You see, I just don’t feel particularly depressed lately. In fact, I feel downright hopeful. 

On the “About Me” page of my website, I talk about the ebb and flow of my depression, how sometimes it’s been hardly bearable while at other times I am able to “move forward with hopes and dreams and plans – conservatively,” to quote myself. When I wrote that page, I also indicated that I didn’t really think I would ever be “cured” of depression. 

It’s not that I think I’m cured. And I look around for wood to knock on when I so much as say I’m feeling better. But the truth is I am feeling better. A lot better. 

When I started writing the “Lifting the Weight” blog, I named it that because (to quote myself some more) “I am on this journey to … lift the weight of depression from my soul as best I can with what I have.” I gave the blog the subheading “balancing life with depression.” My intent was to talk about how we can successfully deal with depression on a daily basis. 

The thing is, I’m no longer having to deal with depression on a daily basis, and my writing no longer has that particular focus. My topics have always strayed a little far afield (see my post on fly brains or  the one on sound waves in outer space), but I find that lately I have to make a concerted effort to bring myself back to writing about depression. 
 
So… I’m redefining the intent of the blog a little bit. To reflect that, I’ve changed the subheading from “balancing life with depression” to “living in balance.” A subtle shift, perhaps, but a meaningful one to me. 

I don’t think I’ll ever be completely out of the woods as far as depression goes. And I’ll probably still write about it since it does still occupy my mind at times. But at least for now, it’s not occupying my soul, and I’m going to take full advantage of that. 
 
Who knows, in another six months, I might take another tack on my journey toward a better, balanced life. Some say it’s the journey that matters, not the destination. Others ask: if you don’t know where you’re going, how will you know when you get there?  I have a general direction in which I’m headed, that hasn’t changed. But I have changed, and I need to respect that and respond to it because that’s part of the journey.

I reserve the right to reinvent myself. 

Maggie

P.S. – Speaking of Dan Fogelberg, "let the music play…"

Feeling blue today? Or does everything look rosy? Why is it that we  associate feelings with colors? Idioms aside, there really is a connection  between moods and color. 

Current research indicates that when we are depressed, there may be a reason life looks “grey.”  An article at psychcentral.com describes research out of Freiberg, Germany that has shown there are objectively measureable changes in the retinas of depressed patients that make their eyes less sensitive to contrast.

Dr. Emanuel Bubl and his associates used a device called a pattern electroretinogram (which thankfully they shorten to the acronym “PERG”) to measure “the tiny amount of electrical change in the eye made when the retina is stimulated by looking at an object with contrast, like a checkerboard.” The PERG device produces a tracing, similar to an ECG tracing of the electrical activity of the heart.

The researchers found “a strong and significant association between the severity of the depression and a decreased response in the PERG, suggesting that the more depressed the patient was, the less their retinas responded to the contrast pattern.” 

Besides offering a scientific explanation of a cultural association between depression and the color grey, these findings might also lead to “an independent, objective, confirmatory, and possibly even specific, diagnostic criterion for depression,” which would be a big boon to clinicians and patients alike.

Another use of color in evaluating depression comes from research by gastroenterologist Peter Whorwell of University Hospital South Manchester. In a study including healthy individuals, people with depression and people with anxiety, a specifically adapted color wheel was used to help the participants associate their moods with color. An article at NBCNEWS.com reports that a number of consistencies were found, namely that “people with depression or anxiety were more likely to associate their mood with the color gray, while happier people preferred yellow.” Also darker shades correlated with darker moods.

A hopeful outcome of Whorwell’s research is that using colors may prove helpful as a non-verbal way to describe moods, especially useful with young children or others who might find it difficult to communicate verbally. 

In addition to helping diagnose or express levels of depression, color may be used to treat depression, too. An article on color therapy at about.com tells us that going back as far as four thousand years ago, the Egyptians were building “healing temples of light” and “bathing patients in specific colors of light to produce different effects.” Ancient Chinese cultures apparently also practiced chromotherapy (light therapy), using colors to heal, and such practices continue in holistic and alternative medical treatments today.

At psychologytoday.com, an article on mindfulness meditation therapy
by Peter Strong, Ph.D. describes an exercise in mindfulness meditation that uses imagery —  including color —  to define one’s depression, and then offers ways to experiment with changing the depressed emotion by changing the imagery.  

In the exercise — which is described in detail in the article — we are encouraged to close our eyes and relax, then turn our attention towards our depression, being mindful as we “sit” with the emotion, using it as the object of our meditation.  If we feel ourselves being sucked into the emotion, we are to “recognize this force” and  pull ourselves back into a mindful state. 

Next, we are invited to intuitively observe the color of the emotion, noting its sheen and density and any other details. Strong states that “the power is in the details, because this gives you a handle on the emotion. Coming to know the structure of your depression helps you establish a relationship with it,” which helps us to not become overwhelmed when the emotion arises. 
 
Once we have attained “a good mindful relationship with [our] depression and… have a good sense of its color,” we move on to experimentation, making changes to the color imagery and remaining mindful so that we can “assess at the intuitive level” whether the changes are effective. 

According to Strong, “The underlying principle is that emotions have an internal structure and that structure is formed around imagery, the natural language of the psyche. Change the imagery and you change the emotion.” 

I would encourage reading the article if you are interested in doing the exercise, as my description of it is admittedly somewhat obtuse. 
 
I’m sure more research on color and moods will be forthcoming. In the meantime, maybe we should heed some of the well-worn clichés: look on the “bright” side, “lighten” up, and try not to remain in the “dark.”

If you can do all of that, you should be "in the pink."

Maggie

Inflammation seems to be a double-edged sword for our health. As an acute response, inflammation aids in healing when the body gets ill or injured. Mark Sisson at MarksDailyApple.com refers to inflammation as the “first responder” in our body’s attempt to heal itself. He tell us that, “Pain, swelling, redness, and that radiating sense of  warmth that we feel at the site of an injury or illness don’t manifest by accident or for kicks. That’s inflammation, and it’s essential to our very existence in a world of hurt.”

In addition to all the stuff Sisson discusses about pattern recognition receptors (PRR), plasma and leukocytes, and bradykinin – none of which I fully understand – there is the pragmatic concept that I can follow: inflammation causes pain and swelling, which partly immobilizes and discourages our use of the area, giving it the rest it needs to heal.

The down side comes when inflammation becomes chronic and systemic rather than acute, short-lived and isolated. 

Dr. Andrew Weil, in an article at huffingtonpost.com, talks about “the cytokine hypothesis of depression”  and explains that cytokines are “proteins made by immune cells that govern responses to foreign antigens and germs,”  and that they are “the principal chemical mediators of the inflammation response.” Cytokines can be pro-inflammatory or anti-inflammatory. The release of pro-inflammatory cytokines can affect mood. 
  
In an article on psychologytoday.com, Dr. James M Greenblatt discusses three studies that have helped in understanding the connection between inflammation and depression. In one study, patients with major depressive disorder (MDD) were found to have significantly higher levels of a pro-inflammatory cytokine and lower levels of anti-inflammatory cytokines than their non-depressed counterparts. Another study showed that the antidepressant Zoloft decreased pro-inflammatory cytokines and increased anti-inflammatory cytokines. In a third study, depressed patients who were  classified as "non-responders” had their standard antidepressant treatment supplemented with aspirin, an anti-inflammatory. Greenblatt reports that “More than 50% of these patients responded to this combination treatment. At the end of the study more than 80% of the group responsive to the anti-inflammatory went into remission.” Do we see a trend there? Anti-inflammatory cytokines, good. Pro-inflammatory cytokines, not so good.

Greenblatt tells us that “One mechanism as to how an unregulated immune system may contribute to depression is quite well understood. Cytokines activate an enzyme… which degrades [the neurotransmitter] serotonin resulting in low levels of [serotonin].” Serotonin is thought to be a contributor to feelings of well-being and happiness. The enzyme activated by the cytokines also degrades tryptophan, the precursor to serotonin. These lowered levels of serotonin “are likely the contributing factor to the development of depressive symptoms. The inflammatory process' contribution to the constant destruction of serotonin decreases the chances of recovery.”

So what do we do to help contain unnecessary inflammation? Dr. Weil points to a number of proactive measures we can take. Following an anti-inflammatory diet is first and foremost. Weil has created an  anti-inflammatory food pyramid to help encapsulate the eating regimen that he recommends. I, of course, am quicker to look to the Paleo Diet, which has also been shown to reduce inflammation.  In addition to eating more healthily, exercise and stress-reduction are advised for reducing the bad effects of inflammation. 

There is a lot of interesting information online about inflammation as it relates to depression, and if this interests you at  all, I encourage further reading. It’s amazing how our bodies’ systems and functions are so interconnected. 

To your health... mental and otherwise.
Maggie

“Time spent with cats is never wasted.”
-- Sigmund Freud

“There is no psychiatrist in the world like a puppy licking your face.”
-- Bern Williams


I don’t know about the whole face licking puppy  thing – being a cat lady and all – but I do know that I tend to feel better when I get to spend time with my pets. Research has shown that stroking a dog or a cat can lower blood pressure and heart rate, reduce anxiety, and can boost one’s levels of serotonin and dopamine (the “feel good” brain chemicals). Watching fish can lower one’s pulse and ease muscle tension, and exposure to an aviary full of songbirds has been found to lower depression in hospitalized elderly men. 

There are many ways in which pet ownership can help prevent or reduce mild to moderate depression in people. Here are some of the ways noted in multiple online articles. 
 
Companionship/unconditional love. Depression can lead to isolation when we withdraw from family and friends, and by turning away from the people who can support us, we compound the depression. Pets are a good intervention. Interactions with our pets don’t leave us feeling unloved, misunderstood, judged, looked down upon, pitied, inferior or any other number of negative emotions we can project onto others. Pets just love us for who we are, or maybe sometimes for what we feed them, but we can pretend it’s us they like and they won’t tell us otherwise. They won’t tell us anything, they are just there for us, with us, unconditionally. 
 
Responsibility. Sometimes it seems we can barely take care of ourselves but, unless the depression is really severe, we remain able to care for a pet and that helps us feel capable as we tend to the needs of another. It also gives us something positive to focus on, and helps get us out of our own heads for a while. 
 
Routine. In tandem with responsibility of pet ownership, comes the routine of continual care. Feeding times, walks, and other needs help to create a schedule to follow which helps when coping with depression. 
 
Physical contact. Touch is important to our feelings of connectedness, and being able to pet an animal helps to fill that need. This is where dogs and cats take a lead over pet goldfish. The feel of fur is more soothing than slimy scales. On the other hand, a goldfish isn’t ever going to “touch” you back with claws or teeth. So a case can be made for fins and gills over feet and fangs.

I hate to admit it, but dogs bring additional benefits in fighting depression. Because they need to be walked, they encourage physical activity which is beneficial on many levels. And because they get you out and moving, you are more likely to have the opportunity for social interaction. Dog walkers are more prone to eliciting contact and conversation from passersby than are people walking alone. No one mentioned the effects of people walking goldfish... 

Pet therapy is a recognized form of psychotherapy for treating depression. Trained animals are used to provide interaction between patients and pets in facilities where pets are otherwise not allowed. Just the nearness of pets tends to calm people down, slowing and softening their speech, and offering a distraction that shifts people’s attention outwards and away from ruminating. While pets aren’t a replacement for other depression treatments, they can certainly be a beneficial add-on. 

Pet ownership isn’t for everyone, however. Pets require time, attention and responsibility which can become overwhelming depending on one’s level of depression. Some people just aren’t comfortable around pets. There are financial considerations, as there will be costs for food, veterinary care, supplies, licensing, etc. Pets can also cause destruction or injuries if not properly tended. So it’s not wise to foist a pet off on someone to “cheer them up” if they are not in agreement, or if it hasn’t been carefully considered. 

I’m thankful for my two cats. I’ve experienced the comfort and companionship they can provide.  I’ve had mornings where the only impetus for getting up was their incessant meowing to be fed or let out. And I’ve experienced times of loneliness, when it seemed that my cat just knew it was the right thing to climb into my lap. 
 
Garrison Keillor is quoted as saying that “Cats are intended to teach us that not everything in nature has a purpose.”

I know better.
Maggie

I was listening this morning to a Pandora music station based on one of my old time favorite bands, the Ozark Mountain Daredevils. Included in the lineup was the band’s song “Chicken Train.” I was in a contemplative mood, and so I listened intently to the words and tried to figure out their true meaning. Here are the lyrics to the first verse of the song:

Try as I might, I just couldn’t assign any significant meaning to these lyrics. And I really tried. I finally conceded that sometimes lyrics are just lyrics. They don’t always have to have deep philosophical meanings behind them. They can just be. In this case, they can just be fun.  

And that epiphany about the Ozark Mountain Daredevils’ lyrics leads us right to Sigmund Freud. I’m sure you see the connection, but if not, I’ll elaborate. 
 
Freud, considered to be the "Father of Psychoanalysis," had a penchant for focusing on the sexual aspect of... well, of everything. He believed that sexual drives were the most important motivating force in adult life. He managed to find phallic symbolism just about everywhere. At some point along the way, his astute followers questioned him as to the psychoanalytical meaning behind his frequent cigar smoking. Freud is quoted as having informed them that, “Sometimes, a cigar is just a cigar.” 
 
So lyrics can just be lyrics and cigars can just be cigars. And something that I need to continually remind myself is that sometimes low moods are just low moods. 

At times when my mood begins to drop, I get kind of panicky about it. Is this going to be the onset of another major slide? Am I going to hit rock bottom again with my depression?  Is this going to be the time that I won’t manage to recover?

I have to stop myself from these fatalistic musings and recognize that everyone has their low spots. Everyone has their off days, times when they feel down or sad or melancholy without really knowing why. And eventually the mood lifts and they move on. I should not expect myself to be the exception. Life has its rhythms. If it weren’t for the lows, how could we appreciate the highs? 
 
So how do I know the difference between a temporary dip in mood and the onset of a slide into depression? I don’t. The important thing for me is to not jump to the assumption of the worst case scenario. When I do that, I can be setting myself up for a very detrimental  self-fulfilling prophesy. 

I need to look at what’s going on in my life. There may be a very simple reason behind my low feelings. You may have heard of the acronym HALT, representing four things to look for when our mood is lagging. HALT stands for hungry, angry, lonely and tired. If we address those issues, chances are our mood will easily stabilize. Or we can review the past 24 hours. Did we feel hurt by someone? Misunderstood? Slighted? Often the feeling can be traced back to some unfavorable interaction with someone in our family, or a co-worker, or the jerk that cut us off in traffic this morning. 
 
There are so many variables that can lead to a low mood that we can’t even begin to imagine every scenario. Maybe the best thing to do is give our feelings the benefit of the doubt by not assuming the worst. If the low mood is a symptom of something more sinister, we will find out soon enough. In the meantime we can listen to some country/rock/folk tunes without worrying about the lyrics. That may nip the whole thing in the bud right there. Either that or smoke a cigar. 

All the best,  
Maggie

So I’ve got that line at the top of my website that says, “balancing life with depression.” What does that mean, exactly? What is a balanced life, and how do we arrive at and maintain a balanced life when we feel overwhelmed by depression?  

There’s no single definition of what a balanced life is going to look like for any given person. When I think of a balanced life, I think of physical, mental and spiritual wellbeing, and a sense of belonging within a social/familial network.  Living a balanced life can be a struggle for a person suffering from depression. Sometimes the “imbalance” causes the depression, and sometimes the depression causes the imbalance. However the imbalance in our lives comes about, we need to try and remedy it as best we can so that we can heal. 
 
Let’s look at the individual components of a balanced life:

Physical Health.  I’ve talked about the importance of proper nutrition, exercise and sleep in gaining and maintaining a healthy body. Physical health helps reduce our stress levels, gives us the energy to deal with the circumstances of our lives, and helps to raise our overall sense of wellbeing. It’s also something that we generally have a fair amount of control over. Some of us do have physical limitations, and maybe we can’t go out and run a marathon. But there’s usually something we can do to improve our health. 
 
Caring about our health is sometimes difficult when we are feeling bogged down with depression. It’s a bit of a catch: when I’m down I lose my energy. The last thing I want to do – or feel I can do – is to get myself up off the couch and start moving. The mental weight of sadness and despair and hopelessness feels like a physical weight holding my body down as well as my mood. 
 
If I am feeling stressed out, it becomes difficult to sleep, and yet good sleep might just be what I need to help reduce my stress. Or I may face the flip side, sleeping too much because I don’t want to get up and face the day. And the avoidance can lead to guilt, greater despair and feelings of helplessness, which then make me want to sleep even more. 

Proper nutrition is equally complex. Eating well requires putting some thought and effort into what we choose to consume. Yet in our depressed condition we may lack focus and commitment to doing something to better our health. 
 
A lot of the solution to enabling ourselves to eat, sleep and exercise properly is just overcoming the initial inertia. If I do pull myself up off the couch and do something physical, if I do put something nutritious into my meal plan, if I do monitor my sleep, it doesn’t take long to begin to feel the benefits. And once we see the improvements taking place, it becomes easier to continue the good habits. 

Mental Health. It is so important to realize that depression, in most cases, is not going to simply go away if we ignore it. A lot of times we feel the need to just “tough it out.” That might work for a while, but to be healthy and balanced, we need to address our depression head on. The help of a competent therapist may be needed. Proper medication may be called for. Even just talking it out with someone may be beneficial. Mental health leads to self-esteem, feelings of self-worth, and acceptable levels of stress. And it’s not just for "everybody else." We can all be proactive in improving our mental health. 

Spiritual Wellbeing. I wrote about spirituality in a previous post which you can read here. I think of spirituality as being part of a larger Whole. Whether that wholeness is God, Nature, the Universe, or whatever entity or quality you choose, it is important to find some connection with Life. In AA, and other 12-Step programs, they talk about a Higher Power which one can define in any way he or she chooses. While I think of my Higher Power to be something intangible, I’ve heard of people selecting things like door knobs to be their Higher Power. One person selected a light bulb, which worked fine until one night when the electricity went out. Hmmm. At least the door knob will always be there…

Social/familial  Connection. We need other people in our lives. We’re social creatures. I will be the first to admit that when I am depressed, the very last thing I want is to be around a bunch of people. But isolating is not the path to balanced living and health. Maybe we don’t have the most beloved family, maybe we haven’t made a ton of friends in our lifetime, maybe we’re out of work and don’t even have coworkers to relate to. It can be hard sometimes to find those connections. But there are therapeutic settings where we can speak to professional mental health specialists, or we may find we fit in with groups of like-minded people, like self-help groups or non-profit organizations that offer services related to our specific needs. We may even find communities online that we can reach out to. Carefully. There are billions of people out there. Chances are we can relate to some of them. 
 
So balancing life involves fitting together all the components that lead to a healthy, well-rounded life. Balancing life with depression means pushing ourselves to seek out and participate in healthy activities and practices even when we don’t feel like it. It can be a challenge, but it can be immensely rewarding. 

I don’t mean to make it sound like life becomes one huge ordeal just because a person is depressed. We all find it challenging to strike a balance in our lives at times. And being depressed does not exempt us from having a healthy, fulfilling life. Maybe we just need to be a little more in tune with ourselves to keep our lives from becoming skewed. 

So perhaps the next time I am feeling out of balance, I might just consult with my Higher Door Knob.  Who knows, it may open the door to all kinds of possibilities. 
 
I think I hear opportunity knocking.
Maggie

At the outpatient treatment program I attended, I was given a copy of a poem by Portia Nelson from the book There's a Hole in My Sidewalk. I didn't like the poem at the time, and I'll tell you why, but first I'll let you read it:

Autobiography in Five Chapters

1) I walk down the street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I fall in.
I am lost...
I am  hopeless.
It isn't my fault.
It takes forever to find a way out. 

2) I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I pretend I don't see it.
I fall in again.
I can't believe I'm in the same place.
But it isn't my fault.
It still takes a long time to get out. 
 
3) I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I see it is there.
I still fall in... it's a habit.
My eyes are open; I know where I am;
It is my fault.
I get out immediately. 
 
4) I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I walk around it. 

5) I walk down another street.

    #  #  # 

Before I ever read the poem, I remember likening my depression to walking down a street and taking a misstep and falling through an open manhole. All of a sudden, with no warning, there I would be in complete and utter darkness. No idea how I got there and no idea how to get out. Just the knowledge that where I was felt terrible.

In my analogy about the manhole, I would see myself repeating the misstep over and over, and the most insidious part about it was that every time I fell into the darkness, I would completely forget what it was like to have ever been in the light. There was no hope, because not only could I not see the sunlight, I didn’t even know it existed anymore. 

I don’t know whether Ms. Nelson’s poem was intended to be about depression or not, but since the imagery of the poem was so similar to my own visualization about depression, and since I was receiving the poem at a center where I was being treated for depression, I took it to mean that I was supposed to interpret it that way. 

And so I was fine with the poem until it got to Chapter 3, and the line that said “It is my fault.” If something is my fault, then that means I am responsible for doing something wrong. How can it be my fault that I suffer from depression? What have I done wrong to deserve this? 

What  should have caught my eye, perhaps, was in Chapter 2, where it says, “I pretend I don’t see it.” The poem wasn’t talking about something we have no control over and telling us it’s our fault. Maybe it was talking about learning from our experiences. There’s a difference between not seeing the deep hole and seeing it but allowing ourselves to fall in anyway. Out of habit, as it says in Chapter 3. 
 
Until I could actually begin to understand what I was even experiencing with my depression, I couldn’t begin to learn from those experiences. To me it was a completely random repetition of an awful, unforeseeable occurrence. It was only through treatment that I was able to get to a point where I could sometimes see the deep holes before I fell in. And I still wouldn’t call it a matter of “fault” on anyone’s part. 

There are signs that we can heed, however, indicators that we may become aware of to alert us that we are headed for a deep hole, and forewarned is forearmed as the saying goes. Perhaps we can step around the holes more easily if we know the signs. 

I am beginning to learn what those signs are for me, and I can share that in a future post. I can’t say I have yet reached Chapter 5. You would think that by now I might have found that other street to walk down, but I haven’t. Right now I’m still working on losing the habit of falling in the holes. 

As the poem says, “My eyes are open, I know where I am…” but as to the following line, if we are talking about depression, I still must disagree.

It’s not my fault.
Maggie

There is a term I learned when I was studying how to write fiction. The term is “suspension of disbelief.” When writing, we have to engage our readers to the point where they stop judging things based on their perception of reality, and  are willing to go with the flow of the story we are telling them. 
 
An example of this might be the television show Gilligan’s Island, which originally aired in the mid ‘60s. The main characters have been shipwrecked and stranded on an uncharted island near Hawaii, and the show is generally based around their (failed) attempts to get rescued. As a sitcom, the viewer is not really expected to believe the whole premise. There are numerous instances where we are asked to do away with logic and go along with the story. 

The castaways are frequently visited out of the blue by other people who have somehow also ended up on the island, but the visitors always find a way off the island while the main cast never gets rescued. In the show the characters are able to fashion incredible items and inventions out of the bamboo that grows on the island, but they never manage to create anything that will help them escape the island. The radio announcements that they are able to pick up from Hawaii always come on at just the right time with just the information needed to advance the plot.
 
Obviously these story elements are necessary to keep the show going. If the cast was restricted to just the five main characters, we might soon get tired of them, and if the group was rescued, there would no longer be a story to tell. So rather than look at the implausibility of the whole set up, we are willing – for the sake of entertainment – to drop the realism and go along with the outlandish premises that the show is based on. 

In dealing with depression, sometimes we need to suspend our disbelief about our ability to recover, and about the efficacy of our treatment. Like the laughter therapy that I mention in a previous post. When I’m really depressed, the notion that forcing myself to smile and laugh is going to help my mood seems pretty ludicrous. And yet clinical studies have shown that there is validity to that notion.

There are numerous other facets of treatment that just don’t make sense at times when we are at our lowest. If we are able to get out of our own thinking ruts and are willing to give some of the therapeutic suggestions a try, we may surprise ourselves and actually see benefits.

I found art therapy to be that way for me. It was one of the modes of treatment offered at the outpatient clinic I attended. I tried to get out of art therapy because it sounded like a total waste of time. I opted to go into the group psychotherapy sessions that were offered in the same time slot. When the therapists figured out that I wasn’t speaking in the psychotherapy sessions – at all – they gave me the boot and sent
me back to art therapy. 

Since I was kind of stuck there, I started actually doing the assigned projects each day. I didn’t put a lot of thought into it. I just did whatever struck me in the moment. I remember one assignment where the art therapist set out boxes of multi-colored tissue paper and asked us to create something 3-dimensional that represented our anger.  Everyone started grabbing for the bright red and orange pieces of paper. I was drawn to the dark blue and black colors. I ended up making a flap out of the dark blue piece and crinkling up a small piece of the black paper into a tight little ball which I glued beneath the flap. I wasn’t thinking about any specific symbolism, but when it came time to discuss our work, the therapist found a whole lot of meaning within my simple little piece, much of which actually rang true. And so I discovered things about myself that I wouldn’t have learned had I not been willing to try something I didn’t even believe in.

It’s a lot easier to suspend our reliance on reality when watching a comedy than it is to allow our ourselves to question our beliefs around our mental health, but there’s a lot bigger payoff than just a half hour’s worth of entertainment.  Whether we believe it or not, maybe we can just give an inch of space to the thought that there may be another reality than what our depressed minds are having us see. Unlike forsaking reality to promote the fiction, maybe we are believing the fiction and we need to suspend that in order to see the reality. 

It’s worth a try. We’re not  destined to be castaways forever.
Maggie

“If you’re going through hell, keep going.” 
-- Winston Churchill

I know, I know… everyone thought that was an original lyric by country singer Rodney Atkins. But no, Winston beat Rodney to it by several decades. But here, I’ll quote Rodney, too, from his song of similar title:


Things go from bad to worse
You think they can't get worse than that
And then they do.

That seems to describe what it might be like to be in hell. And it pretty well sums up what many of my depressive episodes have felt like, too.
 
There is apparently some debate as to whether Churchill’s quote was referring to England’s dire situation during WWII before the US entered the fray, or whether he was referring to his own bouts of major depression. Since I know very little about wars and thus would have a very short blog post if I tried to talk about them, I will instead use the quote in reference to depression.  

In reading the quote, notice that it doesn’t say “if you’re headed for hell…” If you’re headed for hell but not there yet, by all means shift yourself into reverse and get the hell out of there. But the quote also doesn’t say “if you’re in hell...” 
 
There is an assumption perhaps that if you are going through something, there must be a way in and a way out. Therefore if you stop midway, you’re not ever going to make it to the other side. Makes sense, and yet when we are in our “hell” of depression, losing heart and giving up is a very strong possibility. We come to believe that there really is no way out. Thus we stay stuck where we are. 

The idea to “keep going” seems like a fairly subtle response to a pretty bad situation. But maybe that’s the best way to approach it, with acceptance of where we are and a determination to be proactive. We’re not being told to fight our way out of hell. That’s like telling a depressed person to just get over it. Mind over... well, mind. I’m not sure that’s possible even on our best days. 
 
If we are going to simply keep going, though, it would really be helpful to know in which direction we should go. That might be a matter of introspection and an honest, objective evaluation of our circumstances, which unfortunately is not easy to do when we’re depressed. 

In my mind, that’s where therapy comes in. Good therapy can help us see the way out of the hell we have landed in. I did say good therapy, didn’t I? I guess we all have our own ideas about what constitutes good therapy, and I’m no therapist so I can’t offer any professional opinion. But I do have opinions nonetheless, and in my opinion, when we’re standing in hell, it’s not good to stop and eternally ponder how we got there. Sure, if we are carrying baggage that is weighing us down, we need to learn how to set that down, at least temporarily. 
 
But we also need the help of someone who can give us encouragement and hope, someone who can show us effective tools for getting out of our slump. Notice, they are only showing us the tools. We have to be the ones putting them to use to get ourselves to a better place. 

It is doable. There is a way out. We just have to keep going. That’s what I’ve been doing and I haven’t seen fire and brimstone for some time now. 

Maggie

Depending on how long one has suffered from depression – or from a particular episode of depression – coming out of it can feel like being depleted at the end of a long and arduous journey. Or maybe like being depleted at the end of a long and arduous jail term (although I can’t attest to that latter comparison personally). Somehow we have to return to a
“normal” life and start functioning again, and the “props” that were in place previously that helped to define our lives may either no longer be there or may no longer be appropriate to the new and healthier lifestyle we need to embrace. So how do we pull our lives back together? One piece at a time. 

Relationships: I wrote previously about reestablishing friendships in a post aptly titled “Reestablishing Friendships” which you can find here. In that post, I kind of assumed that those friendships were a positive thing in our lives and that it was a good move to rekindle those ties. But that’s not always the case. 

We may have been involved in caustic, abusive or otherwise unhealthy relationships that contributed to our depression and which we simply need to let go of for the sake of our mental wellbeing. This this can be a difficult thing to do. The most important consideration in extricating ourselves from an abusive relationship is to do so safely. That may require intervention from some legal or social services agency. Don’t hesitate to seek out the help you need.  

Other instances may not be so dire and may just be a case of distancing ourselves from certain people, whether they are former friends or even relatives. We can find ways to establish new, healthier relationships that will support our recovery rather than undermining it.  For ideas on meeting new people, go to Meetup.com, the ”world’s largest network of local groups,” to find a group of like-minded individuals on just about any topic you can think of.  Caveman dieters? Dachshund lovers? Belly dancers? They’re all there. Gumby and Pokey enthusiasts? Sorry, no. But don’t despair, you can start your own Meetup!

Health: Ideally, before we leave a hospital or other treatment facility or program, we will have located some resource for continuing our mental health treatment. It is important to keep moving forward in our recovery and to continue to reinforce whatever healthy measures might have helped us get this far along the way. If you can’t locate affordable therapy, there are agencies that can help. Find them.  

Sometimes we will have neglected our physical health when we were less functional. Physical and mental wellbeing are so closely intertwined, we can hardly ignore one and expect the other to thrive. Now is the time to get back on board with exercise and healthy eating habits. I’m not aiming to run a marathon any time soon, and my diet isn’t ideal all the time. I’m keeping my eating and exercise goals pretty simple, but I am making steady progress with my health, and that’s what counts for now. 

Finances: We may be facing a whole new slew of medical bills associated with our recent bout of depression. We may have been unable to maintain our jobs or other sources of income. There’s no quick fix for financial problems, except for winning the lottery, of course. In truth, I’m coming up short on suggestions for this one, as this is my biggest bane at present. But I’m taking this challenge a day at a time, too, trying to problem solve to the best of my ability instead of letting it get me down and undermine my recovery. 

Ultimately, these are all just individual facets to the life that we must now construct (or reconstruct) to protect and further improve our mental health.  We don’t have to tackle everything at once and we don’t have to do it alone. There is help available to us if we look for it. Taken one piece at a time, one small step at a time, we can rebuild our lives. It may never look the same as it did before we took a dive, but we may eventually find that we have come back even stronger than we were before. You never quite know how the puzzle is going to turn out until that final piece is in place. 

Let’s keep the faith together. 
Maggie