3 Ways Depression Is Your Friend
- stevenanthonytracy
- Mar 8, 2023
- 6 min read
Yes, you can re-read the title. No, it isn't a typo. Yes, this is water I am drinking. I know the idea that depression can be our friend might be hard for some readers to comprehend. It might even be offensive or scandalous for those, like me, who have struggled with depression their whole lives, who have stood over the edge, looked into the abyss, and hoped to find anything at all. Anything other than the heavy weight of nothing surrounding you, choking you.
I do not mean to offend you; I know what it is like and for a long time I would tell people how much I hated depression. I told them how much it had robbed me of the life I wanted to live. I experimented with nihilism and tried to insulate myself with my own meaning in an attempt to fill this abyss with something. Nothing really worked in the end.
So let me propose to you another way: Give up the struggle, the endless debate with yourself, the lies, the tears, the bargaining with yourself and God, the blaming, the screaming, and the excessive drinking. Take a deep breath and take a moment (there is always a moment to be taken), and let me pose to you the idea that depression is a friend trying to tell you something about your life.
(Note: I fully know that there are cases where depression is caused by physiological reasons such as a chemical imbalance. Wires get crossed and medication can help clients get a firmer hold on their lives. The depression being discussed in this blog is assumed to be non-physiological in cause. Depression is one of, if not the most, diagnosed mental disorders in the world and I am not seeking to make light of it. I encourage those reading this humble blog to always seek help from professionals and please not try to manage symptoms by yourself. We all need help!)
One: Depression Is Pain
More often than not I have clients coming into my practice with one request or goal, "I want to get rid of my depression." I would love to be able to do that for my clients, but getting rid of your depression is like getting rid of your ability to feel pain. Pain, like depression, signals to you that something is happening right now that you should pay attention to immediately before more damage is done. It is known that children with a rare genetic condition called congenital insensitivity to pain often have "an accumulation of wounds, bruises, broken bones, and other health issues that may go undetected."
We need the ability to feel pain to prevent ourselves from further injury. It is one of many ways that our bodies try to keep us safe, healthy, and thriving. When you go to the doctor's office for a sprained ankle, you don't typically ask the doctor to take the pain away, but leave your ankle alone. You ask them to treat your ankle and what happens to your pain in time? It goes away as your ankle heals!
So it is a wonder why so many people who seek therapy ask therapists to get rid of their depression and not address what is causing the depression in the first place. In my industry, we morbidly call that a 'corpse goal' meaning that a corpse can reach that goal better than a person who is alive and well can.
Let us then take our friend depression seriously when they are telling us that something is wrong! Alert! Alert! Pay attention to how you are living your life! Pay attention to what you do, say, and believe! In what matter at hand must you be brave and act? In this way, depression is pain.
Two: Depression Points To Values
Imagine you had a friend who only told you the truth no matter what. No matter how much it may hurt your feelings or make you resent them for a moment, they just told you when you weren't being your authentic self, that you were lying about yourself to fit in, or doing things that you didn't actually want to do. Depression is that friend if you allow them to be. It will come alongside you when you are alone and tell you that something isn't right, something has to change in your life.
I once had a client, a big imposing man, walk into my office. His head was in a permanent slump and he walked in like a ghost. I already knew that he almost killed himself days ago and it was only the thought of his young boy that ultimately stopped him from taking a handful of sleeping medication and slitting his wrists in the bathtub. Safe to say, I was on edge, I just started my practice not months ago and this was a doozy of a client.
His story was not uncommon, however. His divorced ex-wife was quick to move in with your new boyfriend, not a month after their divorce was finalized indicating that she was probably seeing this other gentleman while they were married. Worse yet, it seemed as if his son had taken a liking to this new gentleman and was always eager to see him after visiting his dad. The client worked a near-dead-end job with no hope of advancement and his living situation was undesirably crowded.
So obviously I looked at his depression, wagged my finger at it, and gave it a list of reasons why it should leave. "You're ruining this man's life, you're making his kid like the other man more, you're keeping him at a dead-end job that he doesn't like, and you keep telling him to end it all!"
Depression looked back at me and said to me, "Funny, that's what I've been telling him about
himself and I also told him to talk to you about it."
"Oh, well, I guess I should get started then."
The session took 2 hours. We went through almost his whole life and made a list of actions that were working towards his goals and a list that wasn't working. I encouraged him, gave him a lesson about his automatic mind, and gave him tools to unhook himself from his own inner experiences so that he had room to act on his values. As we did this, his perpetually slumped head slowly rose until I finally got to look the man in the eyes. Not once did I address his depression, it was irrelevant, that wasn't what was killing him, it was his response to his friend telling him that he is making poor choices in his life in response to his tragedy. We addressed his choices and depression, now satisfied, began leaving him in that moment.
"I feel a lot better. I feel like I can do this."
"That's the best part! You actually can."
Three: Depression Knows When to Leave
We all have a friend who doesn't have the social awareness to sense when it is time to part ways. Everything that could be done has been done and there is nothing else to do! Maybe this hits home more for me because I am an introvert, but I'm sure the experiences is near universal. Depression is like a friend that knows when to leave.
When all is said and done, when goals are being pursued, and you're living authentically to your values, depression waves a bid farewell and begins to leave you. Maybe not all at once. Maybe just in pieces at first, but with that new sense of vitality that comes with living out your values, you find yourself not minding depression so much. It's just a distant feeling that comes and goes just like any other inner experience. It won't hurt you and it respects you enough to never rob you of your ability to make choices in your life.
If you feel as if depression's voice might be too harsh for you and you begin to feel overwhelmed then take a deep breath. Anchor yourself in the here and now. Notice your mind's thoughts, your emotion, and any inner experience. Let them go by like clouds in the sky. Let them go and let them be. All you need to focus on is your breath and listen to what your friend is saying. What do you need to do? What is your mind trying to keep you from doing that needs to be done today or tomorrow? Fear is bluffing you, so be brave and act because no one else will do it for you.
Conclusion
If there is anything that I want you to get from reading this humble blog it is this: Your emotions are not a mistake, they are your body's feedback to you. An opinion of how you are living your life in comparison to what is important to you, your values. Take them seriously, respect them and they will stop shouting for your attention and begin to whisper instead, leaving you more room to act wisely in response to whatever life may throw at you.
Again, please do not tackle overwhelming emotions by yourself. Seek a professional to help you develop skills to keep inner experiences at a respectful distance, assess your values, and come up with a list of committed actions you can take to finally live that rich, meaningful life you have been seeking for so long.
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