Negative Energy: Depression (2 of 2)

Another part of my mental health program was to read books of people overcoming depression.  One book I read was “A Season in Hell” by Percy Knauth, who had everything but feared growing old.  He described becoming depressed as his “descent into hell”, which he likened to a snake swallowing its tail.  Knauth detailed three basic rules that he discovered to help him overcome his depression.  I follow his basic rules even today, since they remind me to take care of myself.

The first rule is to get out of your bed.  Depression tells you that nothing good will come of leaving your bed.  By getting up, you are declaring victory over depression.  By leaving your bed, you are greater than your depression.

Rule number two is to make your bed.  Depression creates chaos in everyone’s life.  The chaos can overwhelm you, and keep you stuck in the mire and debris of your wrecked life.  By making your bed, you are creating order out of chaos. Since you can do that, you can rise above your depression.

The third rule is to make yourself a hot drink.  This simple act of ministering demonstrates that you still care about yourself.  Depression tells you that you are worthless.  By feeding yourself something that you have cooked, you demonstrate your self-worth.  You are re-enforcing your desire to live.

Doing these three simple things every day becomes building blocks to a good life.  Some days when you feel useless, you can point to accomplishing these three things.  Each is fundamental in creating your future, since each propels you away from your nihilism.

What depression has taught me is that all feelings need to be expressed and felt.  For example, grief can be love that has no place to go.  Instead of constructing a tomb to live in, you build a shrine to visit.  By releasing the grief, you open yourself up to more love.

Breaking out of the prison of despair and hopelessness takes action.  By following Knauth’s rules, we can become unstuck and move on.  Employing a program of mental hygiene helps us to give up our old stories of despondency and grief.  Depression does not need to be the black hole sucking us in.  We can see it as a time of learning about our strength and reclaiming our personal power.  We can use this new found power to fill the black abyss up with flowers.

Works Used:

Boeree, C. George, “The Ultimate Theory of Personality”, Shippensburg University, 2006 http://webspace.ship.edu/cgboer/conclusions.html,

----, “Depression Guide”, Depression-guide.com, 2004, http://www.depression-guide.com/index.htm,

Flach, Frederick, “The Secret Strength of Depression”, Hatherlaigh Press: New York, 2002.

Frankl, Viktor, “Man’s Search for Meaning”, Washington Square Press: New York, 1963.

Hartman, Tori, “Color Wisdom Workbook”, PDF from author, http://www.torihartman.com/shop/pc/home.html,

Heath, Ian, “Discover Your Mind”, 2002, http://discover-your-mind.co.uk/index.htm,

Knauth, Percy, “A Season in Hell”, Time-Life: New York, 1975.

---, “The Merriam-Webster Thesaurus”, Merriam-Webster: Springfield (MA), 1989.

Myhre, Mark Ivar, “Existential Despair”, The Emotional Times, 10 July 2011, http://www.emotional-times.com/2011/07/existential-despair.html,

Negative Energy: Depression (1 of 2)

In order to discuss depression, one needs to separate the mental illness from the emotion.  Although the two are intertwined, there are differences.  The mental illness is a disease of the brain, which is not producing enough of the chemicals needed for brain health.  To help the brain function better, doctors prescribe various medications to replace the chemicals needed for mental balance.

Depression, the emotion, occurs when various negative emotions turn sour and then go underground.  The result is a dull ache of the heart, and a feeling of despondency.  Depression, as despair and loneliness, becomes the end point of the soured emotions, opening up the black abyss before us.  We can be happily jumping rope one day, and then suddenly stop because the activity now seems meaningless to us.  We question why we should continue to live since we were born to die.  This is full blown depression which invites us to jump feet first into the oblivion.

In his presentation on depression, Ian Heath divides this emotion into three types.  Each has a base emotion that has gone underground, and reappears as a different form.  Depression, based on guilt, fixes the blame on the person themselves, who now feels guilty for existing.  Depression, which is derived from envy, creates alienation from other people.  The person becomes an injustice collector because they see themselves as a victim.  Depression, based on sorrow, turns into self-pity with a feeling that much injustice permeates the world.  The result of these varieties of depression is a sense of personal unworthiness.  Combined with their bitterness and resentment, the person becomes overwhelmed by life.  Depression, then, sets in prompting a feeling of nihilism and futility.

For me, depression is a deep sadness and grief that the world is not what it should be.  This deep unrelenting grief has no place to go, and becomes the tomb we live in.  The feelings of helplessness and hopelessness have come to dwell inside in our hearts.

 

However to come completely back from the brink meant that I needed to take baby steps.  First was to reorder my chaotic mind.  To that end, I established a program of mental hygiene.  I would read and watch only things that would be helpful to me.  I follow this program, even today, to fill my mind with happy and cheery things.

One of the first books that I read about depression was “The Secret Strength of Depression” by Frederic Flach.  The author presented the concept that depression is a normal reaction to stress.  Dr. Flasch emphasized that it is normal to feel grief and loss but not for long periods.  Since I had a chaotic childhood, I mourned the loss of feeling safe.  Being depressed had became a habit of thought as familiar to me as breathing.  Dr. Flach discussed how to leave the squirrel cage of depressed thinking and reconstruct “normal” thoughts.

The next book I read was “Man’s Search for Meaning” by Viktor Frankl.  In this book, he related his experiences in the Nazi concentration camps.  As a survivor, Frankl pondered why some people, who had many advantages, died while others with nothing like himself lived.  He was kept alive by the memory of his young wife since he believed that they had a future together. From this experience, Frankl realized that the survivors believed in the future.  He developed his theory of logotherapy, which is to find a will to live through meaning.  In the emptiness of time when nothing exists to take us away from ourselves is when we seek to find meaning for our lives.