How to Understand Depression

Depression acts like a wet blanket smothering the desire to change. It makes people tired and apathetic. It saps them of enthusiasm and the energy they need to change. You might say depression is like a thief in the night. When you wake up in the morning you have been robbed of the desire to do anything but the mandatory and routine things you need to do to survive. Clinical (biological) depression is a chemical disorder and can often be corrected with antidepressants. Emotional depression often needs talk therapy or a dose of cognitive therapy, which is outlined in Dr. Burn’s book, Feeling Good. Depression has to be dealt with. Even more than fear, denial, or low self-esteem, it can pin us to the ground and make it impossible to change.

Instructions

Difficulty: Easy

1. I have suffered from depression since I was eight years old. I can see the pain on my face in old photographs of myself taken while I was growing up. Over the years, I used mood-altering experiences, such as eating, getting drunk, and falling in love, to ease the pain. Eventually, these experiences stopped working and the depression overwhelmed me. I became suicidal. When I got into therapy and joined a support group, I felt better. As I worked through childhood issues, began to love myself, and found the joy of spirituality, the pain eased and I thought I would never be depressed again. Then, in 1990, I was struck down with a debilitating depression. It came out of nowhere. I didn’t understand it at first, but every day when I woke up in the morning I cried because I didn’t want to face the day. I didn’t know what was happening. I went back to therapy and tried to do more grief work. I continued my reparenting. I also pushed myself to go to my support group and to show up at work. The depression grew worse, and eventually the pain was so bad that I wanted to die. I was tired all the time because I couldn’t sleep. My appetite went away, and I lost a lot of weight. Eventually, my body was under so much stress that I broke out in hives. I was covered with huge welts. The hives worsened and my eyes and lips became hideously swollen. Then the histamine under my skin turned bloody. Steroids helped a little, but nothing took away the problem. Eventually, I collapsed from all of the stress and my doctor sent me to see a psychopharmacologist a psychiatrist who approaches emotional disorders with drugs to correct abnormal or faulty body chemistry. I remember getting a minor traffic ticket while driving to his office. I started crying and couldn’t stop. When I arrived at the therapist’s office I was a mess.
2. I was prepared to talk about my problems with this new therapist. However, he didn’t want to hear the story of my life; he just wanted to ask me some questions. I answered them and he looked at me with great tenderness in his eyes. He said, “Susan, I believe your problem is chemical. I don’t think talk therapy is going to help you this time.” The doctor then gave me an article about clinical depression. I resisted the idea of being clinically depressed, although my family had a history of this problem. I absolutely did not want to take medication because both my mother and sister had become addicted to narcotics prescribed by a doctor. (Later I learned that they had become addicted to painkillers in an attempt to mask their depression.) Because I was afraid of medication, I suffered for a few more weeks. Then, one day I couldn’t stand it anymore. With tears in my eyes, I called my doctor and agreed to give the medication a try. If the medication had not worked so quickly, I would have suspected that my condition had improved on its own without intervention. However, within days of taking the medication, I was sleeping through the night. The hives disappeared and I came alive again. I was not high, I just felt good because my body was not in so much pain. And I was ready to go back to growing and changing.
3. Today, I understand depression in all its many forms, and I realize that different kinds of depression require different treatments. I also understand that depression is the enemy of change and must be worked through in one way or another.