Created July 9, 1997. Last modified February 19, 1998.
Physicists tell me the universe with all its quirks, including me, is made of quarks. Astronomers tell me I am made of the stuff of stars. Biologists tell me my body is a complex electrochemical balance. Ministers tell me I am a soul created in God's image. Metaphysicists tell me my existence is due to my karma. Advertisers tell me I should be tall, busty, beautiful and blonde. Friends tell me to relax and be myself. My mother tells me I always have to analyze everything--why can't I just be happy? A psychologist tells me I have to ask myself what does happy mean to me? My husband tells me everyone can choose their state of mind--why can't I? And that is the telling question!
Why can't I just be happy? Why do I have to be depressed? Why can't I just --choose-- not to be depressed and get on with life?
I'm hoping that by having experienced depression, by having received both medical and psychological assistance, and by having graduated and worked as a nurse during this difficult period of my life, I can now find some way to tell someone who has not experienced depression, why it is so difficult to move beyond it.
Fortunately, for the past year, I am beyond depression. I have no way of knowing, at this time, if I will face it again in the future. For now, though, I am --happy-- that at long last, I do seem to have the --choice-- of how I feel.
To start out with, a bit of background. I feel very grateful that I am one of those for whom a medicine called Prozac has been helpful. I swallowed one pill a day for one year, then tried going without it--unsuccessfully--for six months. When I started back on Prozac, I also invested in several therapy appointments, also very helpful in the long run, although I opened the door to more than I expected at the time.
Soon after, I began suffering what my doctor termed "Panic Disorder". However, with further investigation, I realized I had been stressed for so long without relief, that I was basically having "a nervous breakdown". I took my vacation days plus a short leave of absence from my job. And when I returned to work, I switched to a different shift and responsibilities that were not as stressful.
I couldn't afford many therapy sessions, and after a thorough rest, during which I purposely spent time and money on myself for a change, I didn't feel the need to continue with them. I did start taking daily walks and tried to build a stronger support network for myself with my family and friends. And I did continue taking Prozac for a second full year. During that time, I started to identify problems in my life that were contributing to my depression. I still could not --choose-- to be happy, but I was learning to choose how I lived. By the end of the year, I chose to change jobs. That meant I could no longer afford to take the Prozac. Scary! Risky! But I had de-stressed, and the Prozac had given me enough time experiencing another way of feeling, thinking and doing that I hoped I could cope.
That was the beginning of January, 1997. As I pondered over my New Year's Resolutions in January, 1998, I realized I had made it one year without Prozac and without being majorly depressed. There were definitely moments when depression was still very real to me, but I found myself able finally to --choose-- not to sink into it.
There is a difference between --choosing-- to be happy, and --choosing-- NOT to sink into depression. I still could not make myself happy by willing it. But I now knew that when depression struck, there was a trigger I could do something about. I was tired. I was stressed. I was angry. And if there was nothing I could really do to change the situation, I learned to give myself "time off" from it. If I was in the middle of work and couldn't get away from the stress, I got through it by telling myself I could last five more minutes. That if it was too bad after that five minutes, I would leave, but before I left I would do just one more thing. The five minutes approach got me through some pretty tough times.
As I found the triggers, I began to create a mental checklist to determine what approach I needed. The first thing I checked was whether I'd had enough sleep. If not, I went to bed. If sleep wasn't the problem, I took a walk, stretched out and exercised for a half hour. If I had been active, then I gave myself time to do something completely relaxing, just for myself, either right then, or as soon as possible. Or sometimes I discovered I could do one of the chores I had been putting off forever--and getting even one thing I didn't want to do off my shoulders, made me feel better about myself and broke the downward spiral.
As a result of learning to choose how --not-- to sink into depression, I now find myself able to say that it's been over a year since I last plunged into bleak, black, downward-spiraling, bottomless pits of despair. And I am exploring tentatively, gropingly, with how to --choose-- to be happy.
I'm starting by asking myself that psychologist's question of what does happiness mean to me? The answers don't come in brilliant, blinding flashes of enlightenment. But there are many more moments in my current jobs where I'm smiling, humming, not minding being there. At home, often I'm whisking without thinking through chores that before had been "One More Thing" to deal with and were sometimes one thing too many. And more and more, I'm able to do things with my family and friends without agonizing internally about if I'll have energy enough, or if I'll get too cold or uncomfortable, or if I shouldn't be doing something else instead. I am actively accumulating these moments of enjoyment. I am fusing them into the solid rocks I throw into the depression pit so that I have stepping stones upon which to mentally balance if I think I feel myself sinking even a smidgen.
These realizations took me the second year I was on Prozac, plus the year after it, to learn. And that's the hard part when I talk with family and friends. Because they make these choices and accumulate these moments on a regular basis day in and day out, year after year. It isn't that it's easier for them; it's just so obvious! So the question still stands between us--why isn't it obvious for someone who is depressed? Why can't depressed people simply stop "feeling sorry for themselves" and get on with life, like everyone else?
The answer isn't simple. There are often mental, environmental, and behavioral factors involved. The fact that depression deals with how I think and feel and act places it in a psychological context. That tends to add a stigma to an already overwhelmingly negative experience, making it even harder to face, deal with, and move beyond. But I learned in nursing school that there are also physiological factors involved. The real cause of depression is still not clearly understood. But the current research shows chemical imbalances in the brain are involved. In facing the fact that I was dealing with depression, I found it much easier to accept that I was dealing with a physiological illness, than that I might be psychologically out-of-whack. However, it is unfortunate that these chemical imbalances occur in the brain. Because, as a result of the locale of the imbalances--WHAMMO, I'm right back to hearing it referred to as a MENTAL illness! Stigma time again!
Never-the-less, no matter what anyone else may call it or think of it as, I rationalize that it is a physiological process, no less than diabetes, where the body doesn't produce insulin effectively on its own. In the case of depression, the body reabsorbs too much of certain brain chemicals. The mental effects are a result of too little of certain chemicals being available to do their job properly. THAT is "why" I can't "simply" STOP "feeling sorry for myself" and get on with life. There really truly is a reason that unless I take a corrective medicine or learn yoga or find some other way to stimulate the body to correct the chemical imbalances, I may have an extremely difficult time trying to pull myself up by the bootstraps to get out of the awful pit.
In my case, I realized (admittedly, somewhat reluctantly) that it was not --JUST-- a physiological problem. I definitely had psychological baggage to deal with. Not the least of which was coming to terms with the fact that I had been repeatedly sexually molested by a babysitter when I was very young. The therapy sessions were worth their cost many times over as I began to finally see connections between the victimization of being molested, my lack of self-esteem as I grew up, and the fact that I could never allow myself to be successful as an adult because somehow I was at fault for what happened and didn't deserve success! I had always had a side of me that was strong and independent, creative, and stubborn enough to keep the depression from totally incapacitating me. I never was suicidal, and was not even obviously depressed most of my life. But always, inside, I was terribly frustrated that I had to exist and yet couldn't seem to get it right. I am a perfectionist constantly battling with procrastination and never completely believing in myself. That made fertile ground for the tendency toward depression that I lived with all my life to burst into full bloom when life started hammering me with sledgehammer blows a few years ago.
The insidiousness of my depression was that no matter what good thing I tried to tell myself to counteract the downward slide into the pit, my mind could always manage to twist it and poison it and tangle it back into itself, so that there was --no-- way out! And that's where I believe the psychological and the physiological got tangled up together and did me in. Because two weeks after I started taking the Prozac--which keeps more of the needed chemicals available for proper electrochemical processing in the brain--I felt like I had been drowning and had suddenly been released from the watery depths and my head had just broken out above the water and I could breathe.
My thinking was different! It actually --felt-- different! I could see choices where there had been none before, or where, no matter how many choices I had come up with, the depression had twisted them into non-choices immediately. I could think about doing something and then do it, without all the agonizing analyzing that had so often kept me from doing anything or enjoying it if I did try to do it.
I remember telling my husband, "You mean --this-- is how everyone else thinks? I could have been thinking like this all my life? If they had only known about things like Prozac when I was a kid? All the things I could have done with my life by now, if I'd only been able to think like this then!" I swore to him then that no one would ever take me off Prozac if it meant going back to how I felt and thought before! Fortunately, over the second year that I was on the pills, I was also dealing with the psychological factors, which now--surprisingly enough--were so much more --obvious-- than they had ever been before! And eventually, I felt that I understood enough about how it felt to think this new way, to be able to recreate it on my own, without the need for the pills. It was at least worth a try! And so far, although it isn't as easy (or even sometimes as obvious) as with the Prozac, I am slowly piling those stepping stones up to where there's no where much to sink into anymore.
I'm withholding judgment on whether I've learned to live successfully or happily. Partly because I've started to question the question. Isn't it a little like the physicist who tries to observe whether light is a particle or a wave? The process of observing skews the results! I think it's more valid and validating to just "get on with life". Gee, haven't I heard that somewhere before?
This is a very brief attempt to deal with a very complex subject. But, maybe, if in writing it, I find myself approaching an understanding of what the non-depressed person is trying to say--then perhaps what I write will make it a little easier for someone who doesn't experience depression to deal with someone who does. And, if nothing else, it should be good for my karma! (I know, Mom, I'm still analyzing!)
Copyright © Jeanie Ramsey 1998
Comments? Questions? Email Jeanie "Calico Cat" Ramsey, or contact me with ICQ! My UIN is 948220.
Created July 9, 1997. Last modified February 19, 1998.
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