What to do with depression?

I am absolutely positive that I have found the best way to deal with anxiety. As described elsewhere I now believe that the mindful way is the long term answer to that particular problem. When it comes to depression I personally find it a bit more difficult to comprehend but the answer is still the same. Anxiety is more tangible because it tends to be a more acute condition, like a bullet exploding in your flesh and you can deal with it the same way, here and now. Depression on the other hand is a slow poisionous killer. Now that I have started doing some serious self development I have found it much more accessible to relate to my feelings of anxiety than to my feelings of depression. Nevertheless the way to deal with either problem is the same: accept.

Depression and anxiety often go side by side but since I have already written about anxiety in another paper from now on I will focus on that creeping soulkiller known as depression. It is a terrible condition and if you have not been there yourself I assume it can be very hard to understand what goes on in a depressed person. In short depression is a state of mind where you have more or less lost your appetite for life. In severe cases you spend most of you time thinking about death. Do not make the rookie mistake of thinking that depression is not as serious a condition as fx cancer or other grave physical illnesses. It is every bit as serious because in about 10% of the cases it leads to suicide research states. And even when it does not the costs can be considerable; for the person actually suffering as well for the people sorrounding him or her.

There are of course many variations of this condition but in order to draw a clear picture I have to be a little categoric henceforth. And categorically speaking depression is sadness. But the thing is that you do not really know why you are sad. This is important. When you are having a depression occasionally some ignoramus tells you things like ‘oh, everyone gets sad from time to time’. Well, dah! Obviously we do, but when we get sad we do so for a reason. Depression is different in the sense that we can be extremely sad with only vauge ideas about as to why, if any at all. Each day the will to live just decreases. We become disinterested in just about anything, we become joyless and passive. Just getting out of bed in the morning can be a tremendous task. We become increasingly silent and withdraw from the world physically and/or mentally. I sometimes feel like a zombie, a living dead with nothing but pain inside.

My friends and family know that when I stop answering their calls and messages it is time for them to interviene even when they know I would prefer that they did not. In a depressed state of mind you are often unable to take care of yourself. Things that could do you good and ease the depression is things like excersise and sunlight, healthy food and loving company. But you do not want any of it and even if you do there are no strenght left in you to try and obtain it. I am a firm believer in interventions when it comes to depressions and this is my first piece of advide to you: if you are depressed allow other people to carry you when you can not walk yourself. I strongly recommend that if possible you first of all turn to people whom you love and trust.

Perhaps you have notions and ideas about not letting other people see you in such a vulnerable and miserable state. In that case my second piece of advice to you is: let it go. I can not promise you that someone will not dissapoint you on this account but in a situation like that you really need to know who you can trust and rely on. And who you cannot. Sometimes depressed people try to commit suicide not because they really want to die but because they desperately need help and attention and do not know how to get it otherwise. Do not go that far! You mess up your loved ones badly behaving like that and who knows, you might get unlucky and actually end up killing yourself by mistake. Instead open your mouth and tell them what you need and how bad you need it.

Still, there are many perfectly good reasons for not wanting to go on living. Life hurts, we know this for a fact. You loose people you love, you feel anxiety, anguish, jealousy, sorrow. Many bad things can happen to you and on top of it all  you have to deal with the fact that every one and everything eventually will die, including yourself. I know this all to well; over a period of just seven years I lost my father, my sister and my fiancee. I would say it makes perfect sense to feel sad about all. But in the depressed state of mind we make a thorough error and that is that we close our eyes to all the positive aspects of life that are also there. We only see the dark side of the moon and that is just as wrong as only seeing the lit side.

The Germans have a word, Weltzschmertz, which means something like ‘pain because of the world’.  I believe the Enghlish word that comes the closest to the meaning is spleen. Weltzschmertz occurs not only when we hurt because of events in our own life but also when we feel the weight of the larger cruelties of the world, like wars or natural disasters. It often applies to poets and thinkers and it has a certain romantic ring to it. But really there is nothing romantic about it. I once had a fairly odd (but interesting) fling and when we were talking about a specific heavy metal band he told me with shining eyes that all the band members were diagnozed with depression. He thought that was cool. I thought it was just sad.

 
This is the true deviousness of the condition: not only do we feel all these negative things but we are also unable to grasp the positive. We do not feel it; it makes no sense to us. I recall reading somewhere that really religious people were less prone to depressions. This seems only logical since depression in essens is also the loss of meaning and I guess that does not come as easily if you are a firm believer in some higher well defined power. But if you are not, like me, you can quickly reach a point where nothing makes sense anymore when depression kicks in.

I have read a lot about depression in an efford to understand what in the world was happening to me. And I have recieved therapy and medication for my recurrent depressions. But to this day depression stays somewhat of a mystery to me and I still feel it on a regular basis. I think this is the case with the world too. I have never come across anything or anyone able to solve this puzzle. Nothing out there but suggestions, hints and opinions as far as I can tell. But I am starting to suspect that depression is something we build up ourselves. I am not in any way saying that we are to blame for our own painful condition. We do not do this on purpose and we are not even aware that we are doing this.

This requires some elaboration for sure. I believe, like the Buddhists, that we build up pain when we desire something, or as in this context: when we want reality to be something else than what it is. There is real pain in life, I have already stated this as a fact. This the Buddhists call Ducckha. But there is also Ducckha ducckha or ‘dirty pain’ and this occours when we feel pain about feeling pain. For instance, I wake up one morning and feel very sad inside. Perhaps I had a dream about the man I loved and lost. In that case this is Ducckha, real pain because I genuinly miss him. But then I go on thinking things like ‘how am I supposed to life without him? I will never find anyone who can fulfill me like he did. I will die alone and unloved.” I might start to cry no longer because I lost the man I love but because of all the implications I connect to the fact. And so this chain of thoughts have led me directly into Ducckha ducckha, the dirty pain.

In order not to create the dirty pain in the same scenario I wake up. I feel my sadness, my Ducckha, and I understand that it has to do with the loss of a loved one. And then I leave it at that. I may still have the chain of thoughts I just described and so I acknowledge that they are there; but I do not blindly believe what they tell me this time. Instead I tell myself that I have already lived for years without him so obviously this is possible. And weather or not I will someday meet someone new or not I do not know. And since I do not know it would be a waste of time contemplating this. I think that each day you collect this type of dirty pain if you are not mindful. You then throw it all into your backpack and when it is full depression shows its ugly face. You have told yourself so many dark stories and lies about life without even being aware of it. Now you feel the intense sadness of it all and you can no longer dechifer were it originates from. It believe this is at least a part of the explanation for depressions.

Be that as I may. We can use this knowledge as a preventive measure. But what if we have already stepped into the trap with our backpacks full? We hurt. We have no hope, no desires or goals and no meaning left in our life. It is a barren wasteland and every hour here lasts a day, every day a week. Now it gets hairy again as my answer would be: we can still be mindful. First we accept the fact that we hurt. We accept all these feelings of emptiness, lack of meaning and faith, sadness and what else is there. We recognize the thoughts that are there too; the dark, negative thoughts that polute the depressed mind. And then we leave them be. We remember that they are only thoughts, ideas, contructs. The thing is that if you can acchieve true mindfulness, being present in the moment with things the way they are, you do not feel your depression, you do not feel your dirty, constructed pain.

This is some claim, I know, but I have tried myself many times now. Sometimes it only last for seconds sometimes longer but when I fall back into my depression I do so with the memory of not feeling it just moments before and I thereby understand that I can do that again. I now have the experience that for just a moment I grasped life and reality in a way that felt so very different from the depression. I know now that this reality, depression aside, is there inside of me all the time. I only need to learn how to stay there more often and longer. And if I practice and continue to do so I believe that I will eventually be able to live most of my life like that, maybe even leaving the depression behind for good some day. I have obtained this through meditation and right now that is the only method I know of. But that does not mean that there are not other ways out there. I just have not discovered them yet.

As I said earlier on personally I do find depression more difficult to handle in a mindful way than anxiety. The positive results are not as clear for me when it comes to depression, that sneaky bastard. But nevertheless here I am writing this paper and the one before this one as I have been doing for the last seven hours or so. And let me tell you, it has been years since I have had the energy to do something like that. I am amazed at myself and can hardly believe that I am actually doing something in an intense way besides from watching TV, sleeping or playing computergames. And the only thing that has changed in my life is the way I percieve it. My mindfulness practice. It would seem that like the depression itself the recovery is just as subtle. But I do not care, as long as it is there.