Depression isn’t a big deal unless you ignore it
Dooce admits to it in her usual straightforward way.
I’d only add that not all depression needs to be treated with medication; I was afraid of being put on pills when I was diagnosed almost a year ago. That’s a decision for a professional to make, and believe me when I say that I would have taken pills if that was what was necessary.
In my case, just recognizing depression as a part of me - as something that has been a part of me since I was a very young child - got me a long way toward where I needed to be. (It also took me many months to accept it, many months I spent fighting my therapist - a man who is world-renowned for all the lives he has changed, a man who has changed the lives of other friends of mine through his wisdom and guidance. Part of me feels like those were months I wasted fighting when I could have been making more progress, but there is something strangely satisfying in losing a battle so completely, from every possible angle.)
Behavior modification - changing the way I see people and the world, and how I interact with them - has been key for me. This has rubbed a few people the wrong way, as behavior which was once acceptable to me became verboten, and I stopped casting myself in the role of head caretaker for the world. I discovered what boundaries are, and people who crossed them were just cut out of my life like the malignancies they were. This has been better for me than any pill could have been.
I was lucky enough to have immense support from a partner who was strong enough to let me rely on someone else for help with this. That can be very hard for a lot of men, who (for biological and honorable reasons) so want to fix everything themselves. If you’re a guy whose partner is struggling with emotions that go far beyond normal melancholy and pain, one of the most loving things you can do is make it easy for her to seek professional help.
For a long time, I had the “Mustn’t grumble, just get on with it” attitude that I adopted so completely when I moved to the UK. This attitude probably stole years of happiness from my life, as I refused to learn about myself or become aware of what emotions were driving my decisions. Once you know yourself better, you can be more objective and level-headed about where you go next. Sometimes pills are needed to gain that clarity; sometimes not. Either way, I cannot think of one sane argument for pretending otherwise.
Filed under: Life
Great post. Since you posted it first I read dooce’s posting, then found the new website for lawyers with depression (and there are a lot of us with issues that run from intermittant blues to full out addiction and behavior requiring immediate aid). Reading things like this is so valuable to me, because while I’m struggling to fight off the bad thinking and bad self-opinions, I’m also scared stiff at the idea of taking pills. Omega oil supplements is the closest I can come, I just can’t do St. Johns Wort etc - too much of an admission that there might be a problem. There was a wonderful blog on a woman academic who was fighting depression drug-free called Searchblog that seems to still be up, though posting has been slow since she achieved much recovery and had not yet decided what to do with the blog. Great stuff there on the struggle and the enlightenment of what is making it worse or how to make it much better.
The “mustn’t grumble” attitude, as well as the “this is a moral failure, I’m a defective person, so I’ll just take it since I deserve it [ or I’m too ashamed to admit it]” thinking is so pervasive, and so harmful. So, thank you again for being so open. My next step will also be cutting down the drinking - for weight loss (or bloat reduction) as well as getting the anesthetic out of my life. You were right-on with that issue as well.