The Self-reinforcing Nature of Depression

Posted on December 29, 2012 by jenny

One of the hardest things about depression is the way it drives the cycle deeper.  I’ve been watching myself slide deeper into depression over the last week.  I know that part of it is associated with the holidays, I know that there are many people out there who are having a hard time.  Images and stories of people having fun together make us aware of how our own lives fall short.  For those of us who grew up in alcoholic and abusive families, our memories of the holidays are darkened by pain.  Even when you manage to have a really good time, as we did over the solstice weekend, there’s always a let down.

We celebrated the Winter Solstice at Neskaya with dancing and ceremony, then Saturday and Sunday, we had our “Beginning of the World Party.”  There were old friends and new, lots of good food, dancing and celebration. There were rituals for letting go of what you didn’t want and naming what you did want.  It was an enjoyable weekend, and one which contained depth, we were aware of the larger cycles we are a part of, and connected with our ancestors.  But after a good weekend like that, I nearly always crash.

This time was tough.  I got some positive feedback on Monday which helped, but a difficult conversation with a good friend on Christmas Day brought me down.  Looking back, I see that I was already badly depressed but in denial of it.  So I went into defense mode — talking very fast and refusing to deal with negative subjects.  Then I had a row of empty days, and the friends I usually call on for help were either away visiting family or had family here.  Being alone, I just didn’t have energy for anything.  So I haven’t been getting enough exercise, and I haven’t been eating well.  I just don’t feel hungry.  Not eating enough, not getting enough exercise has the effect of lowering my energy, which makes it even harder to eat well and get outside.  So I’m in a place where it takes all I’ve got just to prepare food and wash dishes.  At least I know I’ve been in worse depressions.  But at the moment,  I can’t imagine what I could do to bring myself out of it.  I’m feeling defeated, hopeless and helpless.  That’s exactly how someone feels when they’ve been traumatized.  I’m also, at some deep level, angry at myself for not being able to make the effort to get myself out of this.  That doesn’t help.

The paradox is that trying to get rid of depression doesn’t work.  Trying to overcome depression doesn’t work.  What does work is acceptance and compassion.  Right now, “accepting” depression means accepting that I won’t be able to get out of it.  I can’t find any compassion for myself, I’m so mad at myself.  sigh.

I go back to Bruce Levine, back to the passages I wrote down because I found them so helpful.  Bruce Levine on “choice.”  “Surviving America’s Depression Epidemic.”

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Christmas Memories

Posted on December 25, 2012 by jenny

Going to Mr. Wunker to pick out a tree.  The elaborate method of setting it up so it could take in lots of water and not be a fire hazard.  Going to see the living creche at Lytle Park and all the colored lights on the houses.  Staying up Christmas Eve to decorate the tree, then going down in the morning.  The doors to the living room were closed.  We had to eat breakfast and wash all the dishes before we could see the tree, even though we had been decorating it the night before.  Then we had to line up outside the doors, youngest first.  Daddy would go into the living room, light the fire, turn on the lights on the tree, and start a recording of Christmas music.  Then he opened the door and we all rushed in to gather and unwrap our piles of packages.  Gradually we children took over the ceremony.  One year, when brother Jesse had grown taller than his older sister, he announced that we would line up by size, not age.  Eventually this led to Mother going in first, followed by the rest of us.  We made a game out of getting all the breakfast dishes washed.  One year I said “Let’s see if we can finish the dishes in the time it takes to sing “The Twelve Days of Christmas.”  We were finishing the last verse very slowly until we could see nothing more, so we sang the final “… partridge in a pear tree!” and then, my brother Jack, who had been holding his hand under the dirty dishwater, triumphantly lifted up a big serving spoon.  “The One More Thing!” we chorused.  “The One More Thing” comes from a story by Josephine Johnson.  A housewife has almost finished the dishes.  She’s about to pour out the water in the dishpan.  She turns and looks all around the kitchen.  “I know you’re there so come on out.”  She sees nothing, so she dumps the water and spins around and “there it was, the One More Thing, a dirty ice-cream dish on top of the refrigerator.”  So when we found such an item we would scream with delight “The One More Thing!”

Unfortunately, our mother was unable to join in our fun.  She would wander around the kitchen looking sour, dabbing at invisible bits of dirt with a towel.  Possibly she felt that we could not be doing a good job if we were having fun.  Possibly she was trying to tell us how much work she did that wasn’t appreciated by her children.  (Which was ridiculous because we had servants.)  After breakfast was finished & cleaned up we would gather in the living room.  Mother, to make her point that we weren’t doing a good enough job, would say “I have to finish up,” and go back to the kitchen.  We all knew this was a excuse for a nip at one of her hidden bottles.  At the end of the day, having opened lots of presents, gone to our grandparents’ for a big party and dinner at which liquor flowed freely, come home tired and stuffed, I would retreat into a book.  And I would feel vaguely disappointed, something I needed or wanted wasn’t there.

The first Christmas I found out what Christmas was about was the year after my graduation from college.  A classmate and I decided to travel around Europe for the year.  We started in Ireland and went all the way to Greece.  At Christmastime we wanted to be in London with some older friends.  Anthony and Nora ran a small Bed & Breakfast that took only certain guests, most of them young American priests studying in Rome.  Anthony also ran a car-hire business which is how Bettie’s family got to know them.  They were a lovely couple, warm, caring and fun.  We took the boat train from Paris to Calais to catch the ferry to England.  We ended up in a compartment with a bunch of young British people.  I think there were seven of us.  We became a comradely group, sharing some crackers and cheese, an orange, and a chocolate bar.  When we got to the boat we stayed together.  At Customs entering England, we Americans got through quickly, but the returning British took some time.  So we went ahead and saved a compartment for all of us on the train to London.  By the time we got to London, we felt like family.

Christmas with Anthony and Nora was special.  Only a few presents were given, but all appreciated.  There was an older priest staying with them, and Nora gave us some money to buy nice handkerchiefs for him, but we saw a maroon cashmere scarf and got that instead.  It turned out to be perfect for Father Philip who was a scholar and appreciated fine things.  We gave Nora a jewelry box bought in Florence, and Anthony gave her a diamond ring, their first.  But the presents weren’t important, there was good fellowship, warmth, fun, and love.  That was when I really got what Christmas was about.

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Jesus Told Me

Posted on December 16, 2012 by jenny

Driving back from the dentist, I thought about what Harvey Cox said, that he had conversations with Jesus.  So I asked, and immediately Jesus was in the passenger seat.  I asked what I should do about the situation with my A-V presentation and someone canceling it.  He said forgiveness and compassion were the most important thing, that doing the show was nowhere near as important.  I said “But what about my vocation?”  He said “You’re already doing all you need to do to fulfill your vocation.”  What a relief, what a comfort.

Harvey Cox wrote a book called When Jesus Came to Harvard.  The book was based on a class he taught called “Jesus and the Moral Life.”  The picture of Jesus that emerges is one that I like very much and am pretty sure is how the man himself must have been.

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Somatic Experiencing

Posted on December 14, 2012 by jenny

The session with Caryn was pretty amazing.  This is where Somatic Experiencing becomes shamanic work.  I wedged my self into my corner and started crying.  I told her about being depressed again again, waking up OK only to lose it when I listened to a friend’s negativity and how there was nothing inside me to let me know when I’d had enough.  I told her about Kayla emphasizing the “100% commitment” and how it threw me into confusion: should I just take care of myself? or try to “market” the slide show? or go into my studio and make art?  Caryn said the first step is finding the resource, rebuilding it again and again.  This is something I have learned how to do.  I needed Caryn’s help at first, but I can (and MUST) practice on my own.  She said some wonderful amazing things: that building the resource and then just staying with that energy, “cultivating and consecrating” it, and bringing forth wisdom from it, that is my job as an elder.  I remember a long time ago she said I should sit with people who were dying because my energy would be comforting to them.  How could she know that?  I can’t imagine that just my presence would be comforting to anybody.  But now I’m understanding this might be true.  She said she was “channeling” and then I understood where the sense of authority came from.  So I wish I had the exact words, but I do think I got the essence of it.

Notes written during the session:
Remember to rebuild the connections over and over.

Instead of making myself wrong, let myself grieve the things I didn’t get to do.

When I want to do something, but haven’t got enough energy, what if, instead of beating on myself, I was able to empower myself and imagine the matrix which is the appropriate use of my energy & imagination as an elder, and to cultivate the wisdom of my life experience.

Consecrate and cultivate what energy I have left, by feeling it in my body, in my imagination, heart, and thoughts.

100% commitment to this process

I need to keep re-aligning myself with the creative life force  AND I don’t have to do anything with this force beyond feeling it.

Caryn McHose is a Somatic Experiencing practitioner in Holderness, NH.

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How Do I Know What I “Really Want”?

Posted on December 13, 2012 by jenny

Kayla and I have been doing a course in “Feminine Power.”  Some of the ideas have been very helpful. But recently I was finding it too abstract.  She said the basic thing was to take 100% responsibility for our lives.  I said I’ve done that, which I have, but that I’d lost the feeling of confidence and excitement about the “Sacred Sites” presentation.  I don’t know any more whether I “really want” to do it.

What Kayla said about 100% responsible, and trying to figure out what I “really wanted” to do — just flipped my life over, knocked it wide open.  What do I want to do with what’s left of my life?  I really don’t know.  I’ve been expecting that if my actions were aligned with my true purpose then the universe would support me, but that’s not what’s been happening.  The FP ladies said that the structures aren’t in place for us to realize our destiny, so we have to create those structures as well.  We have to commit to “doing what it takes.”  But I’m no longer sure what is my “destiny.”  There was one woman who talked about eating very little so she could stay slender and “attractive”, and she realized that wasn’t the best thing for her health, so she went out & bought fresh fruits and vegetables and started cooking properly to support herself.  Given that for me just getting through the day involves a lot of effort, maybe I’m not “supposed” to do any more.  What if I just did what I want to?  What comes up is the idea of taking care of myself as my first priority and forget the presentation.  The other thing that comes up is spending a lot of time in my studio, just making things.  Then I remember how hard it is for me to do that.  Mostly I could only begin when I had the support of an art therapist.  So I’m feeling really lost and confused.
How the HELL do I know what I “really want” to do?  I say “If it could be any way at all”…  I’d spend lot of time in my studio.  But I know that’s really difficult for me.  What would it take?  For me to heal enough so I COULD spend time in my studio making not art but what? silly little things?  ugly paintings?  Making “ugly paintings” was great at motivating me to actually set brush to paper.

I remembered the sense I had a while ago — that this was a new layer of trauma — and I was going to have to be patient and persistent, and do my best to be present to it.  Of course, as soon as I woke up “fine,” I fell into the old trap of thinking “I’m fine now,” and then when that turns out to be momentary, I fall into deep despair and helplessness.  If I had been able to tell myself, yesterday morning, “Yes, you feel OK now, and that’s very nice, but you’re still dealing with the deep new layer of trauma, and you need to keep protecting yourself.”  Then maybe I would have been able to stop a friend’s negative story before it got to be too much.

What was originally a slide show of pictures of Megalithic Monuments (Stonehenge, Avebury, etc) was digitized and edited into an audio-visual DVD that could be projected, while I gave the commentary live.  The work was done by Ben Moss, and I am enormously grateful for his amazing skills.

Megalithic Slide Show

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A Day in the Life

Posted on December 9, 2012 by jenny

“Today, like every other day, we wake up empty/and frightened.”   I woke up with that heavy grey, tired feeling.  I felt disappointed and discouraged to be waking up like this again again.  Then I remembered that my work is to be with it.  This isn’t despair or grief, it’s depression.  How does that feel in my body?  Heavy, grey, dull, like concrete.  Can I bring compassion to it?  There, there, it’s so painful waking up like this again.  There, there, it’s not your fault.  You have no control over brain chemistry. “Lord Jesus Christ have mercy on me.”  Now I feel the tears and the sadness.  I love life, and I love the earth, and it’s so painful not to be able to engage with them.  Now there’s a sharp cold pain in my chest.  Completely accept.  Compassion, compassion.  Now it’s tightened into an uncomfortable cramp.  I can feel myself wanting it to go away.  How about some compassion for the one who wants the pain to go away?  There, there, dear.  I’m so sorry this is how your day begins.  You are a good person, and you have a lot to offer, and yet every day you wake in this frozen hell.
Well, I could do some tonglen.  Think about all the people who are waking depressed this morning.  I feel a wave of compassion and sorrow.  I want to comfort them all.  Breathe in depression, breathe out warmth and kindness.
Chickadees coming to the suet feeder.  I’m glad to see them.  Lynelle suggested that — she actually gave me the feeder and the suet to put in it — so I wouldn’t have to scatter seed on the ground which brings the mice.  She also suggested putting seed on a tarp that I could fold up and bring in at night.  It functions pretty well, but it’s a lot of work, and I can’t put it out right away in the morning, I’m too tired.  and it makes too much noise so I can’t do it before Lynelle puts the ribbon out that tells me she’s awake.
Do I feel good about myself that I put so much effort into helping my friend?  No.  At least I’m not doing it because I think I “should” — that would bring up resentment.  I’m doing it because I want to.  But I miss the chickadees.  I suppose I would feel better if my sacrifice actually accomplished anything.  But Lynelle hasn’t been able to sleep more than 4 hours a night and it’s not because of the mice.  Dear Jenny, you are a very caring person, and you really love your friend, and you want to help her as much as you can, even if it’s a sacrifice.
So now I can put in the disclaimer — look!  I’ve spent this whole time turned inward.  what a waste of time.  And I say no.  This is how I heal.

Typing this up, I gain a little perspective.  I remember the winter of 2008, and how much worse I felt then than I do now.  And although I complain about “missing the chickadees” they are there now, it’s just that it was easier to toss out seed than to struggle with the tarp.

Today, like every other day we wake up
empty and frightened.  Don’t open the door to the study
and begin reading.  Take down a musical instrument.

Let the beauty we love be what we do.
There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground.

Rumi, from Open Secret, translation by John Moyne and Coleman Barks.

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Theories about Depression: Tray of Cups and Ferris Wheel

Posted on November 30, 2012 by jenny

From feeling great I fell into depression again.  At least this time I don’t feel like I’ve fallen back into old ways.  It’s clear that this is a new layer of old stuff.  It reminds me of my “Tray of Cups” theory of depression.   It goes like this.  You know those big rolling carts they have in cafeterias, that hold numerous trays of cups stacked inside?  When you want a cup of coffee or tea, you go pick a cup off the tray.  If it’s the last cup, and you think that’s the end, with that weight taken off, a whole new tray of cups rises into view.  I used to think that in psychological healing you would make some gains, and be feeling pretty good, in fact just well enough to face the next layer of sh-t which is waiting down there. And comes right up to confront you.

I also had a “ferris wheel” theory.  When I start to go down I resist it at first.  It turns out that the worst time is this period of resistance.  Finally I’d give in, accept that I was depressed, fall forward into it, and the momentum would carry me through the bottom spot and then I’d be on the upswing of the cycle.   This worked for me when I was just dealing with situational depression.  Sometimes it still works brilliantly, sometimes it doesn’t and I realize that I’m just “accepting” depression to make it go away, and that’s not really accepting.  That’s the trickiest thing about this whole business.

I’m in this place now where I’m feeling pretty profound despair.  I’m doing my best to hold it gently and with compassion.  But I’m still angry at myself for not “doing better.”  What do you mean you’re not going to go a little bit out of the way to get eggs at the farmstand?  How hard can that be?  Well it was too hard today, coming back from the vet’s and worrying about my little dog.  I have to forgive myself for not being able to do a lot of things I wouldn’t have any trouble with if I had more energy and confidence.

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Hostile Universe/ Friendly Universe

Posted on November 28, 2012 by jenny

I haven’t posted anything for a while.  I was sick, and then happy and busy, and then depressed again.  It took me awhile to figure out what had triggered the depression, then it occurred to me that it was “fear of success.”

Yesterday, driving back from the Co-op, it felt like a hostile world again.  I haven’t had that feeling in a long time.  I remember when it changed, a few years ago, I was so surprised to feel friendliness in the landscape, and realized that my whole life had been lived in a hostile universe.  It went back & forth a few times, and then it settled in and I started taking it for granted.  I think I must be dealing with a layer of trauma that’s just been uncovered or released for the first time.  It looks like it’s going to take a long time to heal, it’s big and old and deep in my psyche.  Astonishingly, I feel quite capable of doing the work.  It will require patience and persistence, but I’ve been building those skills.  Hard to believe, but I’m facing the pain in my heart and the hostile landscape with confidence.  I’ve done this before and I can do it again.

Only a few hours after writing this, I felt really hopeless, what was the point in going on.  And then some part of me said with fierceness, “Don’t let this keep you down.”

August 2010
It was good to be with so many people during the day.  My fear diminished to a bare whisper.  I keep trying to find words for it.  I see the beautiful day and it’s painful, as though I lacked a layer of skin so everything that touches me is painful.  I can see the beauty of the day, but I experience it as pain.  This morning writing about how hard it is to get it that people love me, I wonder if it’s a feeling that it’s not OK to be here.  That’s back to proving that I have a right to exist.  I feel like I have no right to exist and no right to enjoy the beauty.  If I could experience people loving me would that change?  Yes, it’s really like the whole landscape is hostile to me.  I remember that time, years ago now, that I felt the landscape welcome me and it was noticably different from what I was used to feeling.  I wondered at the time if that was how someone would feel who had been loved from birth.

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More Thoughts on Loneliness

Posted on November 18, 2012 by jenny

Another difficulty in finding friends is that I am extremely intelligent. (I left it out of the first post because of being afraid I was bragging.) I also happen to be well educated, but my two best friends are very intelligent, though their education was not Ivy League.  Because of the trauma and my parents’ alcoholism, I started questioning things very early.  This means that I tend to ask uncomfortable questions and express uncomfortable thoughts.  I’m not good at small talk, except with people I’m comfortable with.  On a recent visit to my family, I couldn’t participate in the conversation which was almost entirely about shopping and TV shows.  I don’t shop, I hate shopping, and I learned very early that buying things in order to boost self-esteem doesn’t work.  I don’t watch TV, though I do have a small TV and VCR so I can watch the occasional movie.

I’m also caught in the “Demoralization Box”  described by Bruce Levine in Surviving America’s Depression Epidemic.  Once you are demoralized, you don’t have the energy to remoralize yourself.  You need it to come from outside. How can I arrange for that?  I haven’t a clue.  Dance events usually help.  Certain friends almost always help, but sometimes they’re busy or away.  Sometimes I feel better as long as I’m with them and drop back into depression when they’re gone.  The biggest difficulty, when I start feeling depressed, is it gets harder and harder to call friends for help.  That’s the Demoralization Box.

Reminded about the social causes of depression, I see the faces of traumatized people from Dakota 38.  There were faces of soldiers in Vietnam, and faces of Natives taken in black and white.  Both have the same flat look.  I’m tempted to say “stunned” but there’s not that look of emergency, of something having just happened.  They don’t look unconscious, but what they are conscious of is a black hole of disbelieving hopelessness and helplessness.

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Profoundly Lonely

Posted on November 18, 2012 by jenny

I am feeling profoundly lonely.  I know I need to see at least one person who cares about me every day.  Due to a life-long struggle with depression, I didn’t have a chance to make a lot of friends.  My two long-term friends have only stayed friends because they also know what it is to struggle with emotional dysfunction.  I have some friends who have hurt me badly in the past due to not understanding about PTSD, and though I can still be friendly with them, I don’t fully trust them, so I can’t be completely real with them.  I have a lot of friends who are acquaintances, but many of them I don’t know well enough to know if I’m safe sharing the realities of my life.  I also don’t have a lot of chances to meet people.  My social life revolves around people who come to Neskaya.  People who come to dancing may live far enough away that getting to them for a visit is problematic.  This is another difficulty of living in the country.  It’s also true that when I go to public events, like gallery openings, if I’m already depressed, I just feel worse in a group of people who appear to be having a good time.  If I’m not depressed I enjoy them.  But that means they can’t be a resource in times of depression.
This last week, I’ve been sick, and had to cancel an appointment and a lunch date.  Being sick means I can’t do a lot of things, and that leaves me vulnerable to depression.  Sometimes I don’t know if I’m sick because I’m depressed, or depressed because I’m sick.  Unfortunately, depression tend to reinforce itself.
Being able to enjoy things, as I found out when I was first on medication, is a function of normal brain chemistry.  It’s only recently that I’ve begun to be able to enjoy most of my day, no matter what I’m doing.  So that makes this recent descent into depression more painful.
I’ve been trying to think of what I could do to have more human contact in my life.  One is to find ways to participate in a local church.  I like the minister, I really liked what he had to say when I went to services at Christmas and Easter.  A friend of mine is in the choir.  She has suggested I join, and that’s not a bad idea.  There is also a discussion group on two Wednesdays in December.  And the food pantry which I might be able to help with — it would only work for me if I was a part of a group, not doing something all by myself.

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