Demythologising Depression
- Megan Haldane
- Feb 8, 2019
- 7 min read
As to the title of my book being written, depression is a myth. There is really only one reason to de-mythologise what we call depression.
The reason is this. What we commonly call depression is a state of being. It is not actually a disease. It is not an illness. It is a state of being which comes and goes. It can come suddenly. It can go suddenly. This state of being can come upon us quietly with great stealth and linger. It can come upon us very suddenly and increase in its intensity. It can stay for a while and quietly leave. All in all what we call depression is not an actual entity in and of itself. It is a set up in our minds which has developed often without our knowing. When certain conditions in our lives come together our minds become affected, dependent upon how we manage or do not manage what is happening. When prevailing conditions are felt as pleasant and comfortable we can relax. When we feel them as vexing, traumatic, disturbing we may become anxious fearful and tense. Our particular mind will be affected dependent upon what state our mind is already in, whether we know it or not.
So called depression manifests in many different ways. These manifestations we call symptoms. These symptoms come in many combinations and their timing is unpredictable.
My friend who is tired, listless, lacking in energy tells me he feels depressed. I am sure he does. Another person tells me they are depressed because they are not able to eat. They are not able to sleep. They have difficulty concentrating. That person tells me they are depressed and for them they are. Yet another person tells me she is feeling lonely. Her friends don’t seem to like her any more. She does not understand why and now she has lost her zest for living. She feels very depressed. I have no doubt she does feel what she calls depressed. This state of being, this felt experience came about due to something that happened to her and her response is naturally full of great disappointment anguish and hurt. These emotions or the potential for them to arise were sitting there for a long time. When I explore a bit of background and history of anybody who sees me for depression, even sudden onset; “I have felt so happy all of my life and since such and such happened I have never gotten over it and now I feel deeply depressed” type of onset;
… I find that the person has been managing their mind state, their feelings, their emotional state all of their life. That is for sure but all along the way the methods used were not really holding their mind steadily enough to bring about many if any feelings of happiness. Sooner or later this was bound to happen. An event or a series of ordinary life events tips them over into a 'depressive' state of mind. Others… and there are far too many, they say they always felt depressed and never experienced a moment of real happiness their whole life.
So the word ‘depression’ has become a generic label for people’s dissatisfactions and sufferings, mental and emotional pain and anguish, some of which are chronically underlying and grumbling away in their minds and others always holding a tight grip over them. Depending on a person’s particular responses to life’s negative displeasing events, after a build up in their minds they can become catastrophically damaged and this can ultimately destroy their way of life, their very being. This we may label as being clinically depressed which sounds like a condition without hope but I see it as a condition without help, well not the right kind of help anyway.
When we continue to label all of these uncomfortable and distressing ways of being with this mythical word ‘depression’ we fail to come to grips with the task of exploring and managing the causes behind these states of being and finding ways to do something about them. If we were to do that with support from the beginning of our lives we would begin to work with our minds and change ourselves. So called depression, distressing states of mind, would come and go and after a lot of work with the mind, a management system could be be set in place. Then we could deal more easily with life’s unfortunate stresses and troubling events. We would manage our state of being without a heavy build up of negative mind, mental and emotional layers and particular patternings especially in our thinking. We would not gobble down pills to change these troublesome patternings which are constantly triggered in our brains. Instead we would know the problem is in our mind. This affects our moods and our whole mental state, something most people are afraid of because they don’t really understand the mind. The mind becomes a scary place. We are mentally disturbed. We lose all confidence in ourselves, our being. Because of this there is an abounding stigma around people who suffer more than others at these times in their lives. We conveniently label their state of mind as a ‘depression’ which slots nicely into the ‘mental health’ categorisation of this situation and unfortunately brings up fears for everybody and further stigmatizes the person into being thought of as possibly mentally ill. Then everyone around the person is very worried and afraid. Oh no, that poor person has the illness, the black dog, the dreaded ‘depression’. Then the person feels even more lonely and isolated. Even the caring ones who give them a bit of time and company and maybe a few hugs go back home to their own beds every night and the one suffering from ‘that illness that never really leaves you’ is well, just left with that ‘dreaded illness’.
Take out this word ‘depression’ and see what is really going on for anyone suffering low moods, mood swings and all that goes with it. It takes a while. I have helped people over many years to learn to handle the difficulties in their lives, the ones that have thrown them off their centre. I do not call them ‘depressed’. I help them see that they failed to manage the difficulties that have beset them, usually over a long period of time and show them what has really been going on and assist them to relearn how to manage their minds.
This is quite the opposite to giving them a ‘diagnosis’. You will often hear or read stories about ‘depression’ where the person suffering mental and emotional anguish finally goes to a doctor or health practitioner to tell them about their problems. They talk of their great relief, their letting go of all their anxiety, just because someone told them what they ‘have’. They have an illness. It is ‘depression’. “Oh, thank God or whatever! I now know what I’ve 'got'.”
They, the practitioners, give them a label. It’s an illness just like any other illness. "Oh, whew!" Their relief is great. This illness is very common. For a very short time they feel uplifted and not so self obsessed. “I am not alone. I am not the only one. I have ‘depression’. It does not go away. Chemical treatments give some relief and to have finally told someone, this also releases a lot of pressure from the mind. When you read or listen further to accounts of the journey through depression there is never really a story of coming through for all of the rest of one's life. There is more likely a story of learning that the ‘illness’ is hereditary or incurable, something to be treated and it may be there all of ones life!
Well, from my own experience and for the many people I have helped over the years this is just not true. So often the ones who have discovered they have an ‘illness’, this ‘illness’ they are learning to accept and cope with, they become walking, talking proponents, kind of fanatics spreading the word about how ‘this depression may be there with you all of your life’.
“Nonetheless”, they say “like me, even though it never left me I feel much happier than I used to. I manage my illness and you can too!” I feel very sad when I see that people who experience great relief in feeling a little better or have longer periods of time between their bouts of ‘depression’… they still remain in the belief that their disease or illness is a part of them. They even thank their disease for making them who they are. This is kind of commendable but my concern is that their relief often ends there. They have never been shown that they are not actually ill or diseased and it may not be hereditary or 'genetic'. They have never been shown that there is a way out… completely out of the anguish, anxiety, distress and suffering. This is because they have never been shown that they can truly change their whole mind completely, not by treating an illness or their ‘depression’ but by learning, truly understanding themselves and ultimately accepting and working with the possibilities of change.
They can change their whole mind by coming to know what mind really is, what their mind is really like, how it became set up in all kinds of negative patterns of thinking, believing and feeling. They never come to believe that they can choose, that this dreadful 'illness' is not some unfortunate thing that has happened to them. The result is that a pressure sets in… a pressure and an urgency for these negative beliefs to be acted upon even to a point of ending ones life... eventually.
These pressures never ever sprang out of an illness or a disease called ‘depression’.
These all took root and grew within a mind not tended to in the right way, not understood … not by others and therefore not by themselves.
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