Daily Archives: April 16, 2015

N is for NOT Taken Down by Depression (BONUS POST!)

acceptance, depression, , , ,

****ing depression.

It nags at me. Gnaws at me. Nips at my heels. It’s a rock in my shoe. Fingernails on the chalkboard of my soul. An Excedrin-sized headache. Depression is a backpack full of rocks that I do not wish to wear.

My posts this month are about acceptance. So I suppose there is something to be said for being accepting of the lessons I have the opportunity to learn through dealing with depression. But, depression is not my friend, and I hesitate to allow it to have more than the slightest attention as the thoughts that go along with depression pull me down, down, down.

Until I have a solution to the challenge of depression, I intend to stand against allowing it to overtake me more than it already does for short, although always way too long, periods of time.

Considering my posts so far this month, I acknowledge and accept that I am probably all wrong, mostly mistaken and somewhat short-sighted when it comes to how I think about depression. Which is to say, there are no doubt new and improved ways to think about this experience. I acknowledge and accept that the compassion I have developed as a result of having children is the exact kind of compassion I want to extend toward myself always, especially when depression is getting me down.

In my post The Discipline of Determination, I am reminded that it is not the fact of having depression and working on it, but being aware of what the experience is doing to me, to my character. I suspect the piece of Enlightenment that is relevant here is to begin to intentionally listen to my own intuition about depression and my experience of it. For Feast or Famine, I daresay it’s time to embrace both the ups and downs of depression and allow the natural ebb and flow to be part of the experience of having it, and hopefully overcoming it.

Along the same lines as I wrote in Giving Advice, it’s time to get quiet and look inside to see what I might be thinking about being depressed, and allow me to give myself some advice about next steps. In Humanism, I ask the question of what might be possible if I am willing to see the good in others. Is there an application for me regarding depression, I wonder.

Thinking about Randolph Junuh from The Legend of Bagger Vance, how might the burden of depression be part of me stepping into what I am here to do?

As I walked this morning, I noticed an Annie Lennox song running through my brain. Aha, I said, take note and see how this relates to what I am thinking about here. Sometimes it’s a whole lot more important to live with the questions for awhile than to rush toward an answer. At least for now, I accept this part of my life and I look forward to seeing what comes of these juicy musings.

“Dark Road”

It’s a dark road
And a dark way that leads to my house
And the word says
You’re never gonna find me there oh no
I’ve got an open door
It didn’t get there by itself
It didn’t get there by itself

There’s a feelin
But you’re not feelin’ it at all
There’s a meaning
But you’re not listening any more
I look at that open road
I’m gonna walk there by myself

And if you catch me
I might try to run away
You know I can’t be here too long
And if you let me
I might try to make you stay
Seems you never realise a good thing
Till it’s gone..
Maybe im still searchin
But I dont know what it means
All the fires of destruction are still
Burnin’ in my dreams
There’s no water that can wash away
This longin’ to come clean
Hey yea yea….

I cant find the joy within my soul
It’s just sadness takin hold
I wanna come in from the cold
And make myself renewed again
It takes strength to live this way
The same old madness every day
I wanna kick these blues away
I wanna learn to live again…

It’s a dark road
And a dark way that leads to my house
And the word says
You’re never gonna find me there oh no
I’ve got an open door
It didn’t get there by itself
It didn’t get there by itself

N is for Narrative – The Stories that we Tell

acceptance, , , , , ,

Stories speak to me.

When I watched Before Midnight (Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy) with Greg last spring, I knew exactly what they meant about how relationships change with the addition of children, aging, and the general difficulties of life.

When I watched The Big Chill years ago, I knew exactly what they meant by each of us needing and finding hope in something.

When I read David Foster Wallace, I am touched in the deepest part of me by his descriptions of depression, watching Roger Federer, being with people, the pain and banality of the extremes of rote work.

Each of us tells a story about our lives, carrying this unwritten autobiography in our hearts and mind, often unaware of the overarching themes we are living out.

Author Jim Loehr has written a book called, The Power of Story: Change Your Story, Change Your Destiny. This book is on my to-read list, but the title is enough for this post, as it explains my beliefs about the story we tell ourselves about our lives.

What I have come to accept about my story is that I get to tell it however I would like to tell it. Take for instance the fact of the story that I broke my leg when I was two years old. That is indisputable, although you would be hard-pressed to find any hospital records from that long-ago time. I was on the neighbor’s slide, climbing up and sliding down again and again. That slide was missing a step, so you had to step up really big to the next step. When my father came home from work and came around the side of the house to the backyard where we all were, I saw him and was so excited he was home. I forgot at that moment that I needed to step up really big, so I stepped into thin air, fell, and ended up with a broken bone.

So far, those are all facts. But it’s what I tell about that story that has such an important impact on my understanding of who I am. What if I conclude that I am clumsy or dumb because I missed that step? What if I conclude that my father intentionally distracted me? What if my story is that I loved my father so much that I was beside myself with joy when he got home? What if I decide that I should never have been on that slide anyway at such a young age?

Add those little interpretive details to story after story after story and eventually we have a big repository of stories that confirm our beliefs about ourselves.

I can’t possibly overemphasize how much there is that we do not know. And because we do not know, we make decisions based on trust. I remember, like it was yesterday, the sight of my dad appearing in the back yard at the end of his work day, and I can remember my excitement at seeing him! Dad was home! My fun dad was home and I knew I’d be laughing and giggling and playing with him that evening.

For awhile in my life, my story was that it’s dangerous to be excited to see someone! (Children are really great at perceiving, but really not great at interpreting.) Little me knew I had experienced some intense pain almost instantly after some intense joy, and concluded that loving someone means I’m going to get hurt really badly.

How has that interpretation influenced me over the course of my life? And how does a new interpretation of that experience change how I see myself and my experience of life in the world?

What about you? What stories are you telling about your life that you would like to revise?