Understanding depression — a different view
Feb 29th, 2008 by spaceagesage
Within each of us lie very controlling subconscious messages such as: “I am not worth other people’s time,” or “Rich people are nasty. I don’t want to be nasty, therefore I shouldn’t have wealth,” or “I get more attention when I am sick, when I’m making mistakes, when I act out,” or “People hurt me too much for me to get close to anyone,” or “I can make myself feel better by blaming others,” or “I can lessen emotional hurt by keeping my anger, since it keeps me separate from others,” or “Life is unfair and cruel, so I will never get ahead.”
For me, a set of similar limiting thoughts manifest consciously, but the real troublemakers are the ones buried in my subconscious. They got stuck there by my well-meaning, but clueless younger self when something impacting or traumatic (at least to a little kid) happened, and my younger self couldn’t cope. When the emotional overload of the moment hit, my life experiences were so limited, I could only come up with a looping subroutine like those listed above.
For example, I had several deaths in my family when I was between kindergarten and third grade. My family would be close to moving through the worst part of the grieving process when another death hit us. The subconscious message my small self came up with was, “Don’t get close to anyone, or they will die and leave me.”
My husband remembers from his youth a powerfully embarrassing moment for his parents when they were buying groceries. They thought they could put it on credit — something done in small towns a long time ago — but his parents were overextended. A loud conversation ensued in which everyone in the place heard what my husband saw as a deficit in his parents. That incident, and a couple of others, left him with a mixed message in his subconscious: “Rich people are jerks, money causes problems and is bad, but I better never show my debt to anyone.”
It has taken us 14 years of marriage to uncover that bad-boy of a self-limiting thought and move him beyond it. As for myself, I still see vulnerability as dangerous ground sometimes — all the “What ifs” about getting hurt come rushing up, my body tenses in response, and I find the looping subroutine starting to control me again. But at least now, I know its nature and am moving beyond it.
For the most part, these thoughts start as good intentions by our younger selves. Then we grow up acting them out and rarely knowing why, and since our mind is stuck on re-wind in many ways, our body still reacts like it did when we were confronted by the impacting event. For me, this means that the many messages from youth contradict my adult self’s understanding and experience, and the result is manifested in my body as depression.
How many of us, for example, still recoil physically and mentally from conflict or “going to our brother” to spell out a relationship problem because deep down inside we don’t feel worthy enough to defend ourselves?
How many of us still worry about about making the purchase of a large-ticket item because deep inside we feel unworthy or because our younger, subconscious voice is telling us that spending that much will ruin us, even when our older self knows better?
How many of us know the right choices to make, but find ourselves habitually making unhealthy ones — and then beat ourselves up about it — because a buried subroutine in our mind tells us that being happy is only for princesses in fairy tales?
Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR), Neuro-Linguistics Programming (NLP) and a other leading edge therapies go directly to those self-limiting thoughts and basically let the body and mind know nicely that those subconscious thoughts can be released now.
More on that in future posts.
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Is depression simply struggling with reality and what our mind can’t accept is happening in the physical? Most times, it is difficult to leave depression because the mind feeds it so well. Those controlling subconscious messages are essentially the food that keeps your depression alive. I thought it interesting that you used the term “your brother”, is this a person you turn to for advice? If so, aren’t they the person who typically puts those subconscious bombs in your head? I’ve recently found it hard to talk to anyone partly because everyone has some saying that is supposed to make you feel better, but only fuels your confusion. The struggle for your mind in depression should not be up to anyone but yourself. Depression is an opportunity to find yourself. Find your own answers. Make up your own quotes. Don’t tell them to anyone else because they won’t work for anyone but yourself. Depression is a self-healing process and should not revolve around any notions of how you should be perceived or how you should or should not be acting. You’ll find it after some thought. Of course, this process won’t be easy, but when is anything in life easy?
Mr. X — thank you for your thoughts. I don’t think there is anything simple in depression. My posts are a series of investigations and understandings, hopefully minus the guilt/blame game from any standpoint. The “go to your brother” thing is a quote from the Bible about not gossiping, but rather getting a matter settled with a person first – I should have clarified. Yes, many people are clueless and unhelpful about depression, sometimes adding to it in ignorance, but they don’t know any better. Can I stop the rain by shouting at it? I disagree that the depression battle is one a person should fight alone, but healing is a very personal thing, with different things working differently for different people!
I can’t help but comment and tell you how much I have enjoyed reading your posts that I have come across on wordpress. They strike a chord with me. For me realizing for the first time in my life laying there realizing I had some control over the depression in my life, was like a ray of light penatrating through the shroud of darkness that had engulfed me. It did give me hope and vigor for my future. Every time I started to go to that dark place in my mind, I refused to go there. I contiously Said NO! I refuse to go there. Each time I said NO! Confidence grew inside me. That dark cloud was moving and more light was shining into my world. There is song that I used to listen to Called “Away From the Sun” It had so much meaning to me at a time in my life. It still does have a special meaning. Athough when I listen now it is a reminder how that ray of light did shine down on me and break through the shroud darkeness. Positve thinking is one of those survival tools I have in my tool belt now. I guess I am rambling on now.
Have a great day 🙂
Thank you for your comment, Max Bravo! You are right, sometimes the journey is a loud “NO!” and sometimes it is a grateful, “YES! I see!”
I love your header photo… I think you can relate to the pride that we can get photos like those just by stepping out our front door.
Also, your sidebar thought, did you write that? I’d like to quote it.
I love it.
idontremember: Thanks for stopping by! Yes, I wrote the sidebar thought, but the idea has been around awhile. I just put my own twist on it, including the empowering last line.