Depression: A Condition, Illness Or Whim?

2024 Author: Harry Day | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 15:43

Nature created us in such a way that we have everything we need to better adapt to the world. There are several basic feelings that make up the basic set for those events that are embedded in the life process.

Life is not safe and we have FEAR. A feeling that helps us to determine the degree of danger and be saved in time. Our other assistant is ANGER. The feeling you need to protect. To support us in this difficult and dangerous world, we have JOY. And since life is impossible without losses, then Sorrow helps us to survive.

Each of these senses has a complex system of functioning inside the body. The central nervous system produces certain substances in a given order and rate, including in our body those parts of it that are necessary for survival.

So, for example, with fear, blood flows to the limbs so that we can escape, and with joy, internal opioids are thrown out, making us feel euphoric. Each feeling has its own emotions. It's okay to laugh when it's fun and scared when it's scary. It's okay to cry when you're sad. This is a very simplified diagram, but all of these mechanisms are described in some detail and are available for independent study. I suggest you stop at SADNESS.

HOW SADNESS TURNS TO DEPRESSION

In fact, life is a sequence of gains-losses-gains, etc. The circle does not open and life does not end. We cope with the fear of the new and let a new day, people, events, things into our lives. We fill up, get used to it, love it all, and then we come across the fact that nothing is eternal.

We can lose our phone, we can change jobs, move to another city, burn a hole in our dress. We part with things, places, events. Every evening we have to say goodbye to our past morning, afternoon. In autumn, we say goodbye to summer, and when celebrating our birthday, we say goodbye to the past year.

And, of course, we have to say goodbye to people. After graduating from school, we say goodbye not only to childhood, but also to almost all classmates. Children grow up and leave us. Someone leaves our life, and someone from this world.

This is how this world works. We find and lose something all the time. We are used to most of the losses and do not even notice them. But what was precious and close to us is hard to lose. In order for us to cope with this process, nature has created a sense of sadness. A feeling that helps us cope with a loss.

The simplest understanding of sadness is mourning a loss, or grieving. From the word grief, which accurately names what we feel. We are in pain, hard and very sad.

We have created entire rituals to facilitate the process of mourning. The bride was first mourned and only then celebrated, the end of school first takes place on the Last Bell, and then there will be graduation. The funeral is one of the largest rituals in terms of importance, and mourning has its own precise dates.

The process of grieving for loss has its own stages, each of which cannot be skipped. But the main feeling of the whole process, of course, is sadness. We have to mourn our loss.

Tears not only have a bactericidal and analgesic effect, which has been proven by biologists. On a psychological level, tears are a balm for the wounded soul. There is a beautiful symbol of tears in the form of a river, along which we can sail the most difficult sections on the path of our life.

If everything is so beautifully arranged, what is the problem?

The thing is, man is an imperfect creature. And in order to live normally, he needs to constantly make efforts and improve. Life is like an escalator going down. To get up, you need to move your legs. In other words, we need to be able to grieve. We must be taught by our parents. And they should be supported by the world of people. What happens in practice? Let's start with the family.

See also: Depression: The Plague of the 21st Century

DO NOT CRY

Each family has its own rules about which feelings can and cannot be expressed. And if in your family there was a ban on the manifestation of sadness, then you had to supplant this feeling. This does not mean that you have stopped experiencing it. This is impossible. But you stop expressing it outwardly.

No tears, no sadness, no sorrow. The energy released by the body is looking for a way out. Since she cannot express herself in a legal way (grieving), she can come out through those feelings that have been allowed. Well, for example, fear. And then you become anxious and suspicious. That is, you are afraid more and more often than the situation requires.

Or joy. And then you laugh at your losses, gradually turning into a sad clown, who is allowed to take off his mask only in his cramped dressing room, alone with himself. Or anger. And then you turn into a constantly angry person who is angry with or without.

If all feelings were forbidden in your family (and this happens quite often), then your body has to take on the entire burden of living them. There is no need to say that the polyclinic is becoming your second home.

In addition to being allowed to express feelings, we need parents to teach us how to do it right. Supported us in this process so that we can seek and accept support in adulthood.

The main law in understanding the mourning process is as follows:

WE ARE ABLE TO EXPERIENCE ANY LOSS. WITH ADEQUATE SUPPORT.

That is, people who died "of grief" simply did not have the necessary support. Neither external nor internal. Their inner parents were cold and cruel, and outside help was not enough. It is no coincidence that I put the quotation marks. In the literal sense, you cannot die of grief. You can die of illness caused by the senses, or unconsciously let the world kill you.

And what about humanity?

THERE IS NO DEATH. HAPPY END

Humanity was not always afraid of death. Once upon a time it respected her. People have always believed in their divine origin and understood that there is a great plan for the human soul. This means that its existence cannot be limited to several decades. That is, transformation occurs constantly and our soul travels in time, changing its shells.

All spiritual practices view death as a transition and a natural stage in the growth of the spirit. Never before has so much attention been paid to the body as in the past couple hundred years.

The more we go towards the material, the more we lose that without which life becomes more terrible and more terrible. We have lost respect for death. And this means that there is nothing more to grieve about. Sadness has become an unnecessary attribute.

Humanity wants to rejoice, not grieve. "Wipe away your tears and rejoice!" Stories should end with a happy ending, the hero cannot die, and good triumphs over evil. Death is always evil, so it must be avoided in any way. The "dead" water disappeared from the fairy tale. And people naively expect that they will be saved only alive.

We have forgotten how to do it and have ceased to grieve correctly - THIS IS THE MAIN CAUSE OF DEPRESSION. That is why it can be called a product of civilization. And that's why my grandmother would say “you're mad with fat, go get busy” in response to complaints of depression. But I cannot tell this to my clients. I know that their suffering is painful and not invented.

The avoidance of the pain of loss, and in fact the fear of death, led humanity to the fact that the sadness went into the unconscious. And there she turned into depression. This transformation made the normal feeling of sadness excessive and painful.

Depression is essentially chronic sadness. From the point of view of maintaining the balance of energy, it will be interesting to know where the energy flows during depression? After all, the classic of depression looks like a decrease: mood, activity, self-esteem, life prospects, the ability to think.

It is similar to how a full-flowing river, when the ecology is disturbed, goes underground. This is a very symbolic action that will help us decipher fairy tales.

FAIRY TALES ABOUT DEPRESSION

There are many tales of depression. This means that humanity has always understood the significance of the mourning process and gave people the necessary recommendations through such a form as legends. This is the most direct way to put knowledge about life into the unconscious. Faith helps people to gain knowledge more easily and faster.

Modern man wants to understand and explain everything from a materialistic point of view, and therefore has lost a huge storehouse of wisdom inherent in fairy tales, legends, myths. And children now listen to adult stories about invented characters that have nothing to do with archetypal symbols. And they contain information about the world order, mechanisms of relationships and much more, which we need to learn in childhood in order to become strong adults.

But ignorance does not absolve from responsibility. And the world still rapes the Sleeping Beauties (in the fairy tale it was regularly used by a passing prince, she even gave birth to children in a dream), Ugly ducklings never find their swan flocks, and heroes drown in the swamps.

A swamp in a fairy tale is one of the most common images that symbolizes the stage of mourning or depression. And at the bottom of the swamp, as we remember, there is a golden key. Symbolically, the key is the answer to the question. And the golden key is a wise answer, "worth its weight in gold." And it will only go to those who overcome the fear of pain from sadness.

In other tales, the hero must go to hell. There he will get something without which it is impossible to reach a successful end. And only a few manage to pass this test. It is impossible to become whole without this feat. And it can be more difficult than chopping off the heads of dragons or catching the wind. Thus, the hero will have to grow up, facing depression and coping with it. You cannot avoid it.

And now the main intrigue. What is the question, the answer to which is so necessary to find? What is it, without which you are doomed to depression?

This is an unclassified question. Moreover, I'm sure you know him.

WHAT IS A SENSE OF LIFE?

We are arranged in such a way that the search for meaning is a natural requirement of human consciousness. Therefore, we begin to suffer from the loss of meaning in the earliest meaningful childhood. All these children's "why" questions are about this. But if we were not answered, then we could stop asking them. There comes a time when hunger in its meaning becomes unbearable.

Finding meaning in material things, in other people, in any kind of attachment, we are doomed to the pain of loss. All this is temporary and impermanent. As soon as we become attached to something or someone, everything can end. And only the ability to experience loss and understanding the meaning of what is happening can help us cope with pain.

Read on the website: Depression as a way of perceiving the world

DEPRESSION AS A LIFE SCENARIO

Claude Steiner described three main life scenarios: "without love", "without reason" and "without joy." Here's what he writes about the No Joy scenario:

“Most 'civilized' people do not feel the pain or joy that the body could give them. The extreme degree of alienation from your body is addiction to drugs, but ordinary people who do not suffer from drug addiction (especially men) are no less susceptible to it.

They feel neither love nor ecstasy, they cannot cry, they cannot hate. Their whole life passes in their heads. The head is considered to be the center of the human being, an intelligent computer that controls a stupid body.

The body is considered only as a machine, its purpose is considered to be work (or the execution of other orders of the head). Feelings, whether pleasant or unpleasant, are considered an obstacle to its normal functioning."

People who really suffer from depression have this attitude to the body and feelings typical. And more often than not, their depression is latent. And their whole life is aimed at relieving stress from lack of joy.

Yes, to experience joy is nothing more than a healthy need. And the lack of satisfaction of the need will inevitably cause tension and, as a result, pain. Life becomes a search for a "cure" for pain relief. It can be real drugs or chemicals, or it can be different actions, hobbies, relationships.

Where only a person does not run from depression! And in work, and in relationships, and on all sorts of courses, and in games, and in travel. And from the outside it is very difficult to distinguish whether all this really brings joy, or just relieves pain. Therefore, behind every active manifestation, I look professionally for signs of depression. And I am very happy when I do not find it. But this happens, unfortunately, rarely.

So we live in a deceptive fog that hides depression from our eyes. Frankly, it's not that embarrassing. The problem is that the person himself does not immediately understand that he is depressed. After all, to admit it means to plunge into it. And people are afraid to experience pain. So they walk along the edge of the swamp all their lives knee-deep in mud, in a vicious circle, being in the illusion that everything is not so bad. Yes, somewhere there is solid soil, warm sand, mountains and seas, but here it is not bad either, why risk it? …

The problem is that you cannot turn around and immediately step on solid, clean ground. We'll have to cross the swamp, which is too dangerous. It is important to know that the degree of danger does not depend on the depth of the swamp, but on support along the way.

We do not die of depression, it is only our fear to ask for help that kills us. Remember the parable of Nasreddin, in which he saved a rich bai drowning in a city fountain? The crowd tried to save him and shouted: "Give me your hand!" And Nasreddin said: "on hand." This is how we become greedy for ourselves and do not reach out to help us, even when there is a crowd of people around us who are ready to help.

MANDATORY DEPRESSION

There are stages in life when depression is indispensable. And the most important is the midlife crisis. A stage that looks like a pass on the mountain, which you climbed and from which you will now descend.

Life is over half and without a correct review of the accumulated baggage, its second half may not look like a pleasant descent, but a fall. The depression of this period is inevitable.

We have to say goodbye to youth, physical strength, children fleeing from the nest, aging or deceased parents. But most importantly, with illusions. Not everything is ahead. Moreover, the end is already in sight. Yes, he is far away, but already visible. And reality appears before us in all its clarity and rigidity.

If you do not say goodbye to illusions, then the descent threatens with falls and fractures. Any experienced climber will tell you that a descent is more dangerous than an ascent. And you won't be able to relax. But if a person is too tired when climbing, then he wants to finally let go of himself and easily slide down the hill. Then we will see rapid aging and death.

Depression will help us stop at this pass and find answers to questions without which we cannot go any further. The path must be adult and conscious. Then there is the possibility to enjoy the descent with a controlled risk. And this pleasure is very different from childish reckless joy.

If a person has lived without joy for a long time, fulfilling the expectations of others, climbing the mountain, then it is very difficult for him to force himself to work a little more in order to change the strategy. Therefore, most of the clients of psychologists and psychotherapists are middle-aged people. True, they do not come to work, but for a magic elixir that will relieve pain and will not force you to work.

Those who will experience the disappointment that such an elixir does not exist in the external world and will have to look for it within themselves will overcome the crisis. Most will take analgin and continue to relieve depression.

DEPRESSION IS YOUR CHANCE

Some good news at the end. There are two states in which we have the opportunity to learn about ourselves: love and depression. The first with a plus sign, the second with a minus sign. Both conditions have consequences. It is not known which has more good or bad.

Therefore, do not waste time running away from depression if it overtakes you. Try to use it to recognize yourself and find meaning.

And remember, getting away from depression is a surefire way to walk in circles. Better think about how to make this time less awful. Simple things will help you: taking care of the body, music, nature, communication with animals. These are auxiliary means, and nothing more.

Also, find yourself a good psychologist. He will sit on the bank of the swamp and wait while you look for the golden key. Believe me, this is the most important thing when someone is ready to understand what is happening and stay with you no matter what.