The Self as Anti-depressant
Can you talk yourself up?
I’ve been depressed.
Not recently, but often enough in the past to know the grip depression has on one’s life. Looking back on my bouts of depression, I never thought I was genuinely depressed because I did not spend days in bed riding the tidal waves of ennui. Rarely did I find it pointless to bathe or nourish myself. I had only on occasion felt the sucking black hole of angst when considering leaving the house.
Or talking to a friend.
Or brushing my teeth.
But I know depression has many faces. Only recently have mental health professionals recognized and acknowledged high-functioning depression. Because it’s not a formal diagnosis, there was no way for me to know that that was what I was experiencing—sometimes for months at a time. I just continued to push through.
To make matters more problematic, I make a living as a psychotherapist.
There does not seem to be a moment when it’s okay for me to feel bleakness creep through my being and radiate from my furrowed brow and hunched shoulders. I’m supposed to be guiding others through that portal.
How am I supposed to walk my psychospiritually uplifting talk if I, too, feed that that “fuck it all” ghost who takes up residence in my solar plexus like some Airbnb tripper?
About ten years ago, I saw a therapist who, after several months of treating me, told me that for my insurance to cover more sessions, I would need to consider beginning a course of anti-depressants. This was no formal diagnosis of major depressive disorder, mind you. It was simply the only way my insurance could continue covering my sessions.
Needless to say, I rejected the offer out of hand and soon after stopped seeing the therapist. Do I doubt for a moment that these drugs would have helped me feel better as they do so many others? No. But something didn’t feel right about taking them.
The very thought of taking anti-depressants was a wake-up call. I imagined myself stranded on a desert island without my meds. What then? What in goddess’s name would I do then?
I felt that what was truly at the core of my misery would merely be masked, not healed.
I wondered if I might be able to change my brain’s inner workings in some way without the aid of the drugs. Could that even be possible?
I began meditating, received acupuncture, and began a potent course of herbal remedies, including St. John’s Wort and Chinese Herbal Patent medicines. These seemed to work for a while, perhaps partly due to my wild hope that they would. But any joy didn’t last for long, and soon after, the depression began to seep back in.
It was then I realized I had to travel to the source of my pain. I sat quietly and asked myself as a good friend might do:
What’s wrong?
What can we do to help you?
What do you need right now?
I was my own Mary Poppins, bringing a flash of magical possibility to a hopeless landscape. It may have been that split personality power of Self talking to Self, but I was able to achieve a distance from my pain that I had not while trying to eradicate it.
At that time, my answer to what was wrong was, “I don’t like how I’m living.” My best-friend-self and I then chiseled away at that massive slab of granite to reveal that I was not living my true purpose in life. I needed to return to a creative life, including taking steps toward my calling to be a therapist.
It was not easy to make this shift. My marriage ended. I had a small child to care for and no real income.
But it was depression or me. I chose me.
Choosing to live my authentic life wasn’t glorious or effortless. It still isn’t. But now when the sucking abyss of depression edges closer to my solid ground, I ask myself the same questions: What’s wrong? What can we do to help you? What do you need right now?
Then I do what I’m called to do, even if it’s scary as shit.
I know that there are some people for whom anti-depressants are a blessing—some of my family members among them.
For me, my medicine is consulting my Self and choosing to make radical and sometimes uncomfortable changes to survive. While I don’t suggest that self-consultation is the path for everyone, I believe it deserves to be considered, even as a supplement.
We are, each of us, both the supplicant and the benefactor of the holy elixir of this life. When we can play both roles—just by being a good friend to ourselves when in most profound need—we can better step away from the dank pit of misery and closer to the loving homefire of creation from which we came and to which we will return.
This rings with truth for me, too. I've come to believe that when some part of me is feeling depressed, it's trying to let me know that some need(s) isn't/aren't getting met at a good enough level. And/or that the strategy I'm using to meet a need is out of alignment for me. It's a call for greater inquiry about my own malaise. I love the scripting you have modeled here, particularly asking oneself what is needed.