Surviving Work, Surviving Depression

Posted by JohnD Sat, 28 Jun 2008 22:08:00 GMT

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A few months ago, Therese Borchard of Beyond Blue was describing in one of her insightful videos the nature of her belief in Catholicism. She had been accused of being a “cafeteria Catholic,” picking and choosing which of the Church’s teachings she would accept. She emphasized that she read the Church Catechism as a bipolar person, and, as she was clarifying what she meant by that, started with: “Staying alive is my first priority.” That stopped me.

I’ve watched that video a couple of times since then, and, though I hear and respect her thoughtful discussion of Catholicism, that simple statement about staying alive is what cuts right through me. There is no getting away from that stark reality. The deepest depression turns on the neon light of suicide.

Posted in What Depression Can Do, Surviving at Work, Fighting Depression | Tags depression, energy, Getting It Done When Youre Depressed, Julie Fast, Karl Menninger, living, Man Against Himself, obsession, optimism, suicide, surviving, Therese Borchard, transition, work | 3 comments

Brain and Consciousness: Jill Bolte Taylor

Posted by JohnD Thu, 26 Jun 2008 03:45:00 GMT

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Please note that this post has been revised to reflect commentary on Jill Bolte Taylor’s reliance on the right brain—left brain model. See the note at the end of this post.

If you have any interest at all in the relationship between the brain and your awareness of who you are, please go straight to this site. Read the excerpt from Jill Bolte Taylor’s book, My Stroke of Insight: A Brain Scientist’s Personal Journey. Then listen to the podcast of Terry Gross’s interview with the author on Fresh Air. I heard it this morning on the radio, and it’s provided more insight about the human power to heal than all the books and articles I’ve read to date.

Posted in Connecting, Fighting Depression, Spirituality and Depression | Tags analytical thinking, associational thinking, brain, euphoria, healing, intuition, Jill Bolte Taylor, neuroscience, recovery, religion, spirituality | no comments

Creating a Way Out of Depression - 3

Posted by JohnD Sun, 22 Jun 2008 07:02:00 GMT

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isabella at change therapy has given me much to think about, as she usually does. In her recent post, she described her take on the link between creativity and depression. She said that unlike my sense of depression disappearing in the midst of creative activity, she saw creative moments as helping her inner life get moving again. Depression doesn’t disappear but is experienced in a different way. By getting unstuck, she is reminded that she is more than her depression. Those special moments bring the bigger reality of life and oneself into view again, and that can begin the process of getting past the pain.

I’ve had that sense of it too. In fact, one of my first steps in climbing out of a dark mood is to start writing about it. Even a few sentences immediately give some perspective to what’s happening. As soon as I put into words the ugliness of what I’m going through, it begins to seem less overwhelming, less the whole of me. One of the first posts on this blog was an attempt to capture exactly that change taking place as I wrote what I was feeling in a journal.

If I’m lucky, though, I can go on from there and become so absorbed in writing that I get into a completely different state. That’s the one where depression disappears. At those times, I feel like my brain is on a different wavelength. Ideas I’ve been struggling with suddenly make sense, patterns become clear, the words flow out as I try to see where they’re going. The sense of quick discovery is exciting, and there’s a rich harmony of feelings welling up, though I’m so focused on writing that what I’m feeling gets pushed off to the edge of awareness.

Posted in Fighting Depression, Creativity | Tags creating, creativity, depression, Howard Gardner, Isabella Mori, work, writing | 3 comments

You Are So Beautiful

Posted by JohnD Sat, 14 Jun 2008 18:28:00 GMT

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There is a powerful moment in the film, Tender Mercies, when the lead character, hearing of the death of someone close to him, says he hates happiness. “You can’t trust it.” I think I took in lessons like that when young and for a long time was fearful of a happiness that seemed to depend on being with someone. And that was the only happiness or fulfillment I could imagine since I felt then so empty on my own, so unworthy of any place in the world at all. But then it happened that I met that one who became my life partner. She kicked and poked at depressed thinking long and hard enough to help me start seeing around it, seeing myself in that state as someone I didn’t want to be.

I could begin to understand my down-staring face wasn’t all that I amounted to. And she could scream enough into my soul to get the message through that love was an offering that had to be taken in and returned, that it demanded to meet a responding energy and affection coming from that deep place. She helped wake me up to my own humanness and hence to the possibility of healing, of being filled with an awareness of a life so different from what I was used to, a life where inner peace could be found.

Posted in Partners to Depression, Fighting Depression, Spirituality and Depression | Tags beauty, depression, healing, hope, life, love, Tender Mercies | 7 comments

Growing Up Blue - Is Mom Dead?

Posted by JohnD Wed, 11 Jun 2008 04:48:00 GMT

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I have a family in my memory that can’t be quite the family I grew up with. Each of us is more intense than we probably were, as lived moments collapse backwards into a few vivid scenes. Who knows if what I recall is what happened? That doesn’t matter so much compared to the lifelong impact of the almost mythic figures I made of my mother, father, older brother. They took on this psychic life while hidden just across the border on the other side of consciousness, and then emerged again, endowed with new power. I’m remembering now this inner Brother, a figure a bit magical, a bit scary, a bit bigger than life.

His daring filled me with awe and fear. If there was a hidden spot to explore, he would charge recklessly into it. If there was someone to fight, he would start swinging, if there was a cop to defy, he would stand up to him. And if Mom needed a champion, he would go after Dad.

Posted in Growing Up with Depression, Connecting | Tags brother, childhood, depression, family, Fear, feeling, growing, memory, mother, up, violence | 4 comments