Posted by JohnD
Sat, 27 Sep 2008 19:12:00 GMT
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A breakthrough to healing can come at the most unexpected time. The other night I was trying to divert myself by watching a mystery episode from an old British series. Instead of taking my mind off things, this story pushed me into a past history I had long kept at a safe distance.
The film built its story around a soldier haunted by his experience of violent death in Bosnia, especially the sight of a basement floor piled deep with the corpses of women and children. Much later, after his return to civilian life, the shock of another act of violence brings back the Bosnian memories and plunges him into such an intense guilt that he loses his power of speech. A minister, he somehow internalizes guilt for such horrors that have nothing to do with his own actions and is even driven to seek atonement for them. And so he tries to find punishment by confessing to a killing he did not commit. It’s based in part on Pat Barker’s fine novel, Regeneration
, about a World War I combat veteran slowly brought back to health through the efforts of a gifted psychiatrist. These stories bring to life the hard work of recovery.
Certain dramatic scenes often have powerful resonance for me, often triggering grief and tears, but I have never been able to understand what was going on. Why should such powerful feelings fill me in response to fiction? I could see reasons for such reactions when brought on by the real-life stories of veterans suffering complete collapse from the traumas of combat. However, I thought of that more as empathy for their suffering rather than as response to my own far less violent family disturbances. The other night, though, things began to get clearer.
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Posted in Growing Up with Depression, Experience with Treatments, Fighting Depression, Men and Depression | Tags childhood, family, feeling, grief, guilt, life, loss, love, mind, patbarker, PeterKramer, recovery, regeneration | 15 comments
Posted by JohnD
Sat, 20 Sep 2008 21:08:00 GMT
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Marissa wrote a post at Wellsphere that made me pause. She was objecting to the idea found in Richard O’Connor’s book (Undoing Depression
) that “I am not my depression.” She interpreted this as an evasion of accountability for one’s actions. The depressed behavior that harms relationships, for example, can’t be dismissed as something you’re not responsible for – it has a real impact because of your behavior, and you remain accountable for what you do. And so, in this sense, she insists: “I am my depression.”
I agree with the need to be accountable. I have hurt those around me by being emotionally absent, self-involved, unable to talk, irritable or in a rage, or behaving badly in any of the ways that are symptomatic of depression. But O’Connor’s intention with this formulation, I believe, isn’t aimed at releasing people from accountability. It’s a way of reminding those suffering from depression that they have an illness, that there is hope for recovery, that they should not confuse the symptoms with the totality of their human identities.
I think a better way of putting this, however, is another sentence that appears frequently in books about how to deal with this condition: “I am more than my depression.” In other words, my identity isn’t defined by behavior linked to the illness, but it also says that I am my depression, in part.
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Posted in What Depression Can Do, Connecting, Experience with Treatments, Fighting Depression | Tags belief, depression, hope, identity, imagination, intention, marissa, recovery, richardoconnor, treatment | 10 comments
Posted by JohnD
Sat, 13 Sep 2008 20:16:00 GMT
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About a hundred years ago, Robert Frost wrote a famous poem about two roads diverging in a wood: “And sorry I could not travel both/ And be one traveler.” He makes his choice to take “the one less traveled by.” “Oh I kept the first for another day!/ Yet knowing how way leads on to way,/ I doubted I should ever come back.”
When I faced a choice of two roads to my own future, I believed I could follow both and be one traveler. Why were there two roads? I imagined there were two sides of myself – one creative, artistic – the other public, drawn to political and social change – and I needed both to feel whole. What followed from this attempt were years of struggling and failing to balance both, searching for the fulfillment I needed but finding it always just out of reach on either path. I tried sprinting down one for a time, then leaving that to cut through a brambled mile of thickets to get back to the other, sprint down that road for a while, cut back through the less and less penetrable undergrowth, hit the other again – and so on. What does that mean? Among other things, it means that I spend a lot of time between the roads in those thickets – lost.
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Posted in What Depression Can Do, Fighting Depression, Creativity | Tags career, choices, depression, double, fulfillment, life, oneness, path, robertfrost, tension | 12 comments
Posted by JohnD
Fri, 05 Sep 2008 21:12:00 GMT
Isabella at change therapy was kind enough to include me in a list of Brilliant Bloggers, putting me in some very distinguished company. Thank you again, Isabella!
The pleasant but perplexing obligation that comes with the award is to select at least seven additional bloggers to recognize in the same way. Now making choices like this is difficult given how many amazing blogs there are that I find moving, powerful, funny, quirky and always … brilliant! I think of brilliant in its sense of radiant, shining, bright, clear, like bold colors, a dazzling sunny sky, clear ringing music, all making an unforgettable impact. Those get at the quality of experience in reading these blogs. I could name so many others, but here are some of my bright heroes of the blogging mind universe. They are listed in the unavoidable linear array that has nothing to do with rank, serial number or degree of nobility. They are all amazing and great of soul.
So, cybermates, when you receive this post, you might do the following:
- Add the logo of the award to your blog
- Add a link to the person who awarded it to you
- Nominate at least 7 other blogs
- Add links to those blogs on your blog
- Leave a message for your nominees on their blogs
My Brilliant Blog awards go to:
Stephany of Soulful Sepulchre for her searching narratives, telling of so many confrontations with a broken mental health system, expressing deep love for her daughter, and always full of startling wisdom and poetry.
Merely Me of Merely Me’s Multiple Synchronicities for superb writing and honesty about her struggles with MS and depression and the impact of multiple traumas in her youth.
Untreatable of Untreatable’s Blog for making so real the tortures of Borderline Personality Disorder, depression, PTSD, self harm, among other conditions, and for such honesty in presenting the story of his work of recovery.
Zathyn of A Never Quiet Mind for the eloquent honesty and depth of his probing stories about the impact of suicide, PTSD, self-harm and other conditions, stories always suffused with the energy of a survivor.
Jennifer of Writing to Survive for her clarity of insight, unfailing honesty and always compelling stories about depression, family life, the struggle to find balance and her own path to the future.
Susan of If You’re Going Through Hell Keep Going for her fearless and powerful writing that confronts so bluntly the worst that depression can throw at her, pouring herself into the writing that keeps her alive.
Dano of Mental Motes for a matchless, at times terrifying honesty about the impact of depression, but her reflections and stories are always presented in language that is deeply evocative, moving and lyrical.
Catatonic Kid for her remarkable writing, full of imagination, quirky humor, wisdom and the pain of struggling against depression, using her poet’s mind and sharp wit to run mental circles around that heavy sledge-hammer illness.
Clinically Clueless for her gutsy and completely open searches through the many painful conditions she has had to deal with and for inventiveness in telling her stories through varied media.
Therese Borchard of Beyond Blue for her generosity of spirit, her close examination of faith and the remarkable video posts that hold back nothing and are so rich in spiritual insight.
Thanks so much to these incredible bloggers for continual inspiration. They have helped make my first year of blogging a powerfu experience. And if I’ve inadvertently given this award to a blog that’s already won it, please accept a small tribute anyway and just remember you’re worth more than any award can capture.
Posted in Fighting Depression | 11 comments
