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The words went up like walls, and I stepped inside to stay. I paced around in that confinement and after a while got to know the enclosure well. I liked its stillness and the sense of limits and order. Around me I read the names for mental things and emotions that I owned. They explained me, and I had a place to call home. I paid the rent in pain.

Depression, disease, obsessive thinking, mood disorder, isolation, sleep disturbance, paralysis of will, loss of concentration, anxiety, rage, hopelessness – I knew each one, the symptoms that likely would never go away, except for little breaks here and there. They were like furniture to rest in – or more than that, coordinates on a map that gave me location in the world. I could say: That’s where I live – right there.

At first, despite the inner emptiness and hurt, there was a comfort in knowing that all these symptoms were not my unique, damaged, failing self – but shared by millions all around the world – even named as a leading cause of disability. I was part of a vast economic loss with days, weeks, months, years of diminished capacity. Like all the rest, I wasn’t too helpful in getting the world’s work done. I added to their negative sum.

But after a while, I couldn’t take the dark cell anymore. I was afraid of what might happen there and resolved to move out, find brighter surroundings, know and hold my family again, thrive in my work, throw a little light around me – reform my life, reverse it completely. All that change, though, kept not happening.

I needed a sense of order, a sense of knowing where I was in the world of mind, feeling and spirit as well as place, worklife, community, country. I needed hooks to hold onto, and I had those, familiar after decades, hurtful as they were – but what would happen if I let them go? Would I grab onto new ones in a better life or would I drop in free fall to nothingness? I needed change to survive, but I feared change would leave me stranded in a place I couldn’t begin to understand. I never said that to myself at the time. I only knew how hard it was to stop depression. I could long for a new life, but getting there seemed impossible.

Depression was full of dreams of all that I might do – if only I could break myself away from it. But deciding among those possible new futures was the stopper. Deciding, after all, meant cutting away those many dreams, killing them off to pick the one that was real, that put me back on firm ground. But which one was that – and would I be any good at it? Somewhere deep down – and I can say now it was my twin, depression, talking – I felt a desperation to maintain that perverse and lightless stability. Reform is shape-shifting and letting go, and I was holding on. I believed so deeply that I could not change.

Most of the treatment people were not much help. Until recently, I never heard from a therapist or psychiatrist that ending life-long depression was even a possibility. They listened, opened up depths of history I needed to understand, offered sympathy, medication, temporary respite. At times, that stirred hope but mostly it confirmed illness, treatment resistance, the need for adaptation to an endless condition. I had a four-digit diagnostic number, and that would never change – unless at some point a fifth digit needed to be tacked on.

The words of explanation multiplied like the dreams of recovery. New findings of neuroscience, brain chemistry, changes in brain structures, neural pathways, genetics, increased likelihood of heart disease and bone loss, and then too the self-perpetuating nature of the illness. After a while, it kept itself going without need for an external push. My depression home seemed hard-wired, storm resistant.

But then – just like that – it was over – or mostly so. I suddenly believed that I could break out and so pushed against those hardening walls. Of course, they gave way, the word-bricks floated up like full balloons, burst at once and rained back down as bright ripped ribbons.

True, as I expected, it’s been hard to learn again the habits of life with people, the routines of work I love to do, the resilience of hope. And the hardest thing of all is keeping a determined mind and will not to go there again when the temptation to give up returns.

So how does this happen? What brings on, after so long, a change of spirit as deep as conversion? I’m not sure I will ever know exactly what it was. There’s no one cause of depression, so I wouldn’t expect to find a single cause of recovery.

It feels like a kind of grace, a gift, a quiet mystery.

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This is another of the first posts on this blog that I’ve revised. It describes an incident from many years ago, but the experience gave me an image of healing that has never left. I come back to it again and again whenever I need to push off the weight of depression.

My wife and I were hiking with three friends into the back country of the Grand Canyon to spend a couple of nights at Phantom Creek. Most people hiking into the Canyon for a day trip go down the main trail from either north or south rim and wind up at Phantom Ranch, where the Bright Angel Creek joins the Colorado River. (Phantom, Bright Angel, who came up with these spirit names?) Our trip started in just that way, but then Ken, who was guiding us, found a trace of trail next to a campground, and we switch-backed our way up a steep hillside – hoisting our heavy backpacks on ropes at one hard-angled spot. The heat was at a 100 or so, and, having already spent hours on the initial descent down to the Colorado, we strained and groaned in the early evening up that slope onto a natural shelf of long, broad boulders.

In that unlikely spot we made camp, in sight of a good starting point for the morning. As I lay uncomfortably on that craggy stone surface, looked back down the canyon at face after shadowed face of massive rock, reddened and purpled in the late summer day’s very last light, my mind was rapidly darkening and an anger was rising that I wasn’t even aware of. Those towering cliffs suddenly seemed threatening, and I felt completely out of place. I couldn’t help saying aloud, though it was far from the camaraderie and happy escapism of our little adventure, What on earth are we doing in this barren place? I could see what was happening until the next day, but the depression seemed to worsen overnight.

Waking on rock, we got an early start, climbing up a craggy slope to reach a ridge covered with boulders and cactus where the trail disappeared. The sun climbed with us, and the heat penetrated mind and body after a couple of hours. I was still aching after the previous day’s descent and suddenly I was seeing the worst in everything. Like the others, I tediously picked my way through cactus thorns and rock edges, sliding backwards on a bit of gravel every now and then, lurching into balance with the heavy backpack. It was sweaty torture in the 100+ degree heat. Then an inner rage started to pour out of me.

This had happened before on hikes into the Canyon, a purging of every negative thought and feeling, dark clouds through and through my mind. Every muscle started to ache, I had to stop more and more often in the heat, and a stream of acid thought kept eating into everything I was, everyone I knew. My wife and friends disappeared in the haze of fatigue and disgust and a kind of bile I could taste. Every step I took felt like a blow against some idiot who had angered or hurt me, every thought a comeback I had failed to make, every breath a wheezing out of hate. Though I thought I had been falling behind the others, I stopped at one point near the top of the ridge and looked back to see them working their way carefully through the last of the cactus, chatting and laughing as they went. I felt badly that I was so out of synch with them, so full of anger and discomfort (another reason to beat myself up), but I couldn’t shake it, couldn’t get out of that smothering embrace of what felt like an evil twin.

We made our way down the far side of the ridge, a much smoother walk, and got within site of the creek itself. I looked on that as a final destination. I could not imagine taking one more exhausting step beyond it. Drained of all energy, hideous in my shell of dark thinking, I just wanted to drop right there. But as we finally approached it, Ken came up from behind and pointed ahead, beyond the creek. “We’re close,” he said. “It’s only another mile upstream on the other side to the campsite.”

A mile, when I couldn’t move at all! I just stood still – adamant. “I’m not moving another step.” My tone and barely suppressed fury were immediately obvious to the others. They just marched on, ignoring what I’d said, removing their shoes, stepping through the shallow creek and quickly heading up the trail. I planted myself there for a moment and tried desperately to summon one bit of energy, just to get across the creek. Finally, I bent down to get out of my shoes and liberate my sore feet. I took the hiking shoes in one hand and stepped into the water.

Then something happened. The cold water of the shallow creek – running just a few inches deep – trickled over my bare feet, and in the few seconds of my quick steps to the other side washed out that stain of anger, exhaustion and hurt. The heaviness of it all dissolved in the cleansing swirl of tiny currents, and I felt completely light and buoyant, full of energy. My mind dawned again, and I knew I had taken back my own self, after a strange captivity elsewhere.

I stopped on the far side of the creek, sat on a flat rock to put my shoes and socks on, and just stared at that small motioning stream, as if looking at the outside of a complicated machine, trying to understand how it worked. What the hell was that? I was puzzled but elated, thinking maybe I should do that again, walk back and forth a few times, but no I didn’t do that.

Whatever the stream had done to me was complete. It had simply healing me. It was an instant of strange warmth in a cold stream that restored a deadening soul. What spirit was hiding in there? How could this be? That’s all it was, a moment that was over before I could even grasp what was happening. One moment I am as heavy as gravel, then I’m light and vibrant. Why?

I hurried up the trail to share the good news. Of course, when I caught up to them, busy in setting up camp, it was hard to find any words. All I could say was something like, I’m back! – and I hoped they would see what I meant.

Nefertiti at The Inspired Self has kindly honored Storied Mind with the Lemonade Award. I want to thank her, especially since this was quite a surprise. We have discovered one another’s blogs just recently, and I look forward to reading regularly her beautiful insights about life with clear inner guidance.

The rules of this award are as follows:

• Put the logo on your blog or post.
• Nominate at least 10 blogs which show great Attitude and/or Gratitude!
• Be sure to link to your nominees within your post.
• Let them know that they have received this award by commenting on their blog.
• Share the love and link to this post and to the person from whom you received your award.

I’m glad to be able to recognize many blogs that have become a part of my life in this special community. Here is a remarkable group of souls, as I hear and sense them through their honest and moving words. And in keeping with the spirit of this award they show great attitude, sometimes just because that’s who they are and love to share it with the world, sometimes because they’re gutsy enough to try to keep their heads above troubled waters and share too the vast effort that takes.

• We Must Not Think Too Much
• Melindaville Blog
• change therapy
• Svasti
• Chunks of Reality
• Into the Rabbit Hole
• Depression Marathon
• How’s Bradley
• Migraine Chow
• Revellian

Thank you all!

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Here are more journal excerpts from many years ago about my first experiences working with meditation to deal with depression. Unlike Revellian, as he explains so well in a recent comment here, I have not so far cultivated meditation as a long-term practice and discipline. Nevertheless, from these first attempts I found a method that has helped blunt the deep stress and anxiety that accompany depression. Sometimes it can even bring me out of a deep downswing.

Today I tried meditating while getting one of my periodic bone scans – one grisly aftermath of a cancer exam. Has it metastasized to the bones? If so, likely an agonizing death ahead – but fortunately that’s not probable. This is the second one, and the first only showed the widespread spots of arthritis that one day will give me a lot more pain than they do now. To do the scan I have to lie down on a narrow gurney and be absolutely still while this big machine moves slowly over my whole body, just an inch or so away.

So I worked at meditating during the scan and that made the time pass very quickly. It also distracted me from the fear of the machine’s humming invasion that recorded every inch of my body’s deepest structure. I couldn’t help but think of death while this was happening, and even the narrow gurney reminded me of how small a body gets when the life is gone. I strained to hold still since there was nothing to rest my arms on, but I finally figured out that I could keep my hands from slipping off the cold side bars by tucking the thumbs just under my hips. Still I couldn’t get a restful position for my elbows. So I closed my eyes and meditated on loving kindness and tried enumerating the things I was worried about and afraid of. Those fears felt more distant then, not as urgent – more like empty shapes or brief flashes rather than stabbing realities. After the scan, I felt a peacefulness that made it easier to hear whatever the results might be. Once again, I was clear of any sign of cancer in those aging bones.

• I am trying to meditate and observe my feelings and thoughts and judgments and just note them. They’re they are. That is a wonderful part of this practice – in a way it helps internalize the therapist who is getting an objective view of you and so able to help identify what you are doing. I can observe what flows in and flows out and, while I’m doing it, enter into the peaceful but alert state I achieved during the bone scan. I only wish I could sustain this – perhaps I will internalize the discipline after a time. I wonder if the practice could help root out the deepest depression, for that strikes at a level far below thought or feeling within a deep hard structure of the brain. After decades of residence there, it just won’t move.

• These last two days I have been meditating for forty-five minutes at a time. As my therapist says, that sounds like a lot of minutes, but it’s nothing – and he says it is work, with a capital W. You can’t play it like ping pong. You have to do it. He himself plans to spend a year in a monastery before too long. I see better now that following an emotion with detachment brings you into its midst – you can even move around inside it, so to speak, taking its measure, observing what it is about but without being dominated by it. The key is that distance, that stance. I am not sure I can or even want to maintain that as the norm, but it is helping me see how I put my life and reactions together. I am always amazed at how much time I spend tearing myself down, and in meditating I can see myself doing this more objectively. That alone helps me to stop the torment of that inner ripping. This practice isn’t yet helping get to the depression in a sustainable way, but achieving that would take much longer. I just wonder if it is possible to go that far.

• Lately I have been meditating irregularly even though it has become a crucial centering activity. I’m not cultivating much of a discipline about it or having a sense of developing skill in exploration of consciousness. This is the trouble with depression – when it takes over, all the defenses I have don’t just fail. I forget all about them, as if I had never known what they were. Except in those worst times, there are mantras, and a prayer I have developed over time, that help bring balance into my life. Concentrating on breath gets me deeply into that different space.

The guidance for meditation to calm nervousness and fears is this:

Mindfulness of fears and nervousness

Number them

Focus on breath

Note them in turn, return to breath

Awareness of breathing – acknowledge breath by saying: in/out
Focus on center of chest – go way inside – explore the feeling.

And the simple lines I go over and over as part of the meditation on loving kindness are these:

May I be healed

May I feel love

May I experience myself for what I am

May I accept myself

This next is a meditative prayer that formed gradually while I was trotting up and down arroyos in the foothills near our old home in northern New Mexico. It is influenced by Lakota practice, but out of respect for those traditions, which are not mine, I do not use them directly.

I pray for all I am related to throughout the world

for I am a part of all life

now, through the past and into future time.

I pray for the earth, surrounded by the great directions,

the eastern white light of the new day

the yellow warmth of the south

the west’s returning red

the sacred night of the north

and the rooted earth below me

the flowing sky above

and here the center of the world,

all embraced by the greatest spirit of God.

I pray for all life and living spirit

I pray for the creatures of the earth,

for the winged beings and the sea swimmers

for the crawling creatures and for those that run

and for the beings that stand upright on the land

I pray for the flowing waters, the surging mountains

for the open plains and bounded valleys,

for the seas and the oceans of air we breathe.

I pray for my family and the love flowing through us

I pray for the friends I have known,

for all the communities I am a part of

and for the nations of the world,

that peace may become their way of life.

I pray for humankind.

I pray for forgiveness from those I have hurt

and pray I may forgive those who have caused me pain.

I pray that a growing love may fill me to overflowing

through the enduring grace of God.

I pray for all I am related to throughout the world,

for I am a part of all life

now, through the past and into future time.