Part of running Storied Mind is responding to a steady stream of emails and comments from readers, and most of them concern the collision of depression and close relationships. They are mostly from people who have watched their depressed partners turn into angry strangers who leave. It’s a theme I’ve written about many times, but […]
awareness
The Quiet Crisis of Chronic Depression
Chronic depression, also known as dysthymia, is supposed to be a milder but longer lasting form of the illness than the more episodic and severe variety known as major depressive disorder. Yet I have come to believe that no form of diagnosable depression should be called “mild.” My concern is not about the accuracy of […]
My Top Books for Understanding Depression and Recovery – 2
Understanding depression and getting serious about recovery take a lot of searching. Reading is one of easiest tools to use, and the classic books in this highly personal list may help you get started. They have opened my mind to dimensions of healing I had never before paid much attention to. In particular, the five […]
Before ACT – Doing Depression Right
When I started learning about Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), the idea that I was doing depression rather than having it as an illness didn’t make a lot of sense to me. I could understand that avoiding painful situations could worsen depression and that I often acted in self-defeating ways. But weren’t those the effects […]
A Never-Ending Family Story Has to End
My never-ending family story has always been a hard scene in which I am very young and small and terrified. I’m staring at my parents and brother locked in combat. There may be no action, it usually flashes at me in tableau form, but there is plenty of rage, fear and hurt. There is a […]
The Alchemy of Turning Depression into Vitality
After reading about the experiences of Tom Wootton and Will, the author of the great blog, WillSpirit, I’ve been exploring whether I could find a way, as they have, of turning depression into vitality or even bliss, something positive and fulfilling. It’s been a stretch. I’ve usually thought of depression as a force that turns […]
Finding Self-Compassion through Focusing
Focusing is one of the few methods that has helped me understand depression as I experience it, well beyond the scope of clinical descriptions. It has also given me an approach to self-compassion that is more effective than the various meditations I have tried. As Eugene Gendlin acknowledges in Focusing, his self-help version of the […]
Waking Up a Depressed Partner
I remember years ago talking with a friend about his recent divorce and remarriage and mentioning the stressful time my wife and I had been having at that time. He bluntly suggested: Well, why don’t you leave? I told him I wouldn’t do that since I thought the problems were as much on my side […]
