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Depression’s Negative Thinking

Years ago, when I had just been told I had something called “depression,” I was having a tough time accepting it – after all, I was a litigator, a good-slinger extraordinaire.  The only thing that I thought could bring me down was a lucky pistol shot at High Noon.

During a talk with my therapist in the beginning of my recovery a decade ago, I told him all the negative thoughts I was having about my life. My counselor, a large, white -bearded older man with an Obi Wan Kenobi-like aura, gently told me, “Dan that is depression talking.” Somehow that got through to me; somehow I knew it was true.

My counselor, pillar of Jedi knowledge that he was, had helped me look through a sort of psychic telescope into the constellation that was my patterns of depressive thinking.  All people who have struggled with depression must do combat with their negative thoughts.  They must – usually with a therapist’s help – begin to see that THEY are thinking these thoughts and they’re not just HAPPENING to them.

Negative Thoughts – and Lots of Them

It has been estimated that we have anywhere from 25,000 to 50,000 thoughts a day. If your ideas about life are predominantly downbeat, imagine how many negative thoughts you are generating daily—thousands upon thousands.

In the magazine Psychology Today, Hara Estroff Marano writes:

“One of the features of depression is pessimistic thinking. The negative thinking is actually the depression speaking. It’s what depression sounds like. Depression in fact manifests in negative thinking before it creates negative affect. Most depressed people are not aware that the despair and hopelessness they feel are flowing from their negative thoughts. Thoughts are mistakenly seen as privileged, occupying a rarefied territory, immune to being affected by mood and feelings, and therefore representing some immutable truth.  

Compounding the matter is that negative thinking slips into the brain under the radar of conscious awareness and becomes one of the strongest of habit patterns. People generate negative thoughts so automatically they are unaware that it is happening; that it is actually a choice they are making.”

Lawyers are particularly prone to this type of pessimistic thinking which helps explain why their rates of depression are about twice that – twenty percent – of the general population.

In recent article in The Wall Street Journal wrote about this very topic:

“Martin E. P. Seligman, a psychologist and proponent of ‘positive psychology,’ observes that lawyers experience depression at rates that are 3.6 times as high as that of other employed people. They also abuse alcohol and illegal drugs at rates above what’s seen in non-lawyers. Why is this? In part, he says, the law selects people with a glass-half-empty attitude. His research has found that people who score low on an optimism test do better in law school. ‘Pessimism, he writes, ‘is seen as a plus among lawyers, because seeing troubles as pervasive and permanent is a component of what the law profession deems prudence.

A prudent perspective enables a good lawyer to see every conceivable snare and catastrophe that might occur in any transaction. The ability to anticipate the whole range of problems and betrayals that non-lawyers are blind to is highly adaptive for the practicing lawyer who can, by so doing, help his clients defend against these far-fetched eventualities. If you don’t have this prudence to begin with, law school will seek to teach it to you. Unfortunately, though, a trait that makes you good at your profession does not always make you a happy human being’’.

The Big Ten

For us to start making different choices about what kind of thoughts we think, it’s important to see the patterns, the way these false thought patters take place over and over again.  Here are some examples of depressive thinking:

1.      False extremes – “the tendency to evaluate [one’s own] personal qualities in extreme, black-and-white categories; shades of gray do not exist.”

2.      False generalization – “after experiencing one unpleasant event, we conclude that the same thing will happen to us again and again.”

3.      False filter – “we tend to pick out the negative in every situation and think about it alone, to the exclusion of everything else.”

4.      False transformation – “we transform neutral or positive experiences into negative ones.”

5.      False mind-reading – “we may think we can tell what someone is thinking about us, that the person hates us or views us as stupid. But such negative conclusions usually are not supported by the facts.”

6.      False fortune-telling – “we expect catastrophe and the expectation itself produces hopelessness and helplessness.”

7.      False lens – “we view our fears, errors, or mistakes through a magnifying glass and deduce catastrophic consequences. Everything then is out of proportion.”

8.      False feelings-based reasoning – depressed persons “tend to take their emotions as the truth. They let their feelings determine the facts.”

9.      False “shoulds” – “Our lives may be dominated by ‘shoulds’ or ‘oughts,’ applied to ourselves or others. This heaps pressure on us and others to reach unattainable standards.”

10.  False responsibility – “when we assume responsibility and blame ourselves for a negative outcome, even when there is no basis for this.”

A common theme running through much of this type of thinking is a self-judgment of inadequacy and, as a result, the depressed person notices negative, misfortunate circumstances but ignores positive, fortunate circumstances.

Overachievers and perfectionist that they are, depressed lawyers may frequently receive positive feedback concerning his or her performance at work. For example, a depressed lawyer may have a caseload of one hundred cases.  He might have the upper hand on 90%, but struggles with the 10%.   This lawyer sees his struggle with the handful of cases as confirming what a loser he or she is, incompetent and unable to keep up “like everyone else.” The many positive comments made by colleagues or staff are not even remembered.

Because of the belief that he or she is inadequate, and his or her tendency to only notice negative experiences, the future is viewed as certain to be gloomy, dismal, and painful: “I’ll never make partner,” “I suck as a lawyer.”

Negative thinking sounds, to the outside observer, to be obviously false or negatively skewed. If so, just why do depressives repeatedly think like this over and over again?  Are they idiots?

No, it’s because depressive thinking is “automatic.” It is not the result of thinking the situation through objectively – ironically enough, something lawyers are trained to do.

It just happens rapidly without any reflection.

So it’s the event itself that is sad, not life in general. And even if this thought or feeling arises, it is only temporary.

Depressive thinking leads to depression, leads to depressive thinking, leads to. . .

As we explain these thinking styles you will see how each helps to maintain depression, by altering how we perceive reality.

It’s these thinking styles that make it so hard to see an end to the depression, as they limit our possibilities of thought. Once these patterns take hold, the emotional arousal they cause begins to affect us physically.

If you are thinking now “Yeah, but you don’t know my life” – remember: there is nothing so awful that you can imagine that someone somewhere hasn’t survived without becoming depressed.

It is not your fault if you are depressed, but there are concrete, effective things you can do about it.

How to Kick Negative Thinking’s Butt

Again, Estroff Marrano offers some ways to combat negative thoughts:

  • Distract yourself. Engaging, pleasant activities, such as exercise or hanging out with friends, are best. Once you are feeling more positive, you will be better able to solve problems.
  • Stop that train of thought. Think or even tell yourself “Stop!” or “No!” when you start to ruminate.
  • Write it down. Tracking your ruminative thoughts in a journal can help you overcome depression by organizing those thoughts and relieving yourself of their burden.
  • Solve a problem. Even taking a small step toward solving one problem that is weighing you down will help with overcoming depression. Data show a strong link between goals you cannot achieve and depression-inducing ruminative thinking, so start problem solving.
  • Identify triggers. Figure out which places, times, situations, or people are most likely to cause a bout of rumination, and find ways to avoid those triggers or manage them better. Mornings and evenings are the times when ruminative thinking is most likely.
  • Meditate. Mindfulness techniques can help you get some distance from the thoughts that trouble you, while at the same time reducing stress.
  • Stop linking small goals to big goals. For example, you may need to challenge a belief that achieving big goals (such as happiness) completely depends on succeeding at smaller goals (such as losing five pounds).
  • Get therapy. Seek cognitive therapy techniques to help you question your thoughts and find alternative ways of viewing your situation.

Try, day by day, to chip away at the conclusion that depression just happens to you, or that it’s just a disease.  Try to remember, that whatever it’s causes, negative thinking is a powerful fuel to help it arise and keep it going.  Think about it.

 

 

 

The Triumph of the Human Spirit – Folks Dealing with Depression

A hero is an ordinary person who finds the strength to persevere and endure in spite of overwhelming obstacles – Christopher Reeve.

I want to tell others about all the remarkable people I’ve known who’ve struggled with depression.  While they’re not paladins that ride into medieval battle swinging swords atop snorting mares, they fight a different kind of battle.  And one no less heroic.

Many of the best people I’ve been privileged to know struggle with depression every day.  While they don’t have shiny medals pinned on their lapels, there is an unmistakable strength in them – even if they don’t see it.  I know it’s real because I see and feel it – just like when I am in a grove of giant and majestic pines during a walk in the forest that must withstand the fury of a winter’s storm in January.

A Hero Steps Forward

Take Bob Antonioni. Bob’s story appeared in Esperanza magazine’s regular column, “Everyday Heroes”.  He had a budding political career in the Massachusetts State Senate and a law practice. Despite holding such a public position, Bob took the courageous step to disclose that he suffered from clinical depression in the hope of letting others know it was okay – there wasn’t anything to be ashamed of:

“Telling his story has become another tool to chip away at stigma. Yet he remembers his trepidation when he disclosed the truth in a November 2003 interview with a local newspaper.
‘I had misgivings,’ he admits, ‘but I guess I didn’t give people enough credit. All I heard were thank yous —the complete opposite of what I expected.’ In fact, Antonioni was re-elected twice after that. He retired from public office in 2009 to have more time for himself and his family, but continues to practice law and pursue his advocacy work.”

To me, it says something wonderful about the human spirit that against such a formidable foe as depression, people keep fighting to get better. And many triumph. Just like Bob.

The Black Dog

A few weeks ago in Canada’s Globe and Mail newspaper, there was a great piece, Ill to Power.  The article was about Winston Churchill’s life-long battle with depression written by the author of the new book, A First-rate Madness.  Here, he describes Churchill’s struggles:

“There is no doubt that he had severe periods of depression; he was open about it – calling it, following Samuel Johnson, his ‘Black Dog.’ Apparently his most severe bout of depression came in 1910, when he was, at about age 35, Home Secretary. Later in his life, he told his doctor, ‘For two or three years the light faded from the picture. I sat in the House of Commons, but black depression settled on me.’ He had thoughts of killing himself. ‘I don’t like standing near the edge of the platform when an express train is passing through’.”

Like Churchill, Abraham Lincoln struggled with major bouts of depression.  In the book Lincoln’s Melancholy: How Depression Fueled a President to Greatness, Lincoln writes about a cloud over him that every bit matches Churchill’s darkness:

“I am now the most miserable man living.  If what I feel were felt by the whole human race, there would not be one cheerful face left on earth”.

Lincoln, who many say was one of this country’s greatest heroes, apparently did not feel like one all the time.

Hard to Feel Like a Hero

Most people depression — in some fundamental sense –feel broken.  This conclusion is fueled by the depression itself – both biological (sleep, appetite, energy levels) and psychological (e.g. “Nobody really cares about me”, “I stink at my job” or “My depression will never end”).  But this brokenness isn’t just an “inside job” – crummy stuff they tell themselves about themselves.  Other people or events in a depressive’s daily orbit serve-up damaging assessments and innuendos about a depressed person’s behavior or personhood.

Others may tell them that they are letting them down at the office or not contributing enough to family responsibilities – yes, loved ones can get fed up with the depressed person’s withdrawal from the family, the inability to do chores he/she used to do and the depressed person’s sourpuss.  Or, they deny the immensity of the suffering of the depressive by minimizing it:  “Don’t worry, things will get better.  You’re just in a slump.” 

We sense that their agenda isn’t so much about helping us get better, as it is about them their needs.  Why else would we feel so much crappier and lonely after such exchanges?  It isn’t as if their needs aren’t important, but shouldn’t our mental health be at least as important?

Then there is the cultural stigma – a cloud of ignorance, fear and misunderstanding – surrounding depression.  American culture tends to see depression as a moral or personal weakness; the “just-get-over-it” rants of a society that likes simplistic answers to complicated problems.  Dr. Richard O’Connor, in his book Undoing Depression, captures some the irony of how our society sees depression as different from – or maybe not as real as — other forms of illness:

“Where’s the big national foundation leading the battle against depression?  Where is the Jerry Lewis Telethon and the Annual Run for Depression? Little black ribbons for everyone to wear?  The obvious answer is the stigma associated with the disease. Too much of the public still views depression as a weakness or character flaw, and thinks we should pull ourselves up by our bootstraps. 

And all the hype about new antidepressant medications has only made things worse by suggesting that recovery is simply a matter of taking a pill.  Too many people with depression take the same attitude; we are ashamed of and embarrassed by having depression.  This is the cruelest part of the disease: we blame ourselves for being weak or lacking character instead of accepting that we have an illness, instead of realizing that our self-blame is a symptom of the disease.  And feeling that way, we don’t step forward and challenge unthinking people who reinforce those negative stereotypes.  So we stay hidden away, feeling miserable and yourselves for ourselves for our own misery”.

Renaming One’s Walk through Depression as Heroic

Why can’t we re-imagine our self-image in relationship to our depression in a more positive light?  Why can’t we think of our battles with depression as, in fact, heroic?  Instead of counting all of times that depression has gotten the better of us and knocked us to our knees, how about giving ourselves credit for all of the times that we have triumphed over depression (perhaps even in the simplest ways); the times that we have risen to the occasion in spite of our melancholy and the moments that we have looked depression in the eye and said, “no more.”  Make no mistake about it that takes gumption – lots of it!  And I’ve witnessed scores of people say “that’s enough.”  While talking back to depression isn’t a panacea, it may be a healtier way for us to cope rather than succumb to it.

Viewing yourself as a hero is a constructive and healing experience for people with depression.  It doesn’t deny that we struggle with it sometimes, but it more importantly doesn’t deny the power we actually do have over it and the courage it takes to deal with it to the best of our ability each day.

In his article “The Continuing Stigma of Depression” psychologist Jonathan Rottenberg writes about the stigma for those who have recovered from depression:

“My hunch is that the disease/defect model of depression, is unwittingly contributing to the ongoing stigma of depression.  Through the lens of the disease model, the legions of the formerly depressed are a “broken” people who need lifelong assistance.  I would like to see a more revolutionary public education approach, with campaigns that emphasize the unique strengths that are required to endure depression. Even if a person is helped by drugs or therapy, grappling with a severe depression requires enormous courage.  In many ways, a person who has emerged from the grip of depression has just passed the most severe of trials in the human experience.  If we acknowledge that surviving depression requires a special toughness, we will not see formerly depressed people as a broken legion, but as a resource who can teach us all something about overcoming adversity”. 

Things to Consider

 – Maybe we fall down 30 times a day, or maybe it’s just a stumble, but we have to regain our balance and get up.  As the old Zen saying goes, “fall down seven times — get up eight.”  That, my friends, is heroic. Just remember that when you fall and get up – YOU are that hero.

– We must remember that when we are in a depression, it isn’t easy to feel like a hero — just think of Honest Abe. But the depression will pass. So don’t be too hard on yourself if you don’t feel heroic all the time.

– We should not condemn ourselves when we are down, but pick ourselves up and remember that we are, truly, remarkable people. 

As writer Andrew Berstein once wrote:  “A hero has faced it all: he/she need not be undefeated, but he/she must be undaunted.”

 

Rumination in the Legal Profession

There’s always a lot going on in my head.

But then again, there’s a lot of racket coming from yours too.

Lawyers think for a living, after all.  There’s always the mental hum of marshaling the evidence, resolving conflicting LexisNexis opinions or assessing the climatic shifts in office politics and how it affects the pecking order.  As advocates, we give a lot of deliberation to turning our analysis into persuasive locution. Lincoln, reflecting on his life as a trial lawyer, wrote, “When I get ready to talk to people, I spend two thirds of the time thinking what they want to hear and one third thinking about what I want to say.”

For lawyers with depression, there’s another kind of inner buzz.  It’s called rumination.

We might be tempted to think of rumination as a form of worry, a rehashing of all the shit that can go wrong. But, it’s actually not.  Worry focuses on potential bad events in the future.

Rumination, a cousin of fretful forecasting, is similar to worry except it focuses on bad feelings and experiences from the past. 

According to book The Mindful Way through Depression,

“When we ruminate, we become fruitlessly preoccupied with the fact that we are unhappy and with the causes, meanings, and consequences of our unhappiness.  Research has repeatedly shown that if we have tended to react to our sadness or depressed moods in these ways in the past, then we are likely to find the same strategy volunteering to ‘help’ again and again when our moods start to slide.  And it will have the same effect: we’ll get stuck in the very mood from which we are trying to escape.  As a consequence, we are at even higher risk of experiencing repeated bouts of unhappiness.”

In the First Person

I need a lot of time to get going in the morning – slurps of java, (the Starbucks “bold blend” varnish remover if I need a “stiff drink”) time to read the morning news, a sliver of time to plan my day  — and sometimes, ruminate. When ruminating, it’s as if pieces of my past are painted on those little squares of a Rubik’s cube that I’m endlessly manipulating  to solve.

Even though this style of thinking ends up making me feels crummy, in varying degrees, I like to ruminate. It some odd way, it seems to temporarily relieve me of any free-floating anxiety I might be experiencing.

Melissa Kirk writes,

“It feels good to ruminate.  Why is this? Two things happen to me when I’m dwelling on a problem.  The dwelling seems to stop the immediate pain or distress, the way rubbing a sore muscle can relieve the soreness temporarily, until you stop rubbing.  Also, I feel like, when I’m ruminating, that I’m acting on the problem of trying to solve it.  Rumination, then gives us the sense of taking action towards a situation that is distressing us, which relieves the distress in the short-term.”

This type of “mind rub” also skews the facts: I ignore the positive side of those past events and accentuate the negative.  Indeed it is rumination’s focus on the negative that gives it its solution-less quality.

We usually don’t ruminate when we’re happy.  When life is good, we savor everyday plentitudes of grace that have fallen on us whether earned or not.  This type of looking back is really reflection, not rumination.  When we reflect, we appreciate and learn from our past; no need to chomp on the bitter morsels of yesterday.   Interesting aside: the origins of the word “ruminate” come from the Latin word to describe the process in which cows chew and regurgitate their food, or “cud,” over and over again – yummy! 

We chew on our thoughts when we’re upset or in some kind of emotional pain or funk.  Rumination is a way of responding to life that involves repetitively and passively focusing on the symptoms of distress, and on its possible causes and consequences.   This plugs into depression because depression is passive.  We feel scant energy and incapable of taking action when in a melancholic ditch.

According to The Mindful Way through Depression,

“We ruminate because we believe it will help us overcome the unhappiness of depression.  We believe that not doing it will make our condition worse and worse.  We ruminate when we feel low because we believe that it will reveal a way to solve our problems.  But research shows that it does exactly the opposite: our ability to solve problems actually deteriorates markedly during rumination.  All of the evidence seems to point to the stark truth that rumination is part of the problem, not part of the solution.”

According to research done by Susan Nolen- Hoeksema, Ph.D., many ruminators negative outlook hurts their problem-solving ability. According to her research, they often struggle to find good solutions to hypothetical problems.  For example, if a friend is avoiding them, they might say, “Well, I guess I’ll just avoid them too.” Even when a person is prone to rumination comes up with a potential solution to a significant problem the rumination itself may induce a level of uncertainty and immobilization that makes it hard for them to move forward. Such depressive rumination most often occurs in women as a reaction to sadness.  Men, by comparison, more often focus on their emotions when they’re angry, rather than sad.

Percolations in the Brain

According to a recent Stanford study by Sian Beilock, Ph.D., changes were discovered in the brains of depression sufferers when ruminating.   MRI’s were taken of two separate groups: those with and those without depression.  Each group was separately prompted with various techniques to promote ruminative thinking. The MRI’s of people’s heads disclosed that a lot is going on in our brains when we are ruminating. 

According to an article in Montior magazine commenting upon Beilock’s work:

“People with major depression had greater activation than controls during the rumination task in a part of the brain called the anterior cingulate cortex. Thought to be involved in mood regulation, the anterior cingulate cortex may be infusing more emotion into the depressed individual’s ruminations than controls.  Depressed individuals also had greater activation in the amygdala, that almond shaped region deep in the brain that is a major player in negative emotional reactions.  Finally, and perhaps most interestingly, people with depression showed greater activation in the prefrontal cortex, where our working memory (a.k.a. cognitive horsepower) is housed.  If depressed individuals spend a lot more of this neural real estate trying to regulate their thinking, they may have less brain power left over to do other important thinking and reasoning tasks.  This may explain the cognitive deficits depressed folks sometimes show.” 

Unplugging From Rumination

Here are some thoughts about how to deal with rumination.

First, need to learn that rumination doesn’t solve our problems – it insidiously perpetuates them.  “We can’t,” wrote Albert Einstein, “solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.”  We can’t solve our depression by using the same ruminative thinking habits that may have caused it to begin with.

Second, we need to see why, if it doesn’t work, we keep doing it.  We do so because it tricks us into thinking we are actually being productive and briefly reduces our anxiety.

Third, once we have seen that it doesn’t work and why we keep doing it, we need to make small behavioral steps and resolutions to change it.  Yet, as Dr. O’Connor says, “We aren’t to blame for our depression.   But, we are responsible for getting better.”  Responsibility implies action, not just good intentions.

Depressives often hit a wall in their recovery when asked to change their thinking and/or behavior: they’re either too tired, frozen or can’t get out of their own way.  Often, they are fatalistic:  “The way I see the world is just the way the world is and my life is – screwed up.” They feel that life has dealt them a bad hand and try to solve unsolvable problems:  “What did I do to deserve depression?  Why can’t I ever get things done?”  These thoughts just produce paralysis, not productive solutions.

Of course, there’s an element of truth to many of our ruminations.  If there weren’t so, we wouldn’t endlessly cudgel ourselves over the head because we would quickly see just how silly ruminating really is.  For example, would any of us ruminate about why we didn’t  become a circus clown?  We don’t because there’s not a scintilla of evidence in our past that we ever wanted to be a clown or had the opportunity to do so. 

Rumination is more clever and seductive than that.   The ruminative habit compels us to churn away at half-truths or things that actually did happen.   For example, “why were my parents so screwed up?” Or “why did they leave me a legacy of depression or anxiety?”  There’s truth in these questions.  My parents were screwed up.  My parents did leave me a legacy of depression.

It’s been written that the truth will set us free.  The problem here isn’t with the truth, it’s what we do with it.  Ruminators run with it in a destructive way when they cycle through these issues over and over again with no resolution in sight.  With regard to our parents painful legacy for many of us, is there any answer that would ever satisfy us?

There is tragedy in this world, bad things do happen to good people and life is often unfair.  Yet, as Helen Keller once wrote, “The world is full of suffering.  But, it’s also full of the overcoming of it.” THAT is reality too.  So, when we sit down to eat our daily fare of our thoughts and meanderings that make up our days, we might want to pick from the upbeat side of the menu. 

And not chew on our food too much.

Judges and Depression

Loneliness is the most terrible poverty — Mother Teresa

I’ve written a lot on stress, anxiety and depression in the legal profession, but not about the judiciary. There has been much commentary, research and Law Journal articles about what ails law students and attorneys — but not about judges.

I guess that’s not surprising.  In my work over the past four years, I have spoken with scores of judges from all over the country.  It’s a noble, important calling in life.  But it’s also very stressful, demanding and . . . lonely.

Here’s a clip from the new documentary A Terrible Melancholy: Depression in the Legal Profession. My good friend Judge Michael Miller talks about the loneliness of being a judge:

Isolation, Loneliness & the Judiciary

In an article for Judicature magazine, psychiatrist Isaiah Zimmerman culled through twenty years of notes he accumulated from treating state and federal judges.  Here are the voices of the judges in their own words: 

“Before becoming a judge, I had no idea or warning, of how isolating it would be.”

“Except for those very close, old friends, you cannot relax socially.”

“Judging is the most isolating and lonely of callings.”

“The isolation is gradual.  Most of your friends are lawyers, and you can’t carry on with    them as before.”

“When you become a judge, you lose your first name!”

“It was the isolation that I was not prepared for.”

“After all these years on the bench, the isolation is my major disappointment.”

“The Chief Judge warned me: ‘You’re entering a monastery when you join this circuit.’”

“I live and work in a space capsule – alone with stacks of paper.”

“Your circle of friends certainly becomes smaller.”

“Once you get on the appellate bench, you become anonymous.”

These weren’t isolated comments or small pockets of pedestrian sadness.  Dr. Zimmerman notes that about 70% of the judges he interviewed came up with these observations on their own.

There are several things that contribute to a sense of judicial loneliness.  The Code of Judicial Conduct imposes restrictions on judicial behavior both in and out of the courtroom.  Judges must avoid the appearance of impropriety and thus must be cautious and keep an appropriate distance and bearing at social and bar events. There are good reasons to have these restrictions, but if a judge isn’t careful to live a balanced life, they can help trigger a profound sense of lonesomeness.

Loneliness isn’t just emotionally painful; it’s also dangerous to your health on multiple levels.  According to an article by psychologist, Hara Estroff Marano, writes:

“Evidence has been growing that when our need for social relationships are not met, we fall apart mentally and even physically. There are effects on the brain and on the body. Some effects work subtly, through the exposure of multiple body systems to excess amounts of stress hormones. Yet the effects are distinct enough to be measured over time, so that unmet social needs take a serious toll on health, eroding our arteries, creating high blood pressure, and even undermining learning and memory.”

Given the pressures and isolation of the job, judges need to recognize the dangers associated with loneliness: unhappiness, discontent, health problems and perhaps . . . depression.

Judges and Depression

Judges are supposed to be problem solvers in black robes; not human beings with psychological problems of their own.

Given the position that judges occupy in our society, the stigma around disclosure to others –and perhaps getting treatment for clinical depression — is much, much greater. 

One psychiatrist I know who treats judges told me that judges request very early or very late weekday or weekend appointments.  Moreover, they ask not to be scheduled before or after another lawyer or judge and pay in cash so as not to attract attention or leave a paper trail.

For the first ten years of my career, much of my practice was spent litigating cases in state and federal courts in New York City.  One of my best friends from those days is now a judge.  When I decided to go public with my depression four years ago by writing an article for Trial magazine, my friend called me for dinner to catch up on things.  He wanted to know how I was feeling and expressed concern about my plans to go public about my depression. 

“Dan, why can’t you write the article anonymously,” the judge said.  “But that’s the problem, isn’t it?” I replied. “Why should I have to write such an article anonymously? What do I have to be ashamed of?  Depression is an illness no different than diabetes or heart disease.  Would I write an article about those illnesses . . . anonymously?”

We kept in contact with dinners and phone calls over the next four years, but over time our conversations centered less on my depression and well-being and more on his.  You see, my friend the judge disclosed to me that he was suffering from depression and had tried to commit suicide some years before. 

I think he felt he could trust me.  Moreover, I think my disclosure gave him implicit permission to talk about his pain and struggles; a hurt only his therapist and wife knew of.  He spoke of the loneliness of his job and how he missed the collegiality of his old large firm.  But, he said that on the balance,  he’d rather be a judge and didn’t regret his change in vocation; a move from the courtroom to the chamber.  He liked his job, enjoyed the intellectual challenge and the chance to do justice.

The statistics on lawyer depression are deeply troubling.  They suffer from depression at a rate twice that (20%) of the general population.  As such, about 200,000 of this nation’s 1 million lawyers are struggling with depression right now.  No studies have been done on judicial depression.

There are 1,774 federal level judges in the U.S. Were you to plug in the 20% depression rate we see with attorneys to the number of judges, approximately 350 judges across America are suffering from depression. Even though there haven’t been any studies of judicial depression, why would we expect the 20% rate to be any different than that found with attorneys?

I couldn’t find any statistics on how many state judges there are in the U.S.  New York State has 1,250.  Were you to plug in the 20% depression rate we see with attorneys to the number of these judges, approximately 250 of the Empire State’s judiciary are suffering from depression.

This isn’t sadness or burnout, but true clinical depression.  Sometimes, we confuse being down in the dumps with depression. They’re really not the same thing – not even close. Here’s how psychologist Richard O’Connor, best-selling author of the book Undoing Depression, distinguishes it:

“Everyone knows what depression feels like.  Everyone feels the blues at times.  Sadness, disappointment, fatigue are normal parts of life.  There is a connection between the blues and clinical depression, but the difference is like the difference between the sniffles and pneumonia.”

Nobody’s Perfect

Perfection is also an indicator for depression.  In his article Even Judges Get the Blues, Judge Robert L. Childers writes:

“Because of the weight of public expectation, judges generally feel that they should be perfect.  Not only do they feel that they should be fair, impartial, and make the right decision 100 percent of the time, but the public expects this of judges as well, as do the lawyers who practice before them.  This can create undo pressure for judges and, consciously or unconsciously, keep judges from admitting or recognizing the signs of debilitating disease.”

In an article from the ABA Journal,  Perfectionism, Psychic Batterning’ Among Reasons for Lawyer Depression, the piece states: “Lawyers [and judges] are taught to aim for perfection, to be aggressive and to be emotionally detached. They ‘intellectualize, rationalize and displace problems on others’ . . . . They don’t take direction particularly well. They tend to have to have fairly elaborate denial mechanisms. And they tend to challenge anything they’re told.”  In another article from the ABA Journal, it notes that when combined with depression, perfectionism makes it harder for a person to seek help.  And in the worst case scenario, leads to suicide.

Loneliness & Depression

Depression is a multifaceted illness that has several different causes – some genetic, some physical and some emotional.  In the depths of my depression, I felt very alone – like I was trapped at the bottom of a dark well. 

Many with depression isolate themselves because it’s painful to be around others.  I would hang out at Starbucks and do my work.  I didn’t want others I knew to engage me; I didn’t want others to see the pain I was desperately struggling with.

I’ve found that loneliness and depression often travel the same road.  This creates a lot of problems because the two can feed off one another.

According to psychologist Dr. Reena Sommer:

“Depression is a problem that often accompanies loneliness. In many cases, depressive symptoms such as withdrawal, anxiety, lack of motivation and sadness mimic and mask the symptoms of loneliness. In these cases, people are often treated for depression without considering the possibility that loneliness may be a contributing and sustaining factor in their condition.”

Generally, the debilitating symptoms of depression can usually be managed with antidepressant medication. But when the underlying loneliness is ignored or overlooked, the depressive-like symptoms will probably continue. Unless the reasons for loneliness and depression are separated out, it can easily turn into a ‘chicken and egg’ situation where depression leads to loneliness, and loneliness leads to depression.”

Turning It Around

While depression might not be our fault, it is our responsibility to get better.  We need to start behaving and thinking in constructive ways.  Here’s some food for thought:

  1. Get help.  You can’t handle this by yourself.  It is a problem bigger than any individual person.  The A. B.A. ‘s Commision on Lawyer Assistance Programs recently created a Judicial Assistance Initiative.  Reach out to them and they can get you pointed in the right direction.
  2. You may have to take antidepressant medication to help you.  That’s okay.  You may have a chemical imbalance that you need to address.  For many, psychotherapy alone won’t help until they quieted down their somatic complaints — e.g. fatigue from sleep problems — so that they can have the energy and insight to work on their problems.
  3. Whether you need medication or not, you will need to confront your negative thinking with a therapist.  A lot of research suggests that cognitive behavioral therapy is a particularly effective form of treatment for depression.  Interview a couple therapists before you settle on one.
  4. Exercise. The value of exercise is widely known: It’s simply good for everybody. For a person with depression, it becomes not just about a healthy habit, but a critical behavior and habit – they absolutely need to work out.  In his book Spark: The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain, Harvard psychiatrist John Ratey devotes a chapter to the importance of exercise in alleviating depression.  Please check this book out.
  5. If you have a spiritual practice, do it.  If you don’t, think about starting one.  This could be anything from a formal meditation practice, going to Mass, or walking the woods.  A lot of research suggests that people who have a spiritual practice do better with depression recovery.  If you believe in God or a higher power (I am Catholic), you can avail yourself of help and support from Someone who is bigger than your depression.  If you do not believe in God, maybe you believe in some other form of spirituality you can tap into.  Spiritual growth and development, in my opinion, are very important pillars of recovery. Two books from my tradition include Seeing beyond Depression by Father Jean Vanier and Surviving Depression: A Catholic Approach by Sister Kathryn James Hermes.  Also see the wonderful guest article she wrote for my website.
  6. Get educated. Read some good books on the topic. As part of your education, learn about the powerful connection between stress, anxiety and depression.  On this subject, I recommend Dr. Richard O’Connor’s Undong Perpetual Stress: The Missing Connection between Depression, Anxiety and 21st Century Illness. Dr. O’Connor suggests that depression is really about stress that has gone on too long. The constant hammering away of stress hormones on the brain changes its neurochemistry.  This can and often does result in anxiety disorders and/or depression.  Also see the article I wrote for Trial Magazine about the connection between stress, anxiety and depression. It is a companion piece to an excellent article written by Andrew Benjamin called “Reclaiming Your Practice.”
  7. Build pleasure into your schedule.  Judges, like all those in the legal profession, are busy and have the “I will get to it later” mentally – especially when it comes to things that are healthy pleasures.  We have to jettison this approach to how we live our days.  We must begin to take time – now – to enjoy pleasurable things and people.  A hallmark of depression is the inability to feel happiness or joy.  We need to create the space where we can experience and savor good experiences and feelings.
  8. Practice mindfulness. In mindfulness meditation, we sit quietly, pay attention to our breath, and watch our thoughts float by in a stream of consciousness. Normally, we immediately react to our thoughts (e.g. “I am losing my mind with all of these deadlines”).  With mindfulness practice, we can begin – slowly – to let the thoughts and feelings float by without reacting to them.  If such an approach to depression seems far-fetched, read the best-selling book The Mindful Way through Depression: Freeing Yourself from Chronic Unhappiness, for an excellent primer on how you can incorporate mindfulness into your day.
  9. Remember to be kind to yourself. It sounds so simple. I tell this to depressed lawyers and judges all the time and they usually look puzzled.  They often admit that they have rarely, if ever, thought about it and don’t know how to be kind to themselves.  I believe that it first begins with a conscious intention – “I am not going to treat myself poorly anymore.” Such a simple refrain can help us.  Depression is often built on poor mental, emotional and physical habits. We must learn to acknowledge that we are worthy of love from ourselves and others and that part of such love involves taking better care of ourselves.
  10. Spend time outside and in nature.  We humans forget that we are part of nature and the animal kingdom.  We need fresh air and sunshine.  Even more so when the darkness of winter strikes.  If you live in a part of the country with long winters, load up on vitamin D and consider using a light box to help you.

If you or a judge you know might be suffering from loneliness and/or depression, please forward this article to them.  Here’s a list of depression’s symptoms and a self-test from the Mayo Clinic.

Is It Lawyer Unhappiness or Depression?

Since you get more joy out of giving to others, you should put a good deal of thought into the happiness that you are able to give – Eleanor Roosevelt

There’s a Difference

Is there a difference between discontent and depression, a lack of fulfillment and true melancholia? 

The lines between murky malaise and downright clinical depression are blurred in everyday conversation, the popular media and discourse amongst professionals and academics about what troubles the legal profession.   Two journal articles – which, by the way, I enjoyed immensely, “Stemming the Tide of Law School Depression: What Law Schools Need to Learn from the Science of Positive Psychology” and “On Being a Happy, Healthy, and Ethical Member of an Unhappy, Unhealthy, and Unethical Profession” took this approach by canvasing studies that have been done on law student and lawyer unhappiness, discontent, stress, anxiety, depression and wellness.

But unhappiness is not depression, not even close.  I am not saying that this was the authors’ intentions, or for that matter, even their suggestion.  Nor I am saying that these issues aren’t related to one another.  Yet, I don’t think this lumping-of-the-maladies approach is particularly productive because it plays into the popular myths that depression is just an amplification of everyday sadness or, worse, a banal self-absorption with all that’s wrong in one’s life.  Remarkably, a recent poll showed that 45% of Americans think of depression as a failure of will.

Another problem with the lumping together approach is that sadness and depression call for radically different solutions.  In the two journal articles cited above, the first concentrates on positive psychology and how it can help alleviate distress and the later on living an ethical life and picking the right job — no doubt important considerations for everyone.  Yet I’m not sure that any of these approaches is a panacea to the epidemic of depression in the law.

To me, unhappiness and discontent are part of the human predicament.  It’s unavoidable that all of us will go through epochs in our lives when things unequivocally stink; we mope and wonder why meteorites always seem to pelt us when our car battery’s dead, our kids are in an uproar and the day at the office was survivable at best.  In the book Zorba the Greek, the larger than life Zorba was asked if he was married and replied with great gusto, “Me? Wife, kids, job — the full catastrophe!!”

But depression isn’t part of the human condition.  It’s a multifaceted illness, for some disabling and for many cruel. For many of its victims, the pain isn’t so much a feeling of sadness, but of nothingness.  There’s no air to breath, little room to escape this type of pain – until one, hopefully, gets treatment or it passes, mercifully, of its own inscrutable violation.  

How can nothingness be painful? Perhaps, it’s because it’s emotions that give life its vibrancy. These visceral forces energize us, heighten the intensity of our lives and make the human experience so rich.  The absence of this life force leaves us impoverished, longing and mourning for that richness in our being we once knew.

Psychiatrist Kay Redfield Jamison, herself a depressive, captured this experience when she wrote:

“Others imply that they know what it is like to be depressed because they have gone through a divorce, lost a job, or broken up with someone. But these experiences carry with them feelings. Depression, instead, is flat, hollow, and unendurable. It is also tiresome. People cannot abide being around you when you are depressed. They might think that they ought to, and they might even try, but you know and they know that you are tedious beyond belief: you are irritable and paranoid and humorless and lifeless and critical and demanding and no reassurance is ever enough. You’re frightened, and you’re frightening, and you’re “not at all like yourself but will be soon,” but you know you won’t.”

At least when the problem is one of discontent, we have our faculties (e.g. the ability to concentrate), are capable of making choices and bring focused energy to bear on changing matters in small or large ways.  For someone in the throes of depression, the power to choose is diminished if not extinguished.  Richard O’Connor, Ph.D., in his seminal book Undoing Depression, writes in his blog:

“Everyone knows what depression feels like.  Everyone feels the blues at times.  Sadness, disappointment, fatigue are normal parts of life.  There is a connection between the blues and clinical depression, but the difference is like the difference between the sniffles and pneumonia.”

No, depression isn’t unhappiness.  But discontent in one’s vocation is a real problem and often very painful.  We feel like a jammed door that won’t let us open into a life that works on some fundamental level.  We know something is wrong, sense that we’re stuck like in the traffic of our lives.  Our happiness is trying to tell us something and we know it.  Our emotional core senses we’ve been living a life out of sync with who we really are.  And if we’re in the legal profession, we’re not alone in this experience – far, far from it. 

Drifting Towards Unhappiness in the Law

There has been much debate about whether lawyers are really unhappy, to what degree, why that is so and what can be done about it. The Wall Street Journal interviewed Gretchen Rubin, a Yale Law School alumnus who clerked for Sandra Day O’Connor, about her book “The Happiness Project.”  Here’s her take on why so many lawyers find themselves in funks:

“There’s [this] whole notion of ‘drift’ that I think a lot of people fall into with law school.  They’d don’t decide, necessarily, to go to law school, but they drift into it, really for a lack of a better idea.  And that’s one of the reasons so many lawyers are unhappy.  They hear these lines that, on their face, seem to make sense: ‘It can’t hurt to take the LSAT.’ ‘I can always go to law school.’ ‘I can always change my mind later.’ That’s what happened to me.  I drifted into it.”

Gretchen realized that she had never made any real choice about whether to go to law school, let alone join the legal profession.  Yet, how many lawyers really chose their jobs? Most of us stumble around. There is a steep learning curve to life and there are few instruction manuals.  It’s often through trial and error that most people find their way.  The discovery that you’ve invested lots of time and money into a career that you later find was a bad fit is troubling indeed.  Many aren’t willing or able to make the leap to change matters; hence, unhappiness and distress. 

Perhaps the notion of happiness depends on how long you’ve been in the profession.  Recently minted lawyers seem to expect something more from their jobs than their predecessors.  The New York Times article The Falling Down Professions notes:

“Especially among young people, professional status is now inextricably linked to ideas of flexibility and creativity, concepts alien to seemingly everyone but art students even a generation ago. ‘There used to be this idea of having a separate work self and home self,’ notes Richard Florida, the author “The Rise of the Creative Class: And How it is Transforming Work, Leisure, Community and Everyday Life.”  ‘Now they just want to be themselves.  It’s almost as if they are interviewing places to see if they fit them.”

In a sense, it’s amazing that young lawyers are even taking into consideration flexibility and creativity; all the more so given the sour economy and the glut of law school graduates — currently about 150,000 per year.  But an increasing number of young lawyers seem willing to seek a job fit that jives with their desire for not only a decent paycheck, but a decent life.   Many middle-aged or older lawyers eventually get there, but often after a lot of struggle and pain.  Some switch jobs to find a better fit (the litigator who starts a real estate practice) or others chuck the whole profession and start life anew in other fields.

In the new book “The Happy Lawyer: Making a Good Life in the Law,” the authors point out that six experiences that are critical to making a person satisfied with her life, including security, autonomy, authenticity, relatedness, competence, and self-esteem.  Certainly, money can and should be part of the equation, but not to the exclusion of other intrinsic values. 

There’s nothing new here, but don’t we all need to be reminded of this message over and over again?  At the very least, it’s a counterweight to the popular and legal culture which puts way too much emphasis on money and deludes us into thinking that more of it will mean greater happiness.

According to psychology expert and lawyer Dan Bowling, “Common sense, though, would suggest that the happiest lawyers are those who feel they are really good at law practice, who deal with clients and can see results of their work, or who have a sense that they are involved in a greater cause. Another question about the research, he say, ‘and I think it’s a fair question is this one. ‘It’s the so-what question.  It is: Whoever said law is supposed to be easy? Law is a career sacrifice for clients. . . . Who said we’re supposed to be happy?’ Bowling has an answer: ‘I think the law can be a jealous mistress, but I also think she can be kind, too,” he says.

A contrary view is offered in “Scholars Debate: Is Law a Picnic?” by Harvard Law Professor David B. Wilkins who reports that in a study of 4000 lawyers in the first decade of their careers:  “. . . contrary to what many believe, there is ‘no evidence’ of ‘any pervasive unhappiness in the profession,’ he says – at least not among those who began practicing in 2000. In that group, nearly three-quarters reported being ‘satisfied’ or ‘very satisfied’ with their jobs.

Perhaps happiness is somewhat determined by the type of law we go into.  In The Happy Lawyer, the authors note that those who work for government, in a small firm, or in a solo practice, as well as those attorneys who work aligns with their values, are more likely to be satisfied with their careers.

In “On Being a Happy, Healthy, and Ethical Member of an Unhappy, Unhealthy, and Unethical Profession,” Patrick Schlitz writes:

“This is the best advice I can give you: Right now, while you are still in law school, make the commitment—not just in your head, but in your heart—that, although you are willing to work hard and you would like to make a comfortable living, you are not going to let money dominate your life to the exclusion of all else. And don’t just structure your life around this negative; embrace a positive. Believe in something—care about something—so that when the culture of greed presses in on you from all sides, there will be something inside of you pushing back. Make the decision now that you will be the one who defines success for you—not your classmates, not big law firms, not clients of big law firms, not the National Law Journal. You will be a happier, healthier, and more ethical attorney as a result.”

We each have to take our own journey in life to find out what makes us happy.  Just don’t get stuck in negative rumination about what’s wrong in your life.  Think about what could be “right” in your life.  Believe, at the very least, in the possibilities and follow your passion.  Make no mistake about it, there will be a cost.  If one follows one’s passion there may be risk, the displeasure of our peers and family members and financial concerns.  But if one doesn’t take this journey, if money carries too much weight in what we’re willing to do to make a living, we will be unhappy; if this situation goes on to long, maybe depressed.

Further reading:

“Chicken Little: Lawyer at Law” by Stephanie West Allen

“The New York Times Dissects Lawyer Unhappiness with a Note on Following Your Dreams” by Victoria Pynchon

 

 

Stressed and Depressed Guys in Blue Suits

Beneath the body armor of their pin-striped suits, male lawyers carry a terrible burden. Corrosive levels of stress bombard them and they’re expected to pony up and take it by fellow lawyers and judges — and themselves. There is a serious disconnect between the conversations going on inside their heads about how they really feel about their inner turmoil and the ways they present themselves to their busy world as competent, confident and glacial under pressure.

Studies show that lawyers suffer from elevated rates of stress and depression —  more than double the rates found in the general population. There are some physiological and psychological clues as to why this is so for men in the legal profession.

A new study finds that stressed men have diminished activity in brain regions responsible for understanding other’s feelings.  The study concludes that under stress, men tend to withdraw socially while women seek emotional support.  Recently, I was preparing for a trial scheduled to go on a Monday.   I had worked hard the whole weekend and was cranky and exhausted.  Sunday afternoon, my wife asked if I felt okay and whether I was stressed.  I shrugged off her question and said that I really didn’t want to talk about it. 

Yet in times when my wife is stressed, she turns to me for support and encouragement – and she’s a lawyer too.  As a man in the legal profession, I expect myself to just bear it and soldier on through the mud of litigation.  If you can’t take it, you can’t cut it goes the mindset in the legal culture.  As if there were no middle ground, no way to express this sense of free-floating anxiety.  As if it was all that simple.

There was an interesting article in yesterday’s ABA Journal, “Lawyers under Stress are Critical, Cautious and Distant, Personality Test Shows.” The tests, administered to 1800 lawyers at big firms, were conducted in collaboration with Hogan Assessment Systems, found that, on average, the lawyers:

• Generally do not seem to have a strong need for public recognition, although there is a subset of lawyers who seem to crave recognition and notoriety.

• Tend to deal with others in a direct and matter-of-fact way, but may come across as cold, critical and argumentative.

• Tend to be self-critical and temperamental but are also self-aware, open to feedback, and emotionally expressive.

• Are most attracted to environments that emphasize quality and are less commercially focused than professionals in other industries.

• Tend to value education and educational activities.

While these stress-related problems don’t necessarily cause male depression, they are additional risk factors for those are predisposed to it.

Terrence Real, author of the book “I Don’t Want to Talk about It,” makes an important point about how men deal with their melancholy: for every male who discloses his depression and gets treatment, there are four others who are able to hide it and won’t get help. He writes:

“Covert male depression has three main domains: self-medication, isolation and lashing out. Self-medication may be drinking, drugging, womanizing and even watching excessive amounts of television. Some forms of self-medication are tolerated by our culture so it is hard to get across that what these men are doing is stabilizing depression.

A covertly depressed man will isolate himself and withdraw from intimacy with his partner, his kids, his friends. He can’t afford to be intimate with others because he is desperately trying not to be intimate with himself.

Lashing out can mean violence and domestic abuse. Untreated depression may be an integral part of many male batterers.”

Men drive their pain deeper into the well of their being to avoid dealing with it, to avoid facing the fact that they feel overburdened and, perhaps, afraid.  Alone at the bottom, there is darkness with no ladder out.  Many of them will need an escape rope dropped into them by other caring people, if they are lucky to have such people in their lives.  They feel odd and alone; like they are the only man alive with this problem.

In fact, depression is a secret pain at the core of many men’s lives, and one that goes largely undiagnosed and untreated. Watch the trailer of the recent documentary “Men Get Depression” which aired on PBS:

What Men Can Do About Stress

Check out this stress blog by therapist, Elizabeth Scott.

We all know exercise is important to controlling our stress levels. The problem isn’t that we don’t know that. The problem is that we don’t do it.  Hook up with a trainer at your local gym.  It’s is a relatively cheap way to motivate you to exercise. It also makes you accountable to someone and it’s painful to the pocketbook if you blow it off – must trainers charge you for no-shows! Here’s a great blog about managing stress with exercise and a good diet from a personal trainer.  Also check out the book Spark: The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain which has three great sections about stress, anxiety and depression and what happens to the human body when we work out. I do use a trainer and it has had a dramatic impact on stress loads I carry.

For a quick fix, check this web article “Eight Immediate Stress-Busters.”

Read an article I wrote for lawyers in December, 2008 edition of Trial Magazine, “The Connection between Stress, Anxiety and Depression.” It is a companion to Dr. Andrew Benjamn’s wise advice, “Reclaim Your Life, Reclaim Your Practice.”

What Men Can Do About Depression

Read Terrence Real’s book because it’s important for all of us to learn about depression from a male perspective.  Also check out the website Mid-Life Men which offers stories from guys about their depression experiences.

Have your wife read Is He Depressed or What? Many women ask themselves this question every day wondering whether their husband or boyfriend’s short temper, tendency to withdraw, and mysterious physical complaints might be indications of some deeper psychological issue. The book offers an overview of the ways men typically express signs of depression. It provides strategies they can use for improving communication, dealing with relationship complications, and coping with men’s physical symptoms related to depression, such as insomnia and sexual dysfunction.

Above all, the book helps your spouse avoid becoming lost in your depression. By paying attention to their own needs, they can best preserve their well-being and peace of mind—and so are able to offer the most support to you.  I often suggest that men buy this book for their wives rather than ask their wives to go out and buy it.  This demonstrates that you are in this together, that you care about her feelings and that you want her to understand.

Get help.  Therapy is not scary and you don’t have to go it alone. Therapy will help you to feel better by having someone to talk with.  Check out this article where a therapist answers seven questions about how therapy works and what to expect. It is something productive you can do about your stress, anxiety and depression and it can help you to develop some better coping skills.  If you are concerned about being seen, many therapists have early morning or late evening hours. You also tell them that you have a concern about being seen by fellow attorneys or judges and request that he or she not schedule you at a time when that therapist may be treating someone you don’t want to see.

Men, you can’t handle exorbitant levels of stress and depression on your own.  It’s not shameful to get help.

Nobody’s Perfect

Striving for excellence motivates you; striving for perfectionism is demoralizing — Harriet Braiker, Ph.D.

Nobody’s perfect – that’s why we have erasers.  Yet nowhere on this sweet blue orb are there more people driven to perfection than attorneys. 

It’s really not surprising, after all. We work with laws, rules and regulations: ancient tomes, incantations and idealizations about how our society expects folks to behave.  When one acts outside the proscribed rules, one’s in violation, negligent or culpable.  When this happens, people turn to a lawyer and expect him or her to get the job done – and flawlessly.

It’s easy to calm our fears with the wilted wisdom, “Well, everybody makes mistakes.”  But things can and do go terribly wrong when we make mistakes – and we can and do make them.  Things can go quickly awry despite our best efforts and work.

Lawyers are on edge because they feel if they’re not perfect, they’ll fall over the edge.  Besides the inner stress, there is the outer pressure to keep a calm and cool façade lest our clients and colleagues lose faith in us.

I’m a perfectionist to the core.  In a sense, it’s great because I take pride in my craft as a lawyer.  I love the look and feel of good work well done.  I can take it too far though – I can get so keyed up about churning out a masterpiece that I lose perspective; I lose sense of the possibly that the judge and his clerk might skip over seventy-five percent of my brilliant delineations of a statute’s historic origins, that the seventh draft of a motion isn’t always much better than the fourth and that there’s real value in not deliberating too much, but simply getting things done.

In a great piece in the A.B.A. Journal entitled, Three Deadly Ps: Perfectionism, Procrastination, and Paralysis, Rebecca Nerison, Ph.D.  maps out why too many cracks at perfection can lead to procrastination and then paralysis, a veritable seizing up of our work motor:

Procrastination is an occupational hazard for lawyers. Procrastination robs lawyers of peace of mind.  It’s difficult to feel happy, healthy, and successful when you are forever putting off what needs to be done.  We procrastinate when we feel anxious about a task, when we’re bored with it, or when we’re tired.  In any event, procrastination is about avoidance.  Avoidance allows us to temporarily escape the fear, boredom, or fatigue we anticipate as we contemplate the task.  We are immediately relieved from the unpleasant feeling.  We get to feel good instead of bad.

A dilatory dodge of our work just leads to more problems down the road.  We need to take stock and see perfectionism for what it is: avoidance behaviors that rob us of energy and a sense of competency that comes from getting things done.  My psychologist, a wizard of the human psyche, once observed that it’s critically important to observe ourselves engaging in healthy behavior.  We build a sort of healthy resume of concrete things we do on a daily basis so that we can confidently say to ourselves, “I’m a person who get things done.”  Just as procrastination is a vicious circle, not procrastinating is a healthy one.

We really need to let perfection go and let our humanity seep into our daily work; a humanity that while imperfect, is full of good humor, irony and outright silliness.

When we ignore this essential truth, we press down too hard on the gas pedal and our – and our secretary’s lives – are made miserable.  Anne Lamott, author of the wonderful book Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith wrote:

Perfectionism is the voice of the oppressor, the enemy of the people. It will keep you cramped and insane your whole life and it is the main obstacle between you and a shitty first draft. I think perfectionism is based on the obsessive belief that if you run carefully enough, hitting each stepping-stone just right, you won’t have to die. The truth is that you will die anyway and that a lot of people who aren’t even looking at their feet are going to do a whole lot better than you, and have a lot more fun. 

What would the opposite of perfect be?  Maybe just human – and that’s humbling.  When we try to be perfect, we are too locked into a view of ourselves as the center of the Universe. 

We’re not gods, but in reality vulnerable creatures. 

I wonder if God has a sense of humor. How could he not given this goofy planet.  Even Jesus knew how to party when he turned water into wine at a wedding. 

We lose perspective with depression – we forget to play.  Richard O’Connor, Ph.D., once observed:

Most of us have to learn to take better care of ourselves.  One way is by spending more time in play.  The perfectionist, the depressive, the person who thinks he doesn’t deserve to feel pleasure, believes that he’d better never let his guard down, always busy, always productive.  But it’s a joyless if all we care about is getting the work done.  Something as simple as playing catch with the dog for a few minutes after work connects us with a part of ourselves we can lose only too easily – the child who can laugh, who can enjoy silliness, mindless physical activity. Tomfoolery is just as much a part of life as our lamentable laments. It’s uncomplicated, mischievous good fun that puts us into contact with our ageless inner child who wants to come out and play.  He or she is there – if you just look inside. We need to open that door; we need to let some fresh air in.

William James once wrote “Common sense and a sense of humor are the same thing, moving at different speeds.  A sense of humor is just common sense, dancing.” 

So kick off those Oxford and Manolo Blahnik shoes . . . and start to rumba.

 

The $tress of Success

         

We avatars of the legal system, we hired guns who ride into town and shoot up saloons, measure our success by the notches on our dusty belts: Did I win or lose?  Or, perhaps more accurately, is it: Am I a winner or a loser? There is a thrill about winning and being successful, however we define it — but also a lot of stress.

Results, bottom-line bastards that they are, can spew toxic stress into our bodies like BP oil into the Gulf.  Many lawyers struggle to shut off their inner dialogue that pings between their ears as they lay awake at night and their family sleeps:  “Will I be successful tomorrow?  Will I bill enough hours this month?” We mash ourselves up like Idaho potatoes flopping around in our beds as the minutes click away on our L.E.D. alarm clocks.

 I wrote an article for Trial Magazine about the connection between stress, anxiety and depression.  Here’s a part of that article:

 “How our bodies and brains deal with stress and anxiety hasn’t changed much in the last 10,000 years.  A wonderful defense mechanism, which is wired into our nervous system, is called the fight-or-flight response.  When confronted with a threat – whether real or perceived – this response kicks in and floods our bodies with the powerful hormones cortisol and adrenaline, which propel us into action.  This was an essential survival device for our ancestors who lived in the jungle and would have to flee beasts or fight foes trying to kill them.

Lawyers don’t face these types of real life-or-death threats. But they perceive life-or-death threats in their battles with opposing counsel while sitting in a deposition or sparring in the courtroom.  Our bodies respond as if they were being chased by a hungry lion.  Over time, this chronic anxiety causes the release of too many fight-or-flight hormones.  Research has shown that prolonged release of cortisol damages areas of the brain that have been implicated in depression: the hippocampus (involved in learning and memory and the amydala (involved in how we perceive fear).”

Living in the jungle of our profession doesn’t involve warding off wooly mammoths, but it does involve a fight-or-flight from mental constructions in our heads:  the fear of missing a court ordered deadline can create panic in our nervous system every bit as real as a tangling with a beast that tried to kill our ancestors.

Lawyers are perfectionists and overachievers who are never content to give things their just their best try.  They believe in dumping large amounts of energy into each and every project. Such extraordinary efforts are stressful on our bodies and minds.  Yet, we know all of this, don’t we?  The truth is that many lawyers have already made the calculations in their heads and are willing to take the pounding for more dollars.  We come back to our abodes at the end of our days exhausted, peak at our mutual funds statements and turn on the T.V. too tired to think about the implications of living this type of life.

Lawyer Steve Keeva, in his piece Take Care of Yourself, wrote:

 “The dominant method of legal billing can, if you let it, subvert your ability ‘to claim a full and rich life   for yourself,’ as litigator John McShane put it.  Think about it. Billing by the hour is extraordinary in the way in which it so nakedly equates money with time.  It thereby offers no incentive at all to stop working. The taskmaster par excellence can reduce grown professionals to slavish piece workers.” 

When exploring the stress of success, we shouldn’t lose sight of the fact that depression happens in a context, a cultural milieu and a profession’s mores.  Too often, we put everything on the individual – her depressive thinking, his genetic makeup – as if depression in a person forms and takes place in a vacuum:  if it “takes a village to raise a child;” well, it takes a culture to create conditions for depression to develop.

We are social creatures that need support from our families, institutions and society.  These structures help mitigate stress and prevent depression.  Yet,  contemporary culture has largely failed us: the breakdown in families, the betrayal of cultural and political institutions, a grimy cynicism in people, vacuous and crass entertainment unmitigated consumerism and a legal profession which endorses the value of professionalism while lawyers say that levels of incivility between lawyers is at an all time high.  It’s become more of a business than a profession and calling, it’s become more mercenary in nature where lawyers forget that they are officers of the court and not just there to do the bidding of a well paying client.

Bruce Levine, Ph.D., author of the book Surviving America’s Depression Epidemic, writes about renowned psychoanalyst and social critic Eric Fromm’s commentary on the connection between our cultural values and depression.  Here is an excerpt from book about the dangers of a comsumerism driven culture:

“Fromm argued that the increase in depression in modern industrial societies is connected to their economic systems.  Financial success in modern in modern cultural societies is associated with heightened awareness of financial self-interest, resulting in greater self-absorption, which can increase the likelihood of depression; while a lack of financial interest in such an economic system results in deprivation and misery, which increases the likelihood for depression.  Thus, escaping depression in such a system means regularly taking actions based on financial self-interest while at the same time not drowning in self-absorption – no easy balancing act.

The idea that money and buying stuff and acquiring status = happiness isn’t treated for what it is – a paper thin myth.  Certainly, there’s nothing wrong with making money; buying things and wishing to obtain a certain level of success in our careers. It’s a healthy recognition of the limitations of our income and what it really can buy that makes all the difference and keeps us out of this downward spiral.

In the book The How of Happiness: A Scientific Approach to Getting the Life You Want, author Sonja Lyubomirsky, Ph.D., concludes:

 “One of the reasons for the failure of materialism to make us happier may be that even hen people finally attain their monetary goals; the achievement doesn’t translate into an increase into an increase in happiness. Also, materialism may distract people from relatively more meaningful and joyful aspects of their lives, such as nurturing their relationships with family and friends, enjoying the present, and contributing to their communities.  Finally, materialistic people have been found to hold unrealistically high expectations of what material things can do for them.  One father confided to me that he believed that purchasing a forty-tow-inch flat-panel TV would improve his relationship with his son.  It didn’t.

A more spiritual take on the issue was penned by famed author and Trappist monk Thomas Merton.  In his classic work, No Man Is an Island, he writes:

 “One of the chief obstacles to a sense of wholeness in life is the selfish anxiety to get the most out of everything, to be a brilliant success in our own eyes and in the eyes of other men. We can only get rid of this anxiety by being content to miss something in almost everything we do. We cannot master everything, taste everything, understand everything, drains every experience to its last dregs. But if we have the courage to let almost everything else go, we will probably be able to retain the one thing necessary for us -whatever it may be. If we are too eager to have everything, we will almost certainly miss even the one thing we need.

Happiness consists in finding out precisely what the ‘one thing necessary’ may be, in our lives, and in gladly relinquishing all the rest. For then, by a divine paradox, we find that everything else is given us together with the one thing we needed.”

For Merton, that one thing was God.  For some of us with depression, this may be our touchstone as well; a center around which to slow down the centrifugal force of our spinning lives.  For the others, it may be our family or friends.  But whatever it is, it must ground us and bring out, as Abraham Lincoln once said, “The better angels of our nature.”

To lessen the stress in your life, and the risk for developing or exacerbating your depression, try these tips from your friend Dan:

1.   Fast for a few days from the radio in your car, the newspapers or fooling around on your Blackberry.  Take a time out.  Think of it as an experiment.  Lawyers complain that they’re stressed out only to dump more information and stimulation into their craniums at every few moment they have.  Lawyers already read and think enough for a living – give your nervous system a break for crying out loud.

2.   Hand in hand with the above, incorporate some slice of silence into your life.  It doesn’t have to be a monastic experience.  I wear a runner’s watch and do a ten to fifteen minute period of silence a day.  If you don’t do something like this, you know what you’re stuck with – too much noise.

3.   Start asking yourself some questions.  What toll on your mental and physical health is your drive to succeed exacting on your life?  Make an actual list, take it out every day and read it.  The purpose is to try to become more conscious of the actual cost of your career to you.  People tell me they don’t have the time to do this, but then spend hours researching whether to buy a Lexus or Audi.  The irony of it all.We love accumulating things and experiences in our society.  Instead of adding something into your life, what can you drop out of it that would make you feel better? 

4.   Read something that would nurture you as a person and dump the rest of the crap.  Read only one thing at a time.  Maybe a book of poetry or the biography of a heroic person. 

5.   Reconnect with the humorous, whether highbrow or sophomoric.  Plug into it and have a gut-busting hoot.

6.   Remember, that life isn’t a dress rehearsal.  The time you’re spending at your job is a segment of finite time that you’re given.  Once it’s spent, it’s spent.  No one tells you how to spend it, despite what you might have gotten yourself around to believing.   Remember, you choose.  My priest once said that on every gravestone there are two dates:  the date we were born and the date we died.  We don’t get to choose those dates.  But between those dates, is a dash line: “—.” That dash is our life and what we have done with it.  Resolve to be a person whose dash is driven by substance and not solely by success.  As Mark Twain once wrote, “Let your life sing so that upon your death, even the undertaker will weep.”

7.   The notion of “quality time” for oneself or others is largely bullshit.  Richard O’Connor, Ph.D. once said that to overcome depression we need to start investing in ourselves like we’re worth it: exercising, sleeping enough, etc.   No matter how you slice it, there is no small amount of “quality time” in which you can achieve these basic self-care routines.  The reality is you will need to take whatever amount of time it takes because YOU are worth it.

8.   If you are locked in the success matrix as a lawyer, remember that it doesn’t have to stay that way forever.  Realistically, your life won’t probably change tomorrow.  But it can begin to change in small way that can lead you in a healthier direction.

Mindful On The Job

 

Work is about a search for daily meaning as well as daily bread, for recognition as well as cash, for astonishment rather than torpor; in short, for a sort of life rather than a Monday through Friday sort of dying – Studs Turkel, author

Sunday night rolls around all too quickly.  The weekend, if we actually give ourselves a break from our jobs, can’t often prepare us for the frenzy of the week’s activity at the office that awaits us.  If we like our jobs as lawyers – and granted there are alot of us who do – we still may feel it’s half-baked- “it still could be better” we think to ourselves.

Michael Carroll, author of the book, Awake at Work, was employed at such places as Shearson Lehman, American Express and The Walt Disney Company.  More recently, he has been a consultant and coach to such companies as Starbucks and Proctor and Gamble.  His comments, into what workers really want out of their jobs, is insightful to the lives of lawyers on the job:

“In my role as a business consultant, I regularly ask my clients to complete the following sentence with the first word that comes to mind:

At work, I want to be. . .

While my survey is not scientifically reliable, I can report there are some patterns to the responses.  Here are the four most frequent answers:

  • Successful
  • Happy
  • Rewarded
  • Stress-free

Such responses come as no surprise.  Given the demands, risks and relentless pace of our modern-day workplace, it is little wonder that most of us would like a little stress-free happiness on occasion.  Rewards and success-isn’t that what we are all looking for at work?”

Who can’t relate to that take on the legal profession?  Whether we are happy in our jobs or not, we all think about how we can embrace more of these intangibles while at the office.

Carroll, in addition to being in the business world for the past forty-four years, is a long-time meditator and proponent of mindfulness meditation.  Here’s a great introduction to what Mindfulness is about:

You don’t have to be a Buddha sitting in a lotus garden to appreciate this fundamental and simple way of approaching your day.  It’s not so much a different way of doing and accomplishing stuff; lawyers are great at that.  Rather, it’s a different way of seeing at work.  Moreover, seeing via a discipline of mindfulness meditation, seeks to plant our feet directly on the carpet. It’s not so much about being alert and wired to the swirling stimuli peppering us from every angle.  It’s taking a time-out and leaning against the wall; it’s about letting the other half of our brain complement our eagerness to get things done.

Coming back to Michael Carroll’s survey about what people want out of their work, he opines that it’s not really success, happiness, being reward and a stress-free work-life: 

“My survey indicates that most of us think we want to happy, successful, and to be stress-free at work, but we also know that such aspirations are wishful thinking.  We all know work offers both success and failure; happiness and angst.  We know that work, indeed all of life, unavoidably presents both rewards and penalties; joys and disappoints. So, while most of us wish to be happy and successful at work, what we really want, from my vantage point, is to be confident: confident that no matter what work offers up, we remain self-assured and at our ease.”

In my experience, truer words were never spoken. As lawyers, there is a wonderful sense we get about our craft when we achieve a certain level of competence and feel that we can handle whatever down the pike.  We can acheive this sense of competence not just through the nuts and bolts of accomplishments in the courtroom, but through practice as sense of presence in our daily lives.

Explore how mindfulness meditation can help you at the office.  Also, for those so inclined, check out the wonderful book, which I’ve previously raved about, The Mindfulway Through Depression.  It’s not only for those with depression, but suitable for anyone who struggles with a sense of dissatisfaction and/or unhappiness at work.

The Need for Community

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My psychologist said something remarkable months ago:  “You’re a real loner Dan.”  I really never thought about myself that way – and I’m 48 years old!  But after reflecting on it awhile, I found what he’d said to be profoundly true.  It didn’t mean that I didn’t have people in my life that I love and who love me.  I have the best wife, a beautiful daughter and great friends.  Yet, I often didn’t see just often I isolated myself by choosing solitary activities.  There’s nothing inherently wrong with this.  It’s a question of balance.  For me, the scales are tipping in the direction of reaching out and enjoying the fruits that only happen when really sharing with others.

And it’s not just lawyers that feel lonely.  In a recent edition of the national publication for judges, Judicature, it was estimated that 70% of judges feel lonely.  While there haven’t been any depression studies on judges, as there have been for law students and lawyers, one can only imagine their high depression levels.

I know that when I went through the worst of my depression, it was a very lonely experience.  Not because people didn’t try to be there for me and help.  Rather, it was because depression short circuits something in our brains that makes us essentially human: our capacity to engage with and feel connected to people.  I’ve often said that being a lawyer can be a lonely job and believe that most lawyers, at least in their private thoughts, feel this way.  When this loneliness in our jobs is compounded by the isolation we feel during a depression, it has a crushing effect.  Oxygen disappears from the room only to be replaced by the vapor of melancholy.  It feels like there is no escape and we are pounded into submission; a submission that on one level makes no sense because we are still carrying on with our lives – but just barely. 

Lately, I’ve felt the desire to end my isolation.  I have begun to recognize that what is most important in life, really, is family, friendship and community.  It may sound trite and simplistic to offer this up, but such a simple truth has long eluded me in my life.   My best friend, my wife, has seen me reach out to her more and it has only deepened our marriage.  How many of us who have dealt with depression don’t reach out to the most precious person that we live with everyday?  For some of you, it may not be your spouse.  It could be anyone that you feel close to.  If you don’t have someone like this in your life, it’s critical to develop one because a hour of therapy per week and a trip to the psychiatrist once a month simply is not enough support, love and encouragement to recover from and stay out of depression.

Think hard about your life.  How much time do you spend with friends that you really connect with?  What is your relationship life with your spouse and children?  As lawyers, we often think and say, “Time is money.”  However, the span of our lives is short and none of us is guaranteed even another day on this earth.  If you are spending all of your time at the office and neglecting your need to connect with others, the cost is simply too high.

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