Tag: anxiety

From One Lawyer to Another: Simple Steps Lawyers Can Take to Deal with Depression

Since you are reading a website about lawyers and depression, you are probably wondering whether you are suffering from depression, or what to do about it. You’re in good company. It is estimated that 1 in 10 members of the public suffer from depression; among lawyers the rate is 3.6 times higher. That would make it likely that about 1 in 3 lawyers are suffering from depression.

I am one of those lawyers (so, two of you are off the hook—you’re welcome). There are many articles covering the symptoms of depression. (See, e.g., this NIMH list.) If you even think you are suffering from depression: GET PROFESSIONAL HELP. At first, I refused to admit to myself that I needed help. I told myself that I could muscle my way through. It was a trap: while my higher consciousness assured myself that I could handle it all, my depression kicked in when it was time to get things done. “By the time you are sick enough to recognize that you have a problem, your ability to engage in accurate self-evaluation is significantly impaired.”

My particular form of depression involved feeling as if I was in a daze, as if I was not in control of my actions, as if someone else were running my life. I did not respond to client calls, I did not get work done until the last minute (if at all), I missed court appearances, I forgot to pay bills, I failed to monitor my trust account. I am doing much better now thanks to the help of many including our host Mr. Lukasik.

The problem—well, one of the problems—for lawyers suffering depression is that they cannot let their mental condition interfere with their ethical and legal duty to their clients. A.B.A. Model Rules of Professional Conduct Rule 1.1 requires that a lawyer “provide competent representation to a client.” And Rule 1.16(a)(2) states:

(a) Except as stated in paragraph (c), a lawyer shall not represent a client or, where representation has commenced, shall withdraw from the representation of a client if: . . . .

(2) the lawyer’s physical or mental condition materially impairs the lawyer’s ability to represent the client.

I don’t think the A.B.A. expects one-third of the lawyers to immediately stop representing their clients. Depression does not mean that you cannot ably represent your clients; but depression is also no excuse for failing in your duties. What I address in this article are some actions you can immediately take that I hope will help you keep up with your responsibilities while you seek professional assistance.

The Matrix. The science-fiction metaphor of The Matrix (what is the Matrix?) helped me understand depression. The brain functions at a level that we are not always consciously aware of. Sometimes we can override our instincts; sometimes we cannot. Think of yawning, or sneezing. When you are depressed, the Matrix has you. To deal with the immediate impact of depression, you must get out of the control of the Matrix.

Make a list, work the list. Making a list of what you need to do puts your higher consciousness in charge. Rumination is controlled by the Matrix; the list is outside. Work the list. It should be as specific as you can make it: Not “write the brief” but “write section I of the brief.” Give yourself a time estimate, start a stopwatch, and do the work. This should be no big deal: you bill by the minute, you can plan by the minute too. Don’t just think, “I ought to do X.” Writing it down is important.

You won’t necessarily get the work done in the time allotted; that’s OK. Lawyers are aggressive perfectionist. Your inner mind likes specific achievable goals. When the time is up, look at the list and chose something to do next. It could be continuing to do what you are already doing. Write down a new time goal and get at it.

There were times when my focus waned. I tried to recognize what was happening and do something physical. Give yourself a defined short respite: Stand up, walk around, talk to someone, hide in the bathroom, whatever. When the time is up, get back to the list.

Existential problems. Sometimes the consequences of (in)actions are just too dire:  failing to file an Answer, missing a court appearance. If the list idea is not working perfectly to save you from existential dangers, get someone else involved. Ask someone you trust outside your workplace to contact you every day, ask you whether your list and your calendar cover everything that needs to be done, and ask you whether you are doing what’s on the list.

You need to be brutally honest with your friend and yourself. If not have not done what needs to be done, you should articulate your next steps as specifically as possible. Not, “I’ll do this tomorrow,” but “I’ll do this at 8:00 a.m. tomorrow.” This takes a good friend.

Adjust your body. Changes in your diet, exercise and social climate may improve your mood. Depression is not a “mood.” But good mood will help address how to get through the days, weeks and months without screwing up your client’s and your lives.

My exercise regimen is simple: I take a 30-minute quick walk in the morning, enough to get my heart rate up. It is surprising what a positive effect this little bit of exertion has. My main dietary culprit is sugar. “People who suffer from depression are especially vulnerable to sugar’s evil power.” I find that exercise and diet go together: The more I exercised, the less craving I have for sugar.

As above, take the decision-making power out of the Matrix. Get an exercise buddy. Find a time for exercise (easier said than done, I know) and put in on your list / calendar. When I wake, I do not ask myself whether I should go for a walk; I say to myself, “time for my walk.” Put snack breaks into your schedule and have an apple or banana available.

Meditate. If you scoff at this, here is my challenge: close your eyes and think about nothing but your breathing for two straight minutes. Go ahead, I’ll wait. . . . . Not so easy, is it? Random thoughts kept jumping into your mind. You had an instinctual emotional reaction to these thoughts (anxiety, self-loathing, dread, etc.). The random thoughts and emotions are from your subconscious (the Matrix); where the depression lives. Do not battle the thoughts. When they happen, tell the thoughts that you will get back to them as soon as you are done meditating, and return to thinking about nothing but the breathing. (For you Matrix fans: the thoughts are spoons; you must realize that there is no spoon.)

When you meditate you are developing the skill to recognize your emotional reactions without succumbing to them. You can impress your therapist by referring to this as CBT: cognitive behavioral therapy. It takes practice, but just starting this routine will help immensely.

A day is 24 hours long—no more, no less. I cannot follow my own advice all of the time. I still eat cookies; I still get lost in my personal miasma. At the end of the day I tell myself, “that was today, I will follow the program tomorrow.” No recrimination; just observation. Try to avoid thinking on Tuesday that you have to “make up” for what you missed on Monday. Just do Tuesday.

These are stopgap measures. GETTING PROFESSIONAL HELP is the most important thing you can do. But in the meantime, I hope this helps you get you through the days ahead.

Mitchell Chyette graduated from the University at Michigan School of Law in 1979 and currently works in San Francisco, California.

 

7 Thoughts From a Chronically Unhappy Person

From The New York Times, Diana Spechler writes, “My depression habits include avoiding pain and courting diversion.  During every bout of depression, I grasp – at yoga, therapy, medication, romance – and hope that my tiny firefly of pleasure won’t wriggle from the cup of my palms.”  Read the News

Anxiety Management for Lawyers

From the Anxious Lawyer website, bloggers Jenna Cho and Karen Gifford write, “Frequently, when we experience anxiety, our first reaction is to ignore, dismiss, or to deny.  This reaction to our anxiety, may be temporary and make the feeling and somatic experiences go away, but long-term leads to unhappiness, depression and additional anxiety”.  Read the Blog

Perfectionism and Depression: Nobody’s Perfect

We often mix-up a drive to excel and perfectionism; they’re not the same thing. A drive to be your very best can leads to a sense of self-satisfaction and self-esteem. It feels good to give it all we got. Perfectionism? It’s a horse of a different color. People who feel driven in this direction tend to be more motivated by external forces – such as the desire to please others rather than themselves. Common and recurring thoughts of perfectionists include:

  • Anything short of excellent is terrible
  • I should be able to do/solve this quickly/easily
  • I am best handling this myself
  • I must find the one right answer
  • Errors, failure, and mistakes are unacceptable
  • I have to do it all at once

One depression/perfectionist suffer writes:

My name’s Paul and I am a recovering perfectionist.

I am also recovering from depression. The two are connected.

I’d been trying to do too much, too well, trying to please too many people, expecting too much of myself for too long, putting too much pressure on myself, creating too much stress. That’s a lot of ‘too muches’ for one person. My self-esteem took a battering, I stopped looking forward to anything and I felt like I was useless and hopeless.”

Psychologist Dr. Gordon Flett has studied perfectionists and found that they set excessively high personal standards for themselves and others then harshly evaluate their performance on these benchmarks. Often, perfectionists believe it’s their parents, bosses, or spouses who expect them to be perfect. They believe that such people will value them only if they’re perfect. The constant demand to appear as if they have it all tougher is draining.

web-perfectionism

Others tend to see them as harsh and unforgiving – rigid and unkind – though the truth on the inside is they are vulnerable people who lack resilience. Flett fund that physicians, lawyers, and architects, whose occupations demand precision, are at higher risk for perfectionism, depression and suicide.

Causes of perfectionism run from parenting to a genetic link, but whatever it’s origins, try these fixes:

Separate self-worth from the requirement to do things perfectly.

Dr. Nicholas Jenner writes: Perfectionism is addressable by using and applying cognitive tools. Positive change can be had when thinking is changed and self worth is separated from the requirement to do things perfectly. If you constantly hear your inner critic berating you for not getting or doing that extra 20%, you have noticed your perfectionist beliefs. Discrediting and disputing these values and finding realistic evidence to prove them wrong is a key part of recovery. As humans, we are inherently imperfect. We have the ability to fail without ever being a failure. We sometimes just need to think it and believe it.

Put people first.

Before tasks and “stuff,” put your heart into connecting with the people you love.

Come out as a human being.

Authenticity, although messy, is required for the pleasure of love, joy, fun and overall happiness.

Pay attention to your own signs of trouble.

Perfectionists get more anxious and rigid when they are hungry, angry, lonely or tired. Use prevention strategies to manage this tendency.

Let go of high expectations. Try to accept people as they are. We are all unique and flawed as human beings.

The great songwriter and poet Leonard Cohen once wrote and sang, “Ring the bells that still can ring. Forget your perfect offering. There is a crack, a crack in everything. That’s how the light get’s in.”

We’re cracked open when stress, anxiety and depression become just too painful and perhaps begin to see this eternal truth about others and ourselves:

Nobody is perfect.

 

Worry and Anxiety in Depression: Anxiety May Try to Help, But Then it Hurts: What Should You Do?

Anxiety is a normal human feeling.

Anxiety is what you feel when you are faced with uncertainty. When you do not know what is going on or what you should do about it, you react with a feeling of anxiety.

What makes anxiety pass? Resolving the ambiguity. Figuring it out. What’s happening or what to do about it. Then the feeling is gone, and you are relieved. You may still have work to do or a problem that needs to be fixed, but the anxiety about it is finished.

When people suffer from depression they often also feel anxiety and spend too much time worrying, which increases their depression. The parts of their brain that are involved in that normal reaction to ambiguity are working overtime. And the thinking brain, low on energy due to depression, cannot stop that worry train. When they worry too much and can’t exert enough control, then the feeling of anxiety persists beyond any situation that includes some uncertainty. In fact, the anxious feeling can be present before any uncertainty. Then it creates the nagging sense in your gut that something is wrong, so your helpful brain, the one that wants an explanation for every feeling you have, goes on a search to figure out what might be the source of that anxiety.

Because the natural response to anxiety is to try and figure out what to do, you may start to think over all the possible reasons you could feel worried, and you will inevitably find one. When you are depressed your brain generates too many negative thoughts and cannot effectively shove them aside. You can get stuck in a loop of worrying one worry after another. However, because real problems are not the reason you have the sensation of anxiety, you either think and rethink in an effort to get relief or you move on to yet another worry. Thus: rumination and “serial worrying”, hallmarks of anxiety fuel depression.

There is a lot you can do about this. You can use your brain to change your brain. Here are 2 ideas to start out:

1. If it is a real problem, you will not fail to notice it: In your “thinking brain” you can assess if the problem you are worrying about is a real problem. If it is not a real problem (perhaps just a potential problem) you can decide “not to believe everything you think”. This is a conscious, determined choice to disbelieve the sensation of anxiety that feels so real. In its place you put an intentional more positive thought: You are competent to know when you have problems that need attention. Then you move your thoughts along to something more positive.

2. Stop and Interrupt: You will also have to use your thinking brain to stop and interrupt the worrying. As they say in the 12 Step programs, this process is simple, but it isn’t easy. You must plan what you prefer to think about on a daily basis and then when the unnecessary worry pipes up, you stop, interrupt yourself, and replace it with the preferred thought. The hard part is doing this every time an anxious feeling creeps in or a worry pops into your head.

There are many ways to use your brain to change the brain. Learning various methods and putting them into place starts a process that is the first step to lifelong change. You might need some outside help to achieve this persistence in the face of such distress, but controlling anxiety is doable over time. As you get more control of anxiety, your depression will diminish too.

Margaret Wehrenberg, Ph.D.
Author of The 10 Best-Ever Anxiety Management Techniques and The 10 Best-Ever Depression Management Techniques

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