Alex Charfen writes that some stress is really a good thing. Read the Blog
Got Stress? Why That May Not Be A Bad Thing
Leaving BigLaw to Ease Depression
I have depression, at times severe, and high anxiety.
Things were worse when I was in private practice and did not like my job. Keeping track of my time in 6-minute increments was stressful. I hated marketing, even though I was good at it; because I am more of an introvert, I engaged in a lot of non-genuine behavior. That’s never a good idea because after awhile, you sort of lose track of yourself.
Since I did not like two-thirds of my job, motivation was a problem. And, with lack of motivation the depression increased, of course, and the occasional “sick” day popped up, or I would come to work late but then work into the night, thereby perpetuating an unhealthy lifestyle (eating fast food, etc.). I just got sick of myself.
One morning I thought, by the end of this year I need to be out of this law firm. I decided I needed a job that I felt mattered. Whether that was with a not-for-profit organization or something else, I didn’t know. Fortuitously, a judge I had clerked for after law school called me, and I returned to working for him as a law clerk. I thought I would only stay one year, but it became three. The hours were much more manageable, I started taking better care of myself, and I felt my job mattered. I essentially hit the pause button in my career.
I was extremely worried when I went back to clerking because all future employers would think it was odd and ask about it (and they have). But it did not derail my career, I think because I became more confident in my choices, and more genuine. After three years of clerking, I returned to private practice, but rather than represent employers in labor and employment cases, I switched and represented employees.
Ninety-nine percent of lawyers in the labor and employment law field do not switch. I’ve never regretted it. The power structure between employees and employers is so one-sided it was easy to feel like what I was doing mattered, particularly when dealing with an employee who had a family and had been fired. My hours were sometimes just as long, but it felt different because I was enjoying myself. The billing didn’t stress me and I didn’t have to market to unions; that’s not how it works in that arena. I was right to pick a job that did not involve marketing — I’m actually good at it, but it stresses me out.
For personal reasons, I had to give up my job as a union attorney but the criteria, in looking for a new job, remained the same — it had to be a job where I would feel like what I do matters to me. I landed an awesome job with the federal government and now feel like I have the best job in the world.
I didn’t realize until later in life that not everyone has a hard time getting out of bed, nor am I lazy, but I’ve finally found the right mix of meds and have been in therapy.
While I still have depression, I’ve become much more assertive about my health as I’ve gotten older, and much less ashamed about my depression. A few years ago I had to do an outpatient program for 5 weeks, where I worked only half a day. But I presented the situation to my boss as something I needed to do to make myself healthy. I also started and stayed in therapy; that has not been an easy task for a few reasons, one of which is because we, as lawyers, are always busy. I also have modified my type-A personality. When I am writing a brief, letter, memorandum, etc., I tell myself, sometimes good enough is just fine. That has helped with the depression because this saying causes me to relax and reminds me of what is important in life.
My journey has been difficult at times and during the midst of it, I had the idea of painting a motivational saying on a 3×3″ canvas. Now I do it for others, and they find it equally as helpful and comforting. I do it because I want you to know a fellow sufferer cares. If you would like me to make one for you, email your saying to me at bluesyart.gmail.com, along with an address to send it to. Your saying can only be 3-4 words b/c of the size of the canvas. It’s all free — I find it so rewarding to make these for others.
By Anonymous
Mindfulness and Stress: Getting Off The Elevator of Distress
From blogger Therese Borchard, using mindfulness to calm ourselves down. Read the Blog
Depression, Anxiety and Life’s Ups and Downs
Jennifer Tazzi writes, “Depression and anxiety are so intertwined for me. It’s like they’re doing some insidious dance and I keep getting stuck in the middle.” In this blog, she writes about techniques she uses to deal with them. Read the Blog
The Best Depression Blogs of 2014
Healthline website has voted Lawyerswithdepression.com one of the top depression blogs in 2014. Read the News
Stress Starts Up the Machinery of Major Depression
From The Wall Street Journal, new revelations about the nuts and bolts of major depression focuses on the role of stress. Read the News
Making the Case for Mindfulness in the Law
NW Magazine, published by the Washington State Bar Association, reports that advocates of mindfulness in the law say it offers a range of physical and emotional benefits. Read the Story
The Depression Machine: Why Too Much Stress Cranks It Up
I listened to a NPR segment this week about the connection between playing football in the NFL and brain trauma.
One retired running back said that each collision he suffered during a game “was like being in a car accident.” What a tremendous cost to pay, I thought.
For many of us, daily life is so demanding and stressful, that, like a football player, it’s like being in a series of car accidents. The word “stress” doesn’t even seem to do justice the corrosive experience of so much stress– “trauma” is more like it.
The trauma isn’t the type inflicted by bone jarring hits during a football game — it’s psychological, though no less real.
In his book, The Everyday Trauma of Life, psychiatrist Mark Epstein writes in a recent New York Times article,
“Trauma is not just the result of major disasters. It does not happen to only some people. An undercurrent of trauma runs through ordinary life, shot through as it is with the poignancy of impermanence. I like to say that if we are not suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, we are suffering from pre-traumatic stress disorder. There is no way to be alive without being conscious of the potential for disaster. One way or another, death (and its cousins: old age, illness, accidents, separation and loss) hangs over all of us. Nobody is immune. Our world is unstable and unpredictable, and operates, to a great degree and despite incredible scientific advancement, outside our ability to control it.”
Such trauma not only impacts our psychological/emotional and spiritual selves, but our physical brains.
In a brilliant article in The Wall Street Journal this week entitled, “Stress Starts Up The Machinery of Major Depression”, Robert Sapolsky, Ph.D., points out that there are many factors that increase our risk of major depression including genes, childhood trauma, and endocrine and immunological abnormalities.
But a frequent trigger is stress.
Sapolsky writes, “The stress angle concerns ‘adhedonia,’ psychiatric jargon for ‘the inability to feel pleasure.’ Adhedonia is at the core of the classic definition of major depression as ‘malignant sadness’”.
As a person who has a genetic history of depression in his family and childhood trauma, I was drawn into Sapolsky’s article. What was the connection between stress and the malignant sadness I’ve experienced off and on since being diagnosed with depression twelve years ago?
Who would have thought that rat brain research would help me understand the link?
Sapolsky gives us a little background about our brain structure by letting us know that our abilities to anticipate, pursue and feel pleasure revolve around a neurotransmitter called dopamine in a region of the brain called the nucleus accumbens. Then he turns to the rats for further illumination:
“Put a novel object – say, a ball – in a mouse’s cage. When the mouse encounters the ball and explores it, the arousing mystery, puzzle and challenge cause the release of a molecule in the nucleus accumbens called CRF, which boost dopamine release. If an unexpected novel object was a cat, that mouse’s brain would work vey differently. But getting the optimal amount of challenge, what we’d call ‘stimulation,’ feels good.”
We humans need just enough challenge and stress to make life interesting.
“CRF mediates this reaction: Block the molecule’s actions with a drug, and you eliminate the dopamine surge and the exploration,” writes Sapolsky. “But exposing a mouse to major, sustained stress for a few days changes everything. CRF no longer enhances dopamine release, and the mouse avoids the novel object. Moreover, the CRF is now aversive: Spritz it into the nucleus accumbens, and the mouse now avoids the place in the cage where that happened. The researchers showed that this is due to the effects of stress hormones called glucocorticoids. A switch has been flipped; stimuli that would normally evoke motivated exploration and a sense of reward now evoke the opposite. Strikingly, those few days of stress caused that anhedonic state to last in those mice for at least three months.”
Sapolsky concludes:
“But meanwhile, these findings have an important implication. Life throws lousy things at us; at times, we all get depressed, with a small letter “d.” And most people—as the clichés say—get back in the saddle; prove that when the going gets tough, the tough get going. What then to make of people who are incapacitated by major depression in the clinical sense? Unfortunately, for many, an easy explanation is that the illness is a problem of insufficient gumption: ‘Come on, pull yourself together.’ There is a vague moral taint.”
The trauma of everyday stress is an important player in major depression. When combined with genetic history and a difficult childhood, it can tip the applecart and result in what Andrew Solomon calls “The Noonday Demon”. The takeaway is that the better we get at managing the “trauma of everyday life”, the better chance we have at preventing depression.
My worry is that the society we’ve created and the hectic lives we lead make the management of stress very difficult, indeed.
Can Lawyers Be Happy?
Law is often about advocating for imbalance. When you win, somebody usually loses. How can lawyers find balanced happiness in the profession? Read the Blog
What (Unhappy) Lawyer Isn’t Anxiety-Ridden?
Lots of lawyers are full of anxiety. There are reasons why this is so. But if the anxiety doesn’t stop when the reason is over, a lawyer may well have a problem with general anxiety disorder, writes blogger Jennifer Alvey. Read the Blog
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