The Depression Journey: Walking the Rocky Trail With a Therapist

 

Diagnosed with major depression by a psychiatrist when I was forty years old, I had to find a therapist who could help me. The physical side of the illness pounded me: sleeplessness, fatigue, and the inability to concentrate and be productive at my job as a lawyer. But also the psychological dimension: feelings of low self-worth, chronic sadness, and negative thoughts about my ability to recover and be happy again.

A friend recommended me to the man who would become my therapist for the next twenty years. Jerry was a psychology professor at a local university. From the Bronx, he has a wonderful, salty sense of humor. Not only was he brilliant, but he was also warm and engaging. I felt at home, and we quickly bonded.

During this dark time in my life, I felt isolated. More often than not, I felt lonely and didn’t know anyone with depression that could understand what I was going through. Jerry did. He became my closest ally, who was with me every step of the way as I dug my way out of the dark cellar of depression. It took time. And patience that was tough to come by as I slogged through depression for years. But his strong and kind presence saw me through. He gave me insight into what depression was and the ruminative, distorted thinking that the disease would churn out. Jerry called this “crooked thinking.” I learned to recognize such thoughts as not part of who I truly was but as part of the illness. It gave me a distance from them and made it easier not to identify with them. This opened up the possibility – and hope – that I could let go of these destructive thoughts and embrace more realistic, positive ones.

Podcast Interview With Mary Cregan, Author of “The Scar: A Personal History of Depression and Recovery”

Dan:

I’m Dan Lukasik. Today’s guest is Mary Cregan, author of the book The Scar: A Personal History of Depression and Recovery. Mary received her PhD from Columbia University and is a lecturer in English literature at Barnard College in New York City, where she lives with her husband and son. Welcome to the show, Mary.

Mary:

Thank you, Dan.

Dan: Mary, where does the title of the book come from?

Mary:

The title is the origin of the story, really. I have a scar from a suicide attempt I made in the very intense depressive episode that followed the death of my first child. That was when I was first diagnosed with major depression. The story that I tell in the book goes back to that scar which, of course, is with me always and is a kind of memory on my body of that experience. Because of the scar I try to return to that time to tell the story of my depression and the larger history of depression.

The Other Country: Depression

My life has been a journey.  Much of it spent in wonderful places, with awesome people I deeply love, and transcendent experiences. I’ve also had my share of the topsy-turvy curveballs of life’s tribulations that happen to everyone: loved ones dying, friendships fizzling, and adult children leaving home.

But depression doesn’t happen to everyone.

A Dream

I’m in a dream of driving my car through a countryside landscape.  My window’s open and the fresh air is blowing in. It’s sunny, and the road is sharply winding.  I arrive at a border crossing and drive from the land of a healthy life into one of darkness that is depression.  The air is stale and lifeless, hanging down like a musty drape.  I close my car window.  Looking through my windshield, I see only murky clouds. The landscape is barren and absent of people.  I turn to make a U-turn to make it back across the border, but something blocks my path.  I’m lost in this place.  I don’t have a map. All signs and traffic signals make no sense.  It’s hard to think straight. I drive around for hours, maybe days, and eventually make cross back into this sweet land of the living where I hope, live, and love.

Recovery from Depression: The Power of Expectation

Recovery from depression depends in part on what you believe is possible for the future. If you are to recover at all, you have to take action at some point. It could be a series of small steps about your daily routine – eating breakfast, walking out the door to get fresh air and natural light, making a point of talking to someone each day.

Or it could be much larger, like going to a psychiatrist and starting treatment, regularly meditating, exercising frequently, taking long walks. Whatever it is, you need to feel motivated to overcome the inertia, to stop the loss of warming energy to the cold stillness of depression.

To feel motivation, you need to believe, however tentatively, that you can change for the better, to expect recovery from the worst symptoms. You’re likely to hit a lot of barriers, though, that make it hard to keep up positive expectations.

When you expect to fail, it often happens that you stop taking action to help yourself recover. The deeply ingrained habits of depressive thinking and belief can quickly take over. You might start making rules and setting goals.

If recovery is not total and permanent, it’s not recovery. Treatments can’t fail, depression relapse can’t happen. You can’t be recovered if you’re still on medication. You have to get better in six months or a year, or some fixed period of time.

Of course, the rules and goals are entirely your invention, but they’re part of the expectations you feel in your gut. If you can’t meet them, the disappointment confirms your deepest conviction that you can never succeed.

Rediscovering Who You Are After a Severe Depressive Episode

Blogger Joy Biddell writes, “But what I’m finding even harder than mundane tasks is rediscovering who I am. Depression stole my identity and my joy. Trying to find myself again while still feeling exhausted, low and riddled with anxiety is one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do. Everything I knew and enjoyed feels like a distant memory and building myself back up feels like an impossible task. I can’t remember what genuine happiness feels like. I’ve had glimpses of it, but the feeling doesn’t stick around. I can’t remember how to socialize, even texting friends is difficult. I used to enjoy coloring, church, volunteering, reading, driving with tunes blasting and singing at the top of my voice (even in traffic), going out with friends, going for meals out, long walks with the dogs, my partner and seeing family. All these things are incredibly hard to do now. I either can’t remember how to do them, get too anxious and overwhelmed to do them or physically can’t do them.” Read her full blog here.

Here’s Some Surprisingly Upbeat News About Depression

A new study by researchers at the University of Toronto found nearly 40 percent of Canadians who previously had depression reported feeling happiness or satisfaction almost daily. Although the study cannot predict future relapse, its lead author, Esme Fuller-Thomson, said a year without symptoms and a month feeling happy or satisfied every day is a very encouraging sign. Read the story.

Two in Five Formerly Depressed Adults are Happy, Flourishing

A new study reports that approximately two in five adults (39%) who have experienced major depression are able to achieve complete mental health. “This research provides a hopeful message to patients struggling with depression, their families and health professionals. A large number of formerly depressed individuals recover and go on to reach optimal well-being” said Esme Fuller-Thomson, lead author of the study. Read the News

Making Decisions When Depressed

Blogger John Folk-Williams writes, “Like so many, I experience depression in various forms, yet each in its own way knocks out the decision control center in my mind. At times, I scramble in anxiety and can’t focus enough to pick out one among many possibilities. At other times, I don’t care about choosing – or anything else for that matter – and I let the alternatives fall where they may. Or I make all kinds of decisions, even life changing ones, but none of them seems like a choice. Each one is do-or-die. If I fail to do it, I’ll go right over the edge.” Read the Blog

How to Handle a Depression Relapse

Depression blogger Therese Borchard writes, “For anyone who has ever been debilitated by severe depression, there is nothing more frightening than the feeling that you’re relapsing into another episode. We chalk up the first few days of angst to a bad stretch and hope it gets better from there. But by the time we’ve hit six weeks of crying spells and the kind of anxiety that steals our appetite, there’s usually some panic that we are headed into the Black Hole of Depression yet again.”  Read the Blog

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