Prozac Nation Archives - Lawyers With Depression

The Twin Pillars of Depression

“Once you choose hope, anything is possible.” – Christopher Reeve

There are two pillars upon which depression rests.

Helplessness

When in the grip of depression, we feel helpless despite our efforts to pull out. The more we struggle, the more exhausted we become. In her book Eat, Pray, Love, Elizabeth Gilbert writes, “They flank me – Depression on my left, loneliness on my right. They don’t need to show their badges. I know these guys very well . . . then they frisk me. They empty my pockets of any joy I had been carrying there.”

Hopelessness

Helplessness often leads to profound hopelessness about the future. In her book Prozac Nation, Elizabeth Wurtzel writes, “That’s the thing about depression: A human being can survive almost anything, as long as she sees the end in sight. But depression is so insidious and compounds daily that it’s impossible to ever see the end.”

What I have learned over the past twenty years of living with depression is we need to chisel away at these twin pillars. I began to discover helplessness and hopelessness are disempowering: I had no choice but to live my days under this rock of sadness. My healing involved learning that I did have options in how I related to life when depressed. And I found this power to choose empowering and life-affirming.

How did I leave helplessness and hopelessness behind?

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Putting Pen to Paper: Writers on Depression

That terrible mood of depression, whether it’s any good or not, is what is known as The Artist’s Reward. Ernest Hemmingway

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. Kay Redfield Jamison, Night Falls Fast

That’s the thing about depression: A human being can survive almost anything, as long as she sees the end in sight. But depression is so insidious, and it compounds daily, that it’s impossible to ever see the end. Elizabeth Wurtzel, Prozac Nation: Young and Depressed in America

In depression . . . faith in deliverance, in ultimate restoration, is absent. The pain is unrelenting, and what makes the condition intolerable is the foreknowledge that no remedy will come – – not in a day, an hour, a month, or a minute . . . It is hopelessness even more than pain that crushes the soul. William Styron, Darkness Visible: A Memoir of Madness

They flank me-Depression on my left, loneliness on my right. They don’t need to show their badges. I know these guys very well. …then they frisk me. They empty my pockets of any joy I had been carrying there. Depression even confiscates my identity; but he always does that. Elizabeth Gilbert, Eat, Pray, Love

Depression is nourished by a lifetime of ungrieved and unforgiven hurts. Penelope Sweet

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Hope Counts: Rising Up from Depression

Depression corrodes our sense of hope.

Elizabeth Wurtzel, in her her best-selling book Prozac Nation, wrote:

“That’s the thing about depression: A human being can survive almost anything, as long as she sees the end in sight. But depression is so insidious, and it compounds daily, that it’s impossible to ever see the end.”

We can’t imagine a future without depression. When we’re in the thick of its slimy grasp, our deadened and bleak state seems to go on and on and on. Days become more about survival and meeting our most basic obligations. And nothing more because we don’t have anything left to give. Our life becomes smaller. We’re treading water because there doesn’t seem an end in sight. We’re hit by the stun gun of depression.

Our most urgent hope is . . . the absence of depression.

But the absence of pain isn’t the presence of joy and all that makes life worth living. As Richard O’Connor, Ph.D. wrote in his book Undoing Depression:

“We confuse depression, sadness, and grief. However, the opposite of depression is not happiness, but vitality – the ability to experience the full range of emotions, including happiness, excitement, sadness, and grief. It’s not sadness or grief, it’s an illness.”

Amanda Knapp writes eloquently of her own experience:

“Depression, for me, is a miles deep crater that I believe I will never crawl out of. It’s disillusionment born of an unfulfilled longing for peace. It’s fear that hope will raise me up just to drop me even further down. It’s a cocoon of despair snuggled all around me doing its best to keep me from breaking when the inevitable fall comes. The irony in all of that is that it precludes me from living and dreaming and hoping and praying. But I hold on to it so strongly at times, as if my life depends on it. Because sometimes it feels like it does. But I sit here today, decently removed from the worst of those moments of despair, and I feel myself longing for hope.”

It’s critical that we deliberately nurture a hope better than just relief from our melancholy. We need to rise up out of the dust of our suffering. It’s not enough to exist. Our existence must matter. Living a life with meaning and purpose give us hope because it brings out the best in us – even with depression. And it’s a heroic journey.

I once wrote:

“In my view, folks with depression are not so much hapless, as they are heroes.What’s a hero after all? Someone who has a great challenge to confront? Check. Someone who must confront great adversity? Check. Someone who must get up every day and do battle with a formidable foe? Check. You see, for those of you who are struggling with depression right now, YOU ARE THAT PERSON. You’re the person who has to get up every day and cope with your depression. Others can help and support you, but it’s ultimately your walk to walk. And what a courageous walk it is; every single step of it.

Some of the best people that I’ve been privileged to know struggle with depression. 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.”

Dr. Anthony Scioli, author of Hope in the Age of Anxiety, writes that one of the things needed to build up our hope muscles is faith and a spiritual foundation (whether it be in God, nature or a higher power) to experience a more open attitude for developing faith in others as well as the universe.

Pope John Paul II once said,

“Do not abandon yourself to despair. We are the Easter people and hallelujah is our hope.”

So, nourish hope in your heart. Surround yourself with hopeful people, places and books.

And resolve to be hopeful.

Copyright, 2016 by Daniel T. Lukasik

The Death of Robin Williams, Depression and Suicide

Our hearts are broken. This funny, kind and gentle man is gone. He, like the 30,000 other souls that commit suicide each year in this country, was struck down by depression.

Many people find it incomprehensible that someone so talented, beloved, good and wealthy could take his own life. One commenter from Fox, Sheppard Smith, (not surprising, I guess) called him a “coward.” What a cowardly thing to say from a man who has, most likely, never suffered from the grind of depression as Robin did. However, this commenter isn’t alone in his ignorance. One poll found that over forty percent of all Americans viewed depression as “a lack of willpower.”

Rather than cowardly, I believe Robin’s well-documented life-long battle with major depression and addiction was heroic. As someone who had lived in the trenches of major depression over the years and known hundreds of fellow soldiers like Robin, I feel that people who struggle with depression are my heroes.

Ironically, Christopher Reeve, Robin’s long-time friend who studied acting and roomed with him at Julliard, defined what a hero is:

“I think a hero is an ordinary individual who finds strength to persevere and endure in spite of overwhelming obstacles.”

Given his brilliance, fame and wealth, one could say that Robin was anything but “ordinary.” Yet, he was a flesh-and-blood human being, just like you and I, who suffered tremendously. And he, tragically, decided he just couldn’t take it anymore.

Until he committed suicide, he had somehow found the strength to persevere over the course of his life despite his poor mental health. I’m sure that there was many times that such perseverance involved pushing through the pain of depression on a daily if not moment-to-moment basis. The pain, known all too well by sufferers, must have been so dreadful that he was holding on by his fingertips.

A loss of hope was at the bottom of Robin’s decision to end his life, a loss that no amount of love, support and guidance could assuage.

As Elizabeth Wurtzel wrote in Prozac Nation:

Psychiatrist Kay Redfield Jamison, a professor at Georgetown University, herself a sufferer from depression, had this to say about suicide in her seminal book on the subject, Night Falls Fast:

When people are suicidal, their thinking is paralyzed, their options appear spare or nonexistent, their mood is despairing, and hopelessness permeates their entire mental domain. The future cannot be separated from the present, and the present is painful beyond solace. ‘This is my last experiment,’ wrote a young chemist in his suicide note. ‘If there is any eternal torment worse than mine I’ll have to be shown.

Rest in Peace, Robin. Thank you for all the gifts you freely gave to the world. Your suffering is over.

When Is My Depression Going to End?

I find writing about depression for lawyers a delicate balancing act. On one hand, I don’t want to pull any punches about just how awful depression is or how adversely it can affect your life and career. On the other hand, I want to offer hope and encouragement to those who are in the trenches and deal with it every day. I will try to do both today.

I have been encouraged by some to write only “positive” articles about dealing with depression. But I just can’t do that. To not deal with the more troubling aspects of depression seems to me a form of denial. The other day, I was at my local bookstore checking out the Self-Help section for any new titles on depression. Some of the titles seemed like they were being pitched by used car salesmen: “Overcome Your Depression in 30 Days!” This doesn’t help the conversation about depression because it sets up ludicrous expectations in the minds of those who suffer from it and their loved ones about the speed of recovery. For many with depression, they’re in it for the long haul.

One of the hardest parts about dealing with depression on a daily basis is its seemingly unpredictable nature: When is it going to start again and how long will it last?

Elizabeth Wurtzel, author of the best-selling book, Prozac Nation, gets it right when she wrote:

“That’s the thing about depression. A human being can survive almost anything, as long as she sees the end in sight. But depression is so insidious, and it compounds daily, that it’s impossible to ever see the end. The fog is like a cage without a key”.

Many, many lawyers go into a mode of survival waiting for a depression to end. To me, the degree to which such a depression can create catastrophe in our lives as lawyers seems driven by the episode’s severity: is it a tropical depression or a full blown hurricane?

If it a low to medium grade depression, tools like Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (“CBT”) are very helpful. With CBT, we work in therapy to replace destructive, depressing, negative self-talk with positive, healthy and realistic self-talk. The efficacy of this approach has been studied and documented using PET scans of the human brain. Such scans show that an area in the frontal cortex (the thinking part of our brain) is hyperactive in depressives before CBT and then calmed down after successful CBT treatment. This same area of the brain is activated when people do self-referencing [relating external events, particularly negative ones, to the self] and depressives do too much of this. They spin around in a cycle of negative thoughts and try to use the cerebral cortex to snap out of their depression. With CBT, they learn to decrease their self-reference to the things that are negative. It’s a form of rehabilitation of the cortex where depressives learn to turn the volume down.

This is a critical skill for lawyers to develop. According to psychologist, Martin Seligman, author of the best-selling book, “Authentic Happiness,” lawyers are pessimists. They develop thinking habits which see problems as permanent and intractable. They also feel an overdeveloped sense of ownership or responsibility for such problems. Optimists, on the contrary, see problems as temporary, solveable and not necessarily their “fault”. The important point here is that optimism is a skill that can be developed and practiced. Read Seligman’s chapter, “Why Are Lawyers So Unhappy?”

If it is a deeper depressive episode, more like a trough of despair, CBT won’t work very well. During such an episode, there is the sense that it’s never going to end. Yet, this is the distorted voice of depression talking because for the majority of people with depression, IT DOES END. The trick is to learn how best to weather the storm.

I find that when I am in a deeper depression, I need to go outside my mind and get into my body. Consistently, the things that helped me the most were the following:

1. It’s virtually impossible to feel depressed while exercising and even for a good period of time thereafter. The problem, as most of us know, is getting to the gym or the park. Behavioral prompts can help. Always have your gym gear in your car. Also, be realistic. Remember that it takes at least 21 days to form a habit. So, those first 21 days won’t be the easiest ones. Tell your family and friends about the importance of exercise to you and have them support and remind you about this on a daily basis.

2. Cut off any unnecessary negative input in your life during these times. Don’t listen to any sad music, watch violent T.V. shows or read somber books. This isn’t a forever type of deal. Think of it more as a “timeout”. Some people stop reading the newspaper during an episode as well. Also, the time you’re not doing these activities gives you the time that you’ll need to exercise.

3. See a massage therapist. Touch has a powerful effect on the human body and is known to cause the release of endorphins (the feel-good chemicals). It doesn’t involve any thinking on your part. For busy lawyers, it’s a time to relax and receive something positive for the day.

Remember to be kind to yourself today.

Tag: Prozac Nation

The Twin Pillars of Depression

Putting Pen to Paper: Writers on Depression

Hope Counts: Rising Up from Depression

The Death of Robin Williams, Depression and Suicide

When Is My Depression Going to End?

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