Depression is not a choice in the world in which we are pushed to identify with our thoughts, impressive achievements and social status.
By: Iulia Namașco
Tags: Depression, Compassion

Depression is not a choice in the world in which we are pushed to identify with our thoughts, impressive achievements and social status. Iulia Namașco Dec 9, 2020·11 min read

To all of you who are educated, uneducated, experienced, unexperienced, kind, caring, ignorant and dismissive, rational, spiritual, healthy, intelligent, happy, unhappy, privileged or unprivileged, empathetic or not, yogi, with values or without, black or white, of whatever nationality and sex, who got the chance to see the world or those who didn’t, who avoided or not contact with difficulties, it doesn’t matter, just to let you know.

Depression is not a choice in the world in which we are pushed to identify with our thoughts, impressive achievements and social status. It grows gradually and hits you suddenly.

And just a reminder, for compassion you don’t need a master degree or a doctorate. When somebody is in pain and is mentioning it, it is not neither funny, neither their choice. Talk to them. Ask them questions. Be around.

When you hit the rock bottom there are two ideas, to kill yourself or to heal, both ideas are deepened in an ocean of desperation, something that keeps you far away from being grounded. When someone says they’ve been struggling, the minimum you can do for them is to not say they have a choice. If they are still alive and tell you that they are struggling they made the choice to heal and they are still struggling, they are not there yet. And I can assure you that depression hurts so much that this is the most they want in their life — to heal. People go crazy in depression. And it doesn’t matter what happened in their life, you don’t compare, don’t judge what brought to this that’s another story. Their feelings are valid and unfortunately intense and difficult to manage. Even if they want to do things they find it difficult. In the beginning even not eating, not moving, not feeling anything beside a big empty space within themselves. And an obsessive need to get better and feel understood. When someones says he is desperate to heal it means it hurts, he is in pain. When someone is telling you he is confused, believe him he is confused. It’s a way to express they need guidance and help to make sense of things, sometimes even not being able to express or accept they need help.

I’ve been depressed some years of my life, I’ve been prescribed antidepressants and I decided to not take them being afraid to get dependent. I was already dependent on destructive beliefs. It was enough. I decided to not take the road of denial to overwork, or drug myself or drink or go for other unhealthy behaviours, instead I chose to work only through rational thinking and warm and positive feelings where possible, exposing gradually to mindfulness practices. Through reeducating myself and learning self-love basically from scratch. I wanted to make sense of gathered things that were going through my confused mind. I wanted to sort out what’s mine and what is not. What is helpful what is destructive. All this work was exhausting like hell. My brain was on fire. I was constantly overthinking. I was not sleeping well for months, I was waking up exhausted waiting for the day to end. My body was hurting, everything was hurting. It took me time to be able to move out of my bed. The only thing that started at some point making me happy was seeing my therapist. I was so much in pain that I was constantly trying to convince her how inadequate I am and only me like this bad on the planet, an useless existence. How lost I am and scared and not understanding where all of this comes from. Even if I was having plenty of “creative” ideas to do stuff in my life, because life was happening anyway, I was numb, feeling zero, without any boundaries, unable to move a finger, without a sense of identity or motivation to do something. There was no meaning to nothing. I was feeling blocked, controlled. Put on punish mode. I constantly was working with myself to get past this. When you’re depressed you just lose it. Your mind controls you and you are confused. And there are plenty of negative thoughts coming towards you and you can’t stop them and you believe in them. You identify with them and actually this is the cause of all our troubles, this is what makes it worse. I kept saying how much in pain I am and how I go crazy to the close ones and that I can’t stop this. It took over me. I was afraid of what I was experiencing because I didn’t know what and how I did wrong and what actually is wrong or not. I was experiencing an avalanche of extreme ideas, confusing ideas. I couldn’t be grateful for being alive. For anything. It was hard for me to see joy anywhere. Nothing had sense. To the words of my therapist “start with the basics, enjoy how beautiful you are” I was responding “I didn’t work for this, it is not my achievement”. And with all this numbness, I was living alone as I didn’t have energy to share space with people I don’t know, even if many times I needed to have someone around. Just to feel their presence, to feel some acceptance. All this time I also was having bills to pay for a living. Sending a response to one email could take weeks just because not being able to make the decision if I’m able to do the work or not and how in order to keep the promise. My mind was tying me to inability and all my actions were futile. Only those close by blood could withstand so much negativity and low energy from my side — years. I was constantly talking only about this, mentioning how big is my pain and how empty, worthless and incapable of anything I feel. Some other good people would understand that this is temporary and have been great support even if they were not living with me everyday to see all my dark side taking action.

The understanding for what depression is really about, I think had only my therapist, the person I had to pay for listening to all my emotional dumping. Even if people understood that I go through difficult times they were still having expectations and thinking I’m not doing anything or not enough, or doing it wrong in general. Some were just distancing themselves. It didn’t helped at all, it was constantly adding to my overall anxiety. I was being more aware of what I feel and do, learning about it, discovering it and I was trying to not do mistakes, but I was still failing. Old patterns where alive. And because I was observing them, it was felt more intense and would make me feel even worse knowing how much effort I’m putting to get out of this. All this play with your identity consolidation brings darkness in all your relationships. Because you’re confused yourself with what’s helpful and what is not in all that amalgams of ideas.

Like how your symptoms your body is having when fighting with a virus, like this I see depression as a detox your mind is having to take out all the bad experiences you internalised without even noticing. All the shitty things you identified with without even thinking you did. It happens easily to those highly sensitive who take life too seriously. It is a reset button you’re pushed into when your system is bugging. You understand that all that have been before was not healthy and you have to build it again. You have to start all over like a new born baby. And how for a baby it is taking time to start walking and talking and making sense of things, for a depressed one it takes time to make sense of what’s happening and make the changes, from unhealthy to healthy. Only those who can understand this and have patience with those they care about will not punish you for being slow or vulnerable, intense, sensitive, reactive. They would understand and forgive you and will be there for you hoping you’ll get better sooner. And those who are surrounded by this understanding and unconditional love will get better sooner than those who go through all this alone and with random opinions on how you do it wrong and nothing, adding to your anxiety and contributing to judging that brought you to this depression in the first place.

Compassion and love heals, unconditional love heals. Being dumped doesn’t heal. Of course you can’t get these from those who randomly met you on bumble and wanted to enjoy a piece of cake. All the years when I was struggling with high anxiety, majority of people never took in the consideration what I was saying about me being anxious or depressed and they never even considered what does it actually mean in practising real life. Are they able to face it the moment when they will stop projecting on me the perfect woman? The moment this projection will stop their denial of reality of things? Hello, darling, me too have flaws. What are behaviours associated with this anxiety? That this imply that you’re full of barriers, fears and are living between your past and future, rarely enjoying present. That this is part of you in this period until you heal. Are they ready to be next to you in your healing journey? Of course no one asks themself these. Some would send a meme or haha, you’ll be fine. Let’s have fun. When you’re depressed you want to be healthy and your fun to be constructive, helping you get your confidence back not something that ruined your confidence in the first place. And people will be blind and superficial and will want a piece of you, not all of you. Just because big ego, curiosity and lust for only those rays of light that you are struggling to keep alive. They want just those, nice parts of you, nothing else. And then you’re triggered and then you’re acting stupid, you disappoint as you don’t measure up to their projection and suddenly they leave you and you feel even worse and your anxiety grows, and your depression is prolonged, and this becomes a never ending cycle. That is why it is important to get centered before making decisions. If people would be sincere with themselves and would know what they really want and what they really can offer they would be more attentive with their behaviour and what the others say and their response to it. But it’s utopian, we can never know exactly what we can do, also we can never grow if we don’t try. There are more perspectives for the same issue. This question is answered in time.

An amazing perspective on how to deal with negative people and how avoiding them is not necessarily the best solution is really nice explained in a video called How Emotionally Intelligent People Deal With Negative People by Julia Kristina, a therapist I was following on youtube. She is bringing up a really new perspective by pointing out the fact that “Cutting people off is extremely disempowering because it’s saying that those people, that person has more control over our minds and emotions than we do. That what they are doing or saying is too much for us to manage our own minds and emotions around. […] The reason why we often find it draining is when someone is being really negative is because we are getting pulled into it because we are trying to fix them, change them and because we are trying to do something that cannot be done and of course it’s absolutely exhausting and draining, and frustrating when we are trying to do some things that can’t be done”.

People think depression is just a mood swing. Oh, tomorrow you’ll be well. How can I take you seriously that you are depressed if I see you smiling today? believe me, I can put my best make up and dress, smile to you and make some pretty nice jokes and I will be empty inside as fuck, will go home and will not stop crying for weeks, until I get out again to crack a joke and then overthink again the darkest thoughts, and believe me none of these smiles is false. These are small bites of hope to get out of this situation. It’s more to this than how it’s usually seen.

If you want to be a better person ask people, people you know how they really feel. People you care about or with whom you really want to connect for the sake of a connection not for having something back. And how can you be of help. They anyway will tell you, you can’t do anything, because it’s in their body, only they have access to it. They are only ones who can make the change and grow. It comes from inside. But the only fact that you are there, and not giving up on someone who’s going through confusing periods. The only fact that you ask the fucking simple question. “How do you feel?” and don’t expect to hear “I’m happy, or grateful”, because it’s hard to start feeling those, it takes time when mind is confused, it gives that person feeling of being accepted the way they are even if they did fall this time. It gives them hope and power to change the pattern of being discarded, faulty and unworthy.

I decided to fight my depression with my mind, with the same tool that brought me to depression, while I never believed that rational was more powerful than subconciousness. I always could find something I didn’t yet knew about myself. And I saw how difficult is to make the changes. All these people that emphasise how you can make the radical change from today to tomorrow are showing another way of repressing your dark side. It’s another type of denial. Everything comes with small steps first, always. This is how self acceptance work, self love, to take it easy. I did many times sudden changes, all at once. Radical shifts, they all brought me heavy anxiety and led to deep depressive periods. Like yoyo diets shock your body, sudden changes shock your mind. Even if they shift from negative to positive habits and behaviours, it’s still a change. To change into something healed and healthy takes time and patience like everything valuable.

This article is part of a long essay I am currently writing about my experience of anxiety and depression and what I’ve learned out of these on the path of healing.

FIY What is depression from source

Depression (major depressive disorder) is a common and serious medical illness that negatively affects how you feel, the way you think and how you act. Fortunately, it is also treatable. Depression causes feelings of sadness and/or a loss of interest in activities you once enjoyed. It can lead to a variety of emotional and physical problems and can decrease your ability to function at work and at home.

Depression symptoms can vary from mild to severe and can include:

Feeling sad or having a depressed mood

Loss of interest or pleasure in activities once enjoyed

Changes in appetite — weight loss or gain unrelated to dieting

Trouble sleeping or sleeping too much

Loss of energy or increased fatigue

Increase in purposeless physical activity (e.g., inability to sit still, pacing, handwringing) or slowed movements or speech (these actions must be severe enough to be observable by others)

Feeling worthless or guilty

Difficulty thinking, concentrating or making decisions

Thoughts of death or suicide