The greatest obstacle to healing depression is to see it as the enemy. We talk about fighting, combating, struggling with depression. Even ‘having depression’ suggests it intrusively came to you from somewhere else.
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In the early days of my training I went to see an analyst and was reeling off my woes and complaints about life.
”At least I’m not depressed,”I said.
‘No,’ he replied, ‘you haven’t got there yet.’
I was shocked.
Depression could be a goal.
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The fact is there are lots of things in life to be depressed about. And if we then try and combat it rather than enquiring into its purpose, it entrenches itself.
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”What we resist, persists.” CG Jung
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Depression is a sign that I has stopped talking with Me. The path between their houses has overgrown. The feeling of social isolation that comes with depression is mirrored on the inside as self estrangement.
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Much depression has to do with the issue of authenticity, with whether we are being who we are. If a gap begins to grow between who we really are and who we wish we were then depression will fill that gap.
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If we pretend to be what we are not for others in the fruitless and misguided quest to be loved by them, then depression will call our attention to the dissonance between what is actually going on and the new improved version of ourselves we’re trying to sell.
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Whether its with yourself, your path, or life’s mourning and pain, the insistence on things being other than they are gives rise to depression.
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”Our suffering is as much created by our struggling against the circumstances at hand as the circumstances themselves.” M Israel.
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If we are living someone else’s life, or someone else’s vision of who we ‘ought’ to be, then depression will ensue. And if we are not living up to our potential on account of its cost to us, it will be all the worse.
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”There is a great deal of pain in life and perhaps the only pain that can be avoided is the pain that comes from trying to avoid pain.” RD Laing
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The US spends an incredible $350 billion a year on medication and therapy for depression. This amount is currently increasing at a rate of 20%.
http://www.healthline.com/health/depression/statistics-infographic.
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The figures are scary and again its tempting to whip out you sword forgetting that depression has a purpose and failing to notice that it is pointing at something we subscribe to that doesn’t actually feed us or represent us.
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Something has to give.
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and not this or that but the paradigm itself.
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We have a collectively narcissistic vision of ourselves as highly evolved when in fact we are really the creature that has only one of its senses working and thinks itself so grand in the absence of all the others.
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This is the characteristic response, the strategy, of the un-mothered child, and indeed we’ve had no Queen of Heaven for quite a few millenia now. When Mother is lost the child does not grow, or in only one of its aspects.
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The rest of it shuts down, regresses and trashes the play pen.
”We fail to grasp the proverbial reality that as we selfishly destroy nature “our outer world”, consequently we destroy “our inner world”, and ourselves as a species. The psychological consequence of this disconnection from nature amputates our soul connection with Mother Earth.”
http://www.michaelgeorge.com/app/uploads/2015/03/Civilizations-Disconnect-from-Nature-and-Psyche.pdf
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And its a question of more than mere deprivation.
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The paradigm itself creates depression.
The monotheistic notion that life always has to be cheerful (could) be instructed by melancholy. We could learn from its qualities and follow its lead, becoming more patient in its presence, lowering our excited expectations, taking a watchful attitude as this soul deals with its fate..” T Moore
The loss of the Principle of Relatedness in our culture means both a loss of the internal cohesion of I and Me and of the bond between ourselves and the external world. This is generally experienced as disconnection, lack of trust and not belonging that then reinforces internal divisions and the feeling of alienation.
The thing is that the creative life also has its gloomy vales.
”Creative people who can’t help but explore other mental territories are at greater risk, just as someone who climbs a mountain is more at risk than someone who just walks along a village lane.” RD Laing
So sometimes it can feel like a choice between the aggravation of refusing to be what we are or the further aggravation of grasping life’s nettle. It doesn’t seem fair and its not.
”a warring peace, a sweet wound, a mild evil.” R Owen.
If the feelings of being depressed can be honoured as a form of longing then so can the feelings of riding your push bike down Middenmarsh hill with a mouthful of blackberries and chocolate.
based on an extract from my new book, ‘Abundant Delicious’, https://andywhiteblog.com/2016/06/11/abundant-delicio…ot-off-the-press/
