My Experience of Healing Depression

EARLY EXPERIENCES

Growing up I suffered from chronic depression and did not realize it. The world constantly had a hint of gloominess to it, even during “happy” times. This makes sense since my parents and most of the other relatives who raised me were depressed, anxious, and/or suffering from some type of mental illness (my mother: schizophrenia; my grandmother: manic-depression.) I even lived in the ghetto where all my neighbors were dysfunctional as well. I couldn’t get away from it! My father in particular was very pessimistic and depressed. He was an alcoholic who suffered from low self-esteem. He never stood up for himself and he also had a lot of anger issues. Since dad was my primary caregiver for much of my childhood, I picked up on his attitudes and perceptions and, not having learned better from anyone else, integrated his gloomy attitude as my own. Needless to say, I never learned how to make good things happen for myself, or even love myself, and I also never learned how to cope with life’s challenges. When things got tough I was unable to use the most basic coping skills, such as getting others to respect my boundaries, staying optimistic during a crisis, or simply letting go of negative feelings in order to make room for more positive feelings. I only knew how to feel like a victim.

The gloominess felt very normal to me and, therefore, I didn’t see any need or reason to change. Even if I wanted things to change, I wouldn’t have known where to start. (The only thing I did know was that I was extremely shy and that I felt very different from others in that regard. At the age of 27, I eventually I found out that I had been suffering from Social Anxiety Disorder.) At some point, I got a clue that, Hey, maybe I can feel better than this. What was the catalyst? I felt miserable and was sick of feeling the way I did. I saw other people who were happy and wanted to feel how they felt (which is STILL a huge catalyst for change for me.) I knew my life was shit, or at least felt like it, and I wanted better things for myself.

FINDING SOMETHING THAT HELPED

During my early 20s I tried reading a few self-help books but usually could never get myself to complete them and I never did any of the exercises because they seemed useless. At the time I couldn’t connect with the material and, deep down inside, had no faith that it would actually help. Years later, I realized that I didn’t believe in myself enough to overcome the depression and was subconsciously giving up by not giving the books a chance. But, what could I have done? People can’t be forced into things, and I just wasn’t ready to absorb that type of knowledge yet. I did not comprehend at the time that I could control my life and the way I felt, and therefore wasn’t ready to take responsibility for my own growth.

Finally, when I was 23 I browsed upon Emmanuel’s Book: A Manual for Living Comfortably in the Cosmos. It wasn’t quite a self-help book in the conventional sense, yet its words of comfort and wisdom spoke directly to my soul. The book answered questions I had about the human existence, talked about dealing with sadness and fear, asserted that humans create their own realities, and convinced me that something more existed in the spirit realm. I was finally able to open up to some healing. The relief I felt from reading this book was like breathing fresh air for the first time after living my entire life in pollution. This doesn’t mean I was finally cured forever. This was just a taste of what was to come. I still had problems with depression, but now I developed an interest in metaphysical books, such as the Seth books and the Conversations with God series.

HAPPY, BUT STILL DEPRESSED

Unfortunately, simply reading words of wisdom does not cure depression. Don’t get me wrong: reading these books were life-changing for me and I definitely became a lot happier because of them. But, even though I was happier overall, I still became depressed because of my lack of coping skills and low self-esteem. What I didn’t understand until just recently, is that depression is not unidimensional. There can be many layers to depression, and it varies from one person to another. While Jim Bob gets depressed because of one particular issue, Sally Joe gets depressed because she has several issues. Underlying factors such as diet, lack of exercise, etc. can also play a role in depression. Therefore there is no “one fix” that can cure all people with depression.

Here are some examples of why people might get depressed:

1. Not realizing that one is part of something larger or not feeling connected to a higher power, resulting in feeling confused and/or disconnected to life
2. Having low self-esteem and/or low confidence
3. Being unable to cope with stressful life events in general
4. Having insecurities about one’s body
5. Not being able to make friends and/or feeling insecure about ones relationships

So, for example, someone can be fine with everything except number 3, and for that one reason that person still gets depressed. Of course, all of these reasons can overlap with each other in some way or another. When I read those metaphysical books, only number one was resolved and some of the other issues were a little more resolved as well. However, the other issues I had were still not completely healed. This is why I felt a lot happier but still became depressed. I went through life discovering life-changing books that made me happy, but not understanding why the happiness did not last. It was because only a certain dimension of my depression was healed!

There is something else I want to mention. In order to cure depression, action must be taken and changes must be made to one’s psyche. The more proactive one is in controlling their depression, the faster one heals. Alternatively, we can let life take its course at chipping away at depression. We all learn from life situations, and if we had all the time in the world depression would eventually be eliminated by simply growing through life experiences. But approaching depression this way is unrealistic and needlessly makes the process of healing longer. Eliminating depression takes work!

During my mid 20s, I experienced a sense of self empowerment from moving out on my own (and away from dysfunctional people!) for the first time in my life, and a shift occurred. I started to feel much happier than ever before! I was amazed that, even when things were bad, I could actually still feel good. This had NEVER happened to me before. Before, if I were in an argument with a family member, I would get depressed. But now, I could let things like that go more easily. The world literally lightened up before my eyes. This made me realize how gloomy I was before so I thought my depression was cured. I did not realize it at the time but, needless to say, my depression was not cured because I still had a lot of issues to work through. In particular, I still had very low feelings of confidence and self-worth. Here I was, completing a four-year college degree, yet dating an uneducated man who smoked pot all day and worked odd jobs to make a living. At the time, I couldn’t imagine my standards for men being any higher than that. It was as if my mind was still stuck in that ghetto mentality that I grew up with.

LEARNING TO BE PROACTIVE IN HEALING MY DEPRESSION

Years went by. I improved myself very slowly, but not by much because I had not yet learned how to be proactive on changing myself. I got into another dysfunctional relationship with someone who, yet again, was WAY below my level. He, like the last guy, also smoked pot daily and couldn’t keep a job. I struggled with finances. I was unhappy with my work situation. I still had an interest in my metaphysical books, but I never took any action in trying to improve my mood. Maybe I was in denial about my depression, hoping that it had been cured. But it wasn’t until I hit rock bottom when I finally started to take control over my depression.

I was single by then and had quit smoking and started walking for exercise. I was VERY unhealthy and out of shape at this time! But I would have to say that quitting smoking was one of THE BEST things I had ever done for myself, as it led to many great things to come, including being healthy, exercising, and a lot more…even leading up to the fantastic relationship that I’m in now! I will have to talk about how quitting smoking led to a series of positive life-changing events in another post, as it would take too long to talk about here.

Anyway, I was trying to finally make a decent life for myself when I suddenly ran into a string of tragic incidents. First my father was diagnosed with cancer. Then, a few months later while caring for my sick father, I lost my job. Then, a man who I’d been dating and fell in love with broke up with me. Things just kept getting worse and worse. I became more depressed, stressed out, and anxious than I’d ever imagined I could become. I got so anxious and depressed that my mind would get uncontrollable negative thoughts. I felt like all of my friends had deserted me and became paranoid that certain people I knew now hated me, and I obsessed about the terrible things they were saying about me. But then there was also a small part of me, a VERY small voice in my head (not literally a voice, but you know what I mean ), that felt like my thinking might be a bit extreme, and I wondered how much truth there was to these thoughts. I decided to explore the idea of changing one’s thoughts and discovered cognitive therapy. Shortly after, I got a job that offered health insurance and I found a cognitive therapist who I went to see for the next five months. This was the first time I ever took any action on controlling my mood and changing the way I think about things.

And I have to say, this taught me the value in listening to that small voice in my head! Because that voice was teeny. If I hadn’t taken a chance and listened to it, I do not even want to know where in life I would be now. Listening to that teeny tiny voice set off another series of positive life-changing events that completely changed me as a person.

For the next few years, I bought and read several more self-help books and continued to work on controlling my thoughts and feelings. I wrote in a journal. A LOT. I explored and challenged my belief systems. At times, I practically forced myself to change how I felt. I used affirmations and visualization techniques constantly. It was a lot of work: I devoted a lot of time and effort toward my growth and healing, but it was worth it. Eventually, as the fears of my ego began to slip away, I could feel myself becoming a new person. I once explained this process to my therapist as a sort of “chipping away” at the filth and grime surrounding your core being. You know the golden brilliance of your core being is inside you, but you just can’t get in touch with it because of all the baggage. Here are the basic steps I figured out during the process of my own healing:

• Recognizing that something is “wrong” and needs to be healed (i.e. feeling sad, negative thinking, low confidence, dissatisfaction, addiction)
• Pinpointing exactly what thoughts and/or belief systems need to be changed (i.e. “People don’t like me”, “I’m not worthy of a good relationship”, “I’m incapable of handling [fill in the blank]“)
• Creating positive thoughts and/or belief systems to replace the negative ones (i.e. substituing “People don’t like me” with “I am loved, adored, and appreciated by others and myself”)
• Mentally focusing and using intention on what you want to change This includes never losing focus of your intention: keeping your mind on your goal to be a happier person, practicing the new positive beliefs, and keeping tabs on yourself by doing things like writing your progress in a journal.

This lists the pure basics and not go into the techniques I used. But at least you get the point. I’ll list some of my self-help tips in another post.

HEALING AS A WORK IN PROGRESS

There are so many stories out there where people had some sort of revelation and seemed to suddenly become depression free. Obviously this did not happen to me, and I am leery that sudden healing happens very often. I’ve become MUCH happier over the years, but I still have issues. I know A LOT about overcoming depression, but I am also still a work in progress. For example, it is easy for me to get overwhelmed by stressful life situations. When I took my graduate classes, I spent a lot of time stressing out over papers, making them a priority instead of relaxing and having fun, which in turn made me very depressed. Even more recently, I’ve been struggling with not finding a new job and also dealing with a loved one being taken to court for frivolous reasons. It is easy for me to feel “trapped”, anxious, or like a victim in certain situations. I definitely need to work on my coping skills and make sure that my own happiness becomes priority number one.

I now try to see dealing with depression and stressful life events as a challenge. In fact, over the past few years I’ve actually come to view self-help and self-improvement as a sort of game. What is my next challenge? What will be my strategy this time? How good can I make myself feel? What accomplishment will I be able to achieve next? There is even a part of me that feels the universe gave me this particularly harsh life with these hardships and challenges for a reason, that it is to serve a larger purpose. And if that is the case, I am OK with that. I’m proud of how far I’ve come along. (And sometimes I’m even amazed at how far I’ve come along!) And I can’t wait to see what will come next. Life usually twists and turns in unexpected ways and it is always exciting to see what happens from one year to the next. Things are always getting better and I am always growing as a person. And although life isn’t perfect, usually these changes are far better than ever I could have imagined before. Such is the beauty of life!