Breaking the Bonds. Dorothy Rowe

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СКАЧАТЬ of depression can prevent us from realizing that no matter how fortunate and far-sighted we may be, not one of us can be certain that the circumstances of our life will not change and all that supports our way of life vanish. Neither by hard work nor by goodness can we control every aspect of our life and ward off all tragedies. It may be that at some time all the people we love and need abandon us or reject us, or that the projects which gave our life meaning and purpose crumble or fail. When such disasters befall us, we feel great fear, and if we do not understand the nature of this fear we can defend ourselves against it by turning against ourselves, despairing, and locking ourselves in the prison of depression. On the other hand, if we do understand this fear and ourselves, we can, when disaster strikes, become appropriately unhappy but not depressed, courageous and not defeated.

      Generally in the following chapters I use the pronoun ‘we’ when referring to something we all do, and, when I want to speak of the things which depressed people do, I use the pronoun ‘you’. There is a difference between the way we think, feel and act when we are laying down the foundations of the prison of depression or living in the prison, and the way we think, feel and act when depression plays no part in our lives. However, I could have used ‘we’ throughout, for we are all capable of doing all that I describe if we are not wise.

      By ‘wise’ I mean knowing what we fear most, and why; knowing what we need most, and why; and knowing how to defend ourselves in ways inexpensive of time and strength, and how to get and hold what we need in ways that enrich our life and our relationships.

       Thus this book is for all of us.

      The book is divided into five sections.

      Section One, The Meaning of Depression, describes how we create the world of meaning (that is, our beliefs, attitudes, conclusions, opinions, expectations, wishes and fears) in which each of us lives. We live in meaning like a fish lives in water. Creating meaning is what each of us does all the time, but while we are very good at doing this, we often have difficulty in understanding just how we do it. As the ancient Chinese philosophers said, ‘The fish is the last to discover the water’. Yet an understanding of how we create meaning is essential to an understanding of ourselves.

      The world of meaning we each create is like a landscape in which we live. The landscape has limits, so in a sense we all build ourselves a prison, a prison made up of ‘This is where and how I live, this is the kind of person I am, these are my obligations, duties, attachments and responsibilities, these are the rules I must follow’. However, some of us create landscapes which are vast and open, full of interesting and exciting possibilities, while others build landscapes which are cramped, monotonous and confined. The most cramped and confined of these is the prison of depression. In Section One I show just how we create such a prison.

      Section Two, Why Is It So Hard to Change?, is concerned with why we so often do not want to leave our cramped prison, or re-structure it into something open and various. Depression is such a horrible experience that at first it seems that no one would want to remain in it, yet if you are depressed you know that being depressed does have advantages. As a university student said to me recently, ‘My depression is like an old sweater. It’s comfortable, so I keep it on. I think it’s risky to change it for something new.’

      The fear of change keeps many of us from changing; so does our pride, and the way we take things personally and hang on to hopes. Then there are the people who do not want us to change. Our loved ones do not want us to be unhappy, but, equally, they do not always want us to change the way we live our lives. What would happen to them if their depressed wife or mother gave up being depressed and went to college instead, or their depressed husband or father gave up being depressed and instead of battling on as a captain of industry became an opera singer? Even if, in giving up being depressed, you do not change your way of life, you do behave differently, and that means that your loved ones have to respond to you differently. They might not want to make the effort of thinking about you differently, and they may not be all that pleased when you no longer play the role of the martyr, sacrificing yourself for them, and instead insist that there are times when your needs must take priority. So it can happen that while you are making valiant efforts to unlock your prison of depression your nearest and dearest are resolutely barring the door.

      You have to face these issues before you begin what is the subject matter of Section Three, The Journey Out of the Prison of Depression.

      Here I tell you what the Expert’s Secret is, and what preparations you need to make for the journey. Since at some time when you are depressed you will think of suicide, I have presented my argument that suicide is not a solution. I list some of the things you will need to find on your journey, and, since loneliness is such a problem, I give some suggestions as to how you might leave it behind. Before reaching journey’s end, I show how some people have helped one another and tried out something new.

      The key to the prison of depression is the discovery that you are not the bad, worthless, unacceptable person you thought you were, but that you, with all your strengths and weaknesses and peculiarities, are a person you can love and accept wholeheartedly. This discovery sometimes comes like a flash of blinding light, but more frequently it comes slowly, through a process of understanding which we can undertake like a journey, preparing for it beforehand, and then making sure that we visit certain places along the way. As with all such journeys in search of wisdom and understanding, we realize when we reach our goal that what we sought was in our possession all the time.

      As you read this book you might at different points exclaim, ‘Aha!’, or think, ‘I wonder how that applies to me?’ It is a good idea to make a note of the Aha! experiences in case you forget. Sometimes, underlining the passages in the book is not enough, especially if you want to comment and the margins are not wide enough. So you might like to use a separate notebook where you can put your Ahas!, as well as do any of the Discovery exercises I suggest as ways of answering the question, ‘I wonder how that applies to me?’

      These exercises I have put in Section Four, Discoveries. Whenever in the first three sections it might be useful to do a relevant Discovery exercise I have marked this with the letter D and the number of the exercise.

      The Discovery exercises are NOT compulsory, and there are no right answers except those which are right for you.

      Occasionally, in the first three sections, I refer to what might be called technical matters, things which you might like to know more about. So, in Section Five, there is a series of Technical Footnotes. You might want to dip into these while reading the main part of the book.

      Thus, if you want to know more about the research and arguments about the biology of depression, this is presented in Section Five under ‘Is Depression a Physical Illnees?’ Whether or not to use antidepressant or tranquillizing drugs is discussed in Drags – Friend or Foe?’ Since, try as I might to write only in ordinary, everyday language, I sometimes have to use the jargon of psychiatry and psychology, the glossary, Technical Terms – Keys to the Jargon’, gives the definitions of these words. Whether or not to seek the help of a therapist and, if so, how can you tell if someone is a good therapist are questions which I have attempted to answer in ‘Choosing a Therapist’.

      All too often in life we neglect to take proper account of the stuff of our heart, our own inner truth. All too often other people tell us that our own inner truth is wrong, crazy, unacceptable. If you are depressed, perhaps some people have silenced you by saying, That’s not you speaking. It’s your illness’. To be silenced in this way is the utmost cruelty. Jill Tweedie, novelist and journalist, once wrote:

      Ex-depressive as I am, with only the occasional lapse, I cannot dismiss the idea that the vision of life seen in depression has the truth in it, the bare-boned skeletal truth, and an intrinsic part of depression is knowing this and being told that it is not so. Reality, however terrible, СКАЧАТЬ