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This is one of over 150 articles focused on healing psychological
building
family relationships, breaking the [wounds + unawareness]
and
divorce. This intro-duction describes the
Web site's purpose and the best ways to use its resources. Each
article is part of a mosaic of ideas, so
the more you read, the more sense they'll all make. These articles augment,
vs. replace, other
professional help.
Before continuing, reflect: why are you reading this -
what do you
+ + +
Have you or someone you care for
been depressed recently? Depression is so common in Ameri-can
kids and adults that treating it has become a major
industry. It often occurs in
of
low-nurtur-ance
childhoods.
This article
explores the important difference between "depression" and incomplete grief. Can
you describe the difference?
Unfinished mourning merits a different response than clinical depression. The article...
Describes
common symptoms of depression,
Suggests
four causes of the symptom of
depression
Proposes options if you're "depressed,"
and...
Suggests options if
another person seems
seriously depressed.
This article
assumes you're familiar with...
+ + +
What Is
"Depression"?
It's a catch-all term for a mind-body condition
ranging in intensity and impact from brief and minor ("a blue mood") to long-term
and major. The condition inhibits personal happiness and
productivity. Un-corrected, these can corrode social relationships and
functioning, and may
promote other physical and psychological problems.
Symptoms of depression typically include
some or all of these...
Low physical energy; "fatigue."
Apathy: marked disinterest in
pleasurable life activities.
Notably sad, glum mood.
Unusual feelings of guilt, despair
(hopelessness and pessimism),
and/or worthlessness.
Difficulty concentrating: mind-racing
and
marked indecisiveness.
Trouble sleeping, or sleeping
excessively.
Possible loss of appetite and related weight loss.
Recurring thoughts of death or
Crying urges or episodes with or without a
"cause."
Excessive or unusual irritability.
If five or more of these symptoms are clearly
present every day for at least two weeks (in someone's opinion), the condition is psychiatrically
labeled
clinical depression.
Some people label serious depres-sion a "mental illness." I propose that
it's a normal human condition, not an "illness"!
Every one of these symptoms can also
occur during normal three-level
Depressions can be single episodes or a chronic
(recurring) condition. Chronically depressed peo-ple experience these
symptom-clusters as normal life, so they may have little motivation to change
to-ward something they've never felt.
Depression is a problem for the sufferer and
can cause anxiety (worry), guilt, and frustration in people who depend on or
care about the sufferer. Three possible problems are...
-
you’re significantly depressed,
-
another person you care about is, or...
-
you both are.
All of these can
your
wholistic health and other relationships, specially if you have other concur-rent
problems.
Let's look at the first two in some detail...
Options If You Feel "Depressed"
“Depression” and the sadness phase of
feel and look the same, emotionally and be-haviorally. I suspect that many
“depressed” adults and kids are really
mourning major
If so,
the cure is not pills, but acquiring
these
so your grief can run its natural course. Have you ever considered
this?
Premise - feeling "depressed" can be a symptom of up to four
underlying factors:
-
denial of significant false-self
and their
and...
-
ignorance of healthy-grieving basics and/or
incomplete grief; and...
-
living in a low-nurturance
environment; and possibly....
-
organic factors - e.g. hormonal and
brain-chemical imbalances.
I
strongly suspect the first three of these can promote the fourth. What do
you think? If these factors seem plausible, consider these choices:
1)
Acknowledge this paradox: the following options require energy, patience
and commitment - yet you may have few of these resources for now. Do as much
or as little with the following options a your circumstances allow,
let go of trying to
"feel better," trust the (grief) process and your Higher Power (if
any), and let the
guide you until your energy and ambition return.
2) If your symptoms are interfering with key activities and
relationships "too much," consider hiring a veteran grief counselor and
asking for a professional evaluation. Make sure that anyone you hire
belie-ves that grieving is appropriate for all significant life
losses, not just the death of a loved one. Don't as-sume that all
professional therapists and counselors are trained to do this.
Effective grief counseling is a
specialty.
3) Consider writing a blog or
every day, and be open to anything that wants to be expres-sed.
Option - Try separating the different "voices in your head" (your
subselves) and record their dialogs. Choose the open curiosity of a student,
and expect to learn something useful about yourself and your life. Resource:
The Artist's Way, by Julia Cameron.
4) Invest undistracted time in reading William Bridge's helpful
book
Transitions, and Judith Viorst's insightful thoughts on
Necessary Losses. Discuss your reactions to their ideas with your
suppor-ters.
Option 5)
Give high daily priority to family
(assess for and reduce significant wounds),
and
(learn seven
to problem-solve effectively), and (learn to grieve well). Progress
on these projects requires that your active subselves...
-
learn to trust and follow your true
-
consistently value your needs and your
highly as your environment changes,
-
accept full responsibility for these, no
matter what other people say or do,
If a
controls you, this will not be easy.
(wounded) adults are taught as kids to abandon
themselves - i.e. to rank their needs, feelings, and opinions lower than
other peoples' without questioning that.
6)
the people you live and work with for significant false-self wounds. As
a cross-check, see how many of these high-nurturance
traits your present family has. Option - do the same evaluation
for the places you work, study, and/or
worship. If you find Grown Wounded
Children (GWCs) are significantly in-fluencing your life quality, see
this for options.
7) Invest time and effort working at
(learn and apply healthy-grieving basics). if you think you know enough
to skip this step, try this quiz and return.
Then surround
yourself with knowledg-eable,
empathic,
people, and become a good-grief
supporter for people
you care about. Work with your family members to develop and use a
in your homes.
If
your relatives and key friends are
and can't
healthy grieving, then consider...
-
reducing their presence and influence in
your life, or..
-
them respectfully about their grief-hindering attitudes (and false-self
dominance), or...
-
with their values, validating your personal rights,
and assert and live from your
values with minimal guilt or anxiety.
Option 8)
Be aware of the
terms your family
adults use in thinking and speaking. Depressed and
depression can be emotionally-loaded "hand-grenade" terms for some people
because they may be asso-ciated with sick or ill, crazy,
nuts, weak, inferior, anxiety, bad, doctors, hospitals,
therapy, trouble, or other vague or specific discomforts.
"I'm working to accept some major
losses now" can feel better to someone's subselves than "I am (or you
are) really depressed."
9) If you feel guilty because your "depression" is burdening other
people "too much," read and apply
this article on managing excessive
guilts, and use these wise guidelines. Your depression is your
responsibility. Other people are responsible for managing their own comfort!
10) Vividly
imagine yourself as an old person, looking back on your life
decisions. Imagine your kids fully grown, with families of their own. Get
quiet and centered,
and have an honest
conversation with your older Self.
Discuss and listen to that wise person talk about how your decisions about
assessing for inner wounds, grieving, and coping with any "depression"
turned out. Options:
about this experi-ence, and/or transcribe the discussion for later review
and learning
More
options if you feel "depressed"...
11)
Use
family
to help get grief
support as needed, and
to stay balanced and
enough, while you do these things and your other life responsibilities.
12)
Evolve
and use a
Bill of Personal Rights to validate your needs,
emotions, and your grief decisions and
(boundaries). You can also develop and use
inspirations to steady, focus, and
comfort you along the way.
13)
When you can,
model and teach these ideas to your
minor and grown kids, and encourage them (give permission)
to do "good grief." If you're motivated, teach others in your family
and community what you're learning here. For more perspective, see this
series of articles on stress prevention.
14)
Become aware of whose advice you follow
about assessing and treating "depression." Two likely groups are (a)
your own subselves ("intuition"), and (b) key people, including family
elders, men-tors, hero/ines, health professionals, and media authorities.
It's likely neither group knows what you're reading here.
Finally...
15)
Think twice
if you're considering anti-depressant medication. "Mood control"
chemicals may relieve your symptoms, but not what's causing them.
Choose a medical professional who respects and is trained in the dynamics of
healthy grief, as well as "anti-depression" and "mood control" medication.
Status Check
To
shift from abstract concepts to your real life, meditate on
these statements. T = true, F = false, and ? =
"I'm not sure," or "It
depends on (what?)":
I
understand that grieving is needed for
all kinds of life losses (broken bonds), not just the death of a loved one. (T F ?)
I
can name the phases of each of the
three levels of
(T F ?)
I
believe grief (a) is a normal human
response (b) which can be slowed or blocked.
(T F ?)
I
grew up in a “pro-grief” family – i.e.
one who’s adults consistently encouraged and model-ed (a) feeling
and (b) expressing healthy grieving values, emotions, thoughts, and behaviors.
(T F ?)
I’m comfortable now (a) feeling and (b)
expressing _sadness and _ anger privately and pub-licly; and (c) I’m
comfortable enough being around others who feel and express shock, sad-ness, and anger. (T F ?)
I
can clearly describe (a) my personal and
(b) our family’s
i.e. our sets of shoulds,
oughts, musts, and values
about feeling and expressing grief. (T F ?)
I
now live in a pro-grief home and family - i.e. one which consistently
encourages everyone to mourn well. Note the difference between intentionally encouraging grief
among your fam-ily members, and passively tolerating their mourning. (T F ?)
I
am now able to (a)
identify and (b) grieve my
thoroughly;
or if not, (c) I know why, and (d) I'm taking effective steps to
improve this. (T
F ?)
I
can
(a) clearly discern the
difference between “depression” and incomplete grief now, and (b) I can name at
least six
of blocked
grief. (T F ?)
Other
adults in our family would answer "True" to the statement above. (T F ?)
Now I feel a mix of calm,
centered, energized, light, focused, resilient,
up, grounded, relax-ed, alert, aware, alive, serene,
purposeful, confident, and clear, so
my true Self is probably
my
(personality). (T F ?)
Have you ever
reflected on ideas
like these? Notice what your
(thoughts, emotions, and images) is now…
My clinical experience with hundreds of
therapy clients who felt "depressed" is that they're really
feeling active or frozen grief relative to...
-
past losses
(broken bonds), including some in
childhood and perhaps courtship;
-
recent invisible or
tangible losses; and/or relate to...
-
an unavoidable
future loss like youthful vigor, kids moving away, retirement, or death
(anticipatory grief).
If you or
someone you care about
weren't encouraged to mourn fully as a child,
depressive symp-toms may signal being stuck in the sadness phase of emotional
grief. "Rageaholics" are often stuck in the
phase. How does the
former work, and what can you do about it?
The
Project 5 articles answer these questions in some detail.
A key concept is how unseen false-self
dominance (wounds) combines with ignorance of healthy-grieving
basics to
hinder grieving.
Personality Subselves and
Grieving
About 80% or more of
my hundreds of adult therapy clients appeared to be psychologically
- i.e.
often controlled by a
protective
Most
didn't (want to) know this, so they suffered re-curring problems like unhappy
or confusing
relationships,
"disturbed" kids,
financial woes, some physical problems, and "depression." Such
problems usually continue and compound until the adults hit
and commit to progress on some
version of
wound-
To evaluate what follows, I encourage
you to first study these slides or this
article. They propose that
normal personalities are
composed of an interactive
or
parts, that each have their
own purpose, values, needs, way of communicating, and view of the world. They
create all the "voices" (thoughts) and images in your mind, and seem to cause a
wide range of emotional and physical reac-tions.
If you're skeptical or curious
about this idea, read this letter to you,
and then try this safe, interes-ting, exercise. This
"subself" idea is new enough in our
culture that most grief professionals aren't
aware of it. Most do believe in
psychosomatic illness. Do you?
Psycho means “mind,” and soma means “body.” Do you feel that
repressed anger, fear, shame, guilt, or sadness (“stress”) can hinder
sleeping, digesting, and eliminating; and cause discomforts like head and
stomach aches,
tics, teeth-grinding, and “tight shoulders”? How about hormonal imbalances and
allergies?
Lacking factual information, most people must
guess if, when, and how their minds (thoughts and emotions) can cause bodily discomfort or illness.
From studying and practicing
for 16 years,
I believe many bodily ailments and discomforts are promoted or caused by
psychological repres-sion and related thoughts. I’m now sure that
our
thoughts and emotions are governed by the well-meaning subselves (brain
regions) that comprise our personalities.
Like your physical family,
your inner
family of subselves can range from harmonious, contented, and calm to conflicted, insecure,
and discordant, as your inner and outer environments change.
Growing up in a
family promotes inner-family chaos and the formation of a false
self (a discordant per-sonality).
Most such families are (unintentionally)
anti-grief homes. That is, their (wounded) adults
discourage feeling and expressing normal grieving emotions, thoughts, and
behaviors. Restated: the false selves gov-erning these adults
often withhold
to
mourn well. Impressionable children are taught anti-grief beliefs like these:
"Real (virile) men (or males) don't cry."
or "Crying is for wimps, babies, and sissies."
"(Feeling and/or showing) anger, or too much
sadness, is wrong and bad."
"Keep a stiff upper lip (or we'll withhold
our approval, respect, and love.)"
"Don't burden others with your sorrow."
"Get over your loss, and move on. No
big deal!"
"It's
not OK to vent repeatedly about your
losses and pain."
"Put on a happy face (or someone will
dislike, reject, or punish
you)."
"Don't be gloomy or 'negative' (or
someone will dislike, reject, or punish you)."
"Always think of the other guy (otherwise
you're being selfish and bad)!"
"You only grieve when someone dies, and then
it should take a few weeks at most."
"We don't talk about or evaluate our family's
grieving habits, values, or rules - and we deny, minimize, and/or joke about this."
"If you must grieve, do it
privately, and don't disturb anyone else."
"Always look at the bright side! (or we'll
disapprove of or reject you)."
"Strong emotions are upsetting and bad.
If you must feel them, don't show (express) them."
"When the going gets tough, the tough get
going. We (parents) love tough people best."
"We (you) don't discuss family business
(like losses and their impacts) with outsiders."
"It is not
necessary or OK to get professional help in
healing your losses."
"If it hurts, use sugar,
fat, nicotine, and/or
alcohol (or work real hard) to feel better - and ignore, joke about, or deny
that you're doing this."
Continued...
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