The Web address of this
two-page article is
http://sfhelp.org/basics/depression.htm
Concluded....
Unless
you and your early caregivers were badly traumatized in
early childhood, you formed many
attachments (bonds) which eventually broke (caused losses) during your lives. You may have
learned as a small child that adults and kids who follow rules like those above get
the respect,
love, and acceptance which you craved. Kids that don't follow the
family's bonding and grieving
rules ("policy") experience sub-tle or obvious disapproval, scorn, and rejection. Those
hurt!
Like your parents did, you developed a normal
group of personality subselves or parts who cause your primary emotions.
Among others, you probably grew a
a
a
a
a
and an
Other subselves can feel these emotions too, including
your true Self (capital "S").
Because your
and
subselves ceaselessly
guards your young
from
they relentlessly give you
stern warnings and acid judgments if you start to feel or show grief sadness,
confusion, and anger in a way that violates "the rules" (above.)
You may also have developed a
protective
subself that adds vivid
thoughts and im-ages about disasters that will surely occur if you don't follow the Critic's
rules ("You'll be spurned, aban-doned, and die a miserable death alone
in the gutter!")
You may also have a protective
subself, whose
steady job is to focus you solely on worrying about meeting
other's needs and standards, in order to avoid agonizing criticism, rejection, and
abandonment. This subself is specially active in
adults and kids who were
unintentionally taught
to believe they were worthless and unlovable.
Another common
subself can be called
the
Its specialty is turning painful or scary current realities into
something else
So when you suffer significant
(broken bonds), this subself gives you thoughts like "Losses?
What losses?"; or "Yeah, well we've lost some things, but no big
deal!", or "Take care of the kids' wounds now, and worry about me later" (self neglect).
Probably no one in your family, schools, or social circle has talked about "your inner
family of personality subselves," so
you became an adult without clear
awareness of...
-
your Inner Critic,
and Perfectionist subselves and the rules they insists you
follow,
-
your well-meaning narrow-visioned
Catastrophizer, People Pleaser,
and Magician subselves; and...
-
the group of
personality parts who are guarded by these attentive subselves.
If these normal subselves often
your
and
subselves and your
you unconsciously live your days and nights from a
believing this and the painful results to be "normal."
|
When you inevitably experience broken bonds (losses),
subselves like these may block your sad and/or angry subselves from
causing and expressing normal grief emotions and thoughts.
Your well-meaning subselves may insist that you don't dare violate
your inherited childhood rules about grieving, much less edit or
replace them. |
These diligent Guardian subselves may also rigidly guard you against
perceiving who encourages you to grieve well and who doesn't, because the
subselves (mistakenly) believe that's not safe.
The results
may be that (a) your healthy grieving response is hindered or blocked, (b)
you're unaware of why and how, and (c) you feel "depressed" and/or
"irritable." If this persists, or you accumu-late too many un-grieved losses
and repressed sadness and anger, you may become
physic-ally sick (e.g. migraines, cancer, hypertension, diabetes...), and
strengthen your false self’s toxic dom-inance of your other subselves.
If you take chemicals to reduce your “depression” symptoms
(above), you don't...
-
meet and reorganize your subselves,
-
(re)gain the wise
of your
and...
-
complete your
grief. This risks unintentionally...
-
promoting false-self dominance and wounds in
your dependent kids, and...
-
unintentionally withholding
permission to grieve well from them, just as your unaware, wounded
did.
|
Bottom line: the
surface symptoms of “depression” may be an organic chemical
imbalance, and/or they may be symptoms of a false self blocking
healthy grieving emotions, thoughts, and behaviors.
Either way, the symptoms and their causes promote concurrent personal
and social “problems.” |
If
this premise seems credible, read on. If not, this article and series may
not be useful to you. So far,
we’ve explored options if you are significantly depressed. Let’s now
explore your options…
If Someone Else Seems Depressed...
Again, you have many choices:
Work patiently toward...
-
your true Self
of your
other subselves,
-
accepting full
responsibility for
and filling your own
and...
-
respectfully give the depressed person responsibility for filling
her or his needs.
That includes
deciding what to do about any "depression."
Listen
for your Self's guidance (your "conscience") in deciding what to do about
the other person's "depression."
Sense whether her or his true Self (vs. a
false self) is guiding them
recently. If not, consider these options.
Safeguard:
clarify your understanding of
and
and
assess yourself to see if you feel over-responsible for
the depressed person and are neglecting yourself.
Invite
the person to explore whether they're mourning key losses. Many
people will say something like "Uh... I don't think so.", or "I'm not sure -
I've never thought about that." If they ask why you ask, pro-pose that the
sadness phase of normal grief feels like depression - and
their symptoms will lift as their grief runs it's natural course toward
three-level acceptance of their losses.
Refer them to these
basics and
six steps to healthy grief as a foundation.
If the person
acknowledges feeling "depressed," ask
them to
read and discuss this article and the linked articles with you. If
s/he balks, gives excuses (like "Oh, I'm not a reader."), or agrees and
defers doing so, suspect a protective false self is on the job. See
this for ideas.
Build
your knowledge of healthy
three-level grieving together. Study and discuss these
Project-5 articles, and intentionally evolve and
use
for
your relationships.
Meditate,
and build your
awareness on specifically how the person's "depression" symp-toms are
affecting you and key others. This is not about blame,
it's about identifying and validating your feelings and primary needs so you can
problem-solve together.
Ask the person what
support
s/he needs from you, as s/he decides if and how to deal with the de-pression
and/or
grief. Sometimes support can come in the form of an assertion with
consequences - i.e. a compassionate ultimatum.
If others
in your home and family are
significantly burdened because of the person's "depression" symptoms, get clear
on what these others really need - e.g. ...
-
clear information and/or self-awareness of
their rights and
-
encouragement to
vent their feelings and needs, and/or to ask for support;
-
clarity on who's responsible for filling
whose needs, and how to best fill them; and...
-
reassurance that the depression
is not their "fault;" etc.
Brainstorm how to help them fill their
needs (if they ask for help), while the depressed person decides what s/he’s going to do about what's causing
these symptoms.
If the depressed one
is a family member, define the "depression"
as a
problem, not a per-sonal one. Discuss
this and related articles with other family members,
including older kids. Also talk factually about how the person's "depression" symptoms are affecting you all, and
what the other mem-bers need. Option:
make
a family-wide activity!
Consider using
qualified professional
help while you all do this. "Qualified" means...
-
a
wholistic (mind + body + spirit + emotions) view of health; plus…
-
openness to the ideas in this site, specially about personality subselves; plus…
-
up-to-date medical training on the bodily aspects of "depression," and
"anti-depressant" medications; plus...
-
training in, and experience at, promoting healthy
three-level grieving; including this
research;
and if relevant...
-
training and experience with stepfamily norms,
realities, and
Restated:
search your community for a reputable,
veteran wholistic-health psychiatrist (vs. family doctor)
who has training in
depression-treatment and
grieving dynamics. If you prefer to explore non-med-ical solutions
first, your range of candidates expands to include psychologists, clinical social workers, licensed professional counselors (LPC), and other wholistic-health practitioners in your area. For
perspec-tive, read this New York Times
reprint by Dr. Richard A. Friedman:
"Like
Drugs, Talk Therapy Can Change Brain Chemistry."
Recap
"Depression"
seems to affect many millions of ordinary
American kids and adults. It has distinct emotional and behavioral
symptoms
which can seriously inhibit relationship quality and life productivity and
enjoyment. Conventional responses are to endure, deny, or medicate these
symptoms,
and/or get professional counseling to reduce them.
If you
and/or someone you care about are significantly “depressed,”
this article encourages you to assess if you're really experiencing
normal or incomplete grief, for the symptoms are similar.
Natural grief can be slowed or blocked by
lack of personal and/or social permissions to (a) experience and (b) express
normal grieving thoughts, feelings, and behaviors.
Lack of inner
permissions (shoulds, musts, and have to’s) usually comes from
parents
and childhood
It often indicates unseen psychological
Unfinished grief has common
you can assess for. Many typical
adults (like you?)
survived
birth-families
which unintentionally hindered healthy grief. Where true, most men and women don’t know this, so repressing healthy
grieving becomes normal.
Based on these ideas
and the good-grief basics
in family
this article offers sets of options if
you and/or
another person feel
significantly or chronically “depressed.” Unfinished grief is a
primary per-sonal and family problem. It usually causes a web of secondary problems in your home
and relationships.
If you seek professional help, make sure your clinician is
well grounded in grieving, depression, and these
topics. Few clinicians have training and experience in
personality subselves and false-self wounds, so far.
Bottom line:
for your and your kids’ sakes,
-
learn
healthy-grieving basics together. Then use them to...
-
evolve and live from a pro-grief
and...
-
assess for incomplete
grief, and encourage three-level mourning in your kids and adults. Incom-plete grief appears to be common in our culture, and is one of
widespread social stressors.
+ + +
Pause and recall why you read this article. Did you get what you
needed? If so, what do you need to do next? If not, what
you need? Who's
these questions - your wise
or
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