Depression: Escape your mental prison

Depression: Escape your mental prison

In modern society there is a disease all around me that seems to be spreading like the Black Plague did in Europe so long ago. It's called depression, have you heard of it? Did it influence you? The more I look, the more I see it in so many people in my life, including myself. Depression sucks. It's a real burden, and I mean a real burden. It is different from the feelings of unhappiness that all people struggle with in their lives. It's in a lonely prison where you're the only one who can see the walls; You are the prison guard, the guard and the prisoner all in one. Sounds like fun, right? Well, we are becoming more aware of this because there are certain aspects of contemporary life that are causing more and more souls to imprison themselves. Some believe they have no hope of ever finding out the key.

If you search for depression on the Internet using a Google search query, you will find many different ways to manage or treat the problem. There are Eastern and Western approaches, psychological and spiritual; Today there are 15,400,000 links on this topic. It seems to be on everyone's lips and yet we don't give it the general social awareness that we do for other diseases. This is probably because there are so many scars around flaws in the human mind. We can understand, or at least believe, broken bones and cancer; But we touch a weak spot when we find a problem with this infinitely complex, helpful and magical device we call the brain.

Recently I went to a public lecture by a world-renowned psychologist named Dorothy Rowe, who was selling her new book, Depression: The Way Out of Your Prison. I won't tell you that she has all the answers, but I liked her different approach to the disease. She is not against modern medications, but she believes it can only be part of the solution. Of course, there are types of intense clinical depression that require certain chemicals to bring the brain back into "normal" working order, but for all depression, she believes the focus could shift from a management to a prevention paradigm.

Dr. Rowe focuses on the claim that depression occurs when the structure of interpretation of the world around you has been influenced by some deeply negative event (usually in adolescence). Their theory is that if a given event happens to a hundred people, they will all likely interpret the experience in an individual, different way; The perceived “reality” was a result of one’s own life experiences. For example: Let's say you are fired from your job. Almost everyone will be generally unhappy and grieving in the aftermath. However, many people have developed positive, optimistic perspectives on life and will simply move on, feeling like the layoff was another necessary step or a temporary setback on the path to their life's goals and dreams. "What does not kill me, makes me stronger." is a common feeling of this type of personality.

A person who tends to perceive the world around them as threatening and dangerous (perhaps their parents never gave them positive affirmations as a child or even beat them down emotionally) might believe that losing that job is a relative destruction 'of their world, their security, their trust. This is where the disease of depression can sink its sharp teeth. This is a pretty mild analogy; In reality, some people have endured hellish childhoods filled with abuse, neglect, and addiction. If this type of person is then dealing with the loss of a loved one or the breakup of a relationship, you can imagine that they are much more susceptible to perceiving the experience as deeply negative. Dr. Rowe believes that these constructed structures of perception of what is happening to you can be changed, creating a new perspective on reality. The main idea is based on the idea that we need to learn to change the way we see ourselves.

If we can learn to accept ourselves with all our flaws and imperfections and realize that if we do our best every day to be a loving and giving person, we can consider ourselves worthy and that everything will be okay. Then, when someone else treats us badly, ignores us, or tells us we aren't good enough, we can recognize and acknowledge that they are the person with the problem and that we don't necessarily need their validation or acceptance. We can then wait for positive people to come into our lives, like like attracts like. Soon we will find that there is a group of people who will stand by us and support us when things get bad because we do the same for ourselves and for them.

One of the most powerful insights I had from this experience was the sheer number of people in the room for Dr. Rowe's speech. Every single one had been around or knew someone who had been depressed at some point in their life and thought they were completely alone in the world. When you see a large group of people together who have all felt alone, perhaps you are just seeing into the true paradox of reality? If everyone who became depressed realized that this is a common occurrence and related to others in similar cases, it could definitely be a step towards healing. Could the Internet play a leading role in this process?

Inspired by Jesse Somer