“I am depressed…I have depression.”
These are words I hear often when people come into my office for an initial session. I will ask them to describe what it is like when the depression is there. How does it get you to think about yourself and the situations in your life? What does depression feel like in your body? What are some of the emotions that are present with the depression? What are some of the ways that it gets you to act?
Perhaps you noticed that with these questions I am beginning what I consider to be an important part of my work as a therapist. I am inviting them to see their depression from a different perspective. I am inviting them to develop a different relationship with their depression.
What do I mean by different perspective and different relationship? Maybe it would help to understand more about the place depression can have in a person’s life.
“I am depressed.” Consider those words for a moment.
They don’t describe something that is happening in your life. They describe a state of being. They describe who you are. They only way to make that statement untrue is to figure out a way to get to the place where you can say “I am not depressed.” You wake up tomorrow, and you are depressed. You wake the next day, and you are depressed. You go through your days until you cross some line in the sand, and now, you are not depressed. Of course, some part of you knows that it is possible to fall back on the other side of that line, and, again, you are depressed.
“I have depression.” Consider those words for a moment.
Depression is something you have, like an illness. In fact, depression can be described as a mental disorder. From this perspective, you have to evaluate, diagnose, and figure out a way to treat the depression. Then, hopefully, you can reach a place where you can say, “I do not have depression…or the depression is being treated and under control.”
Please understand me. I am not trying to minimize or make light of your experience of depression. I have heard the frightening and painful stories of many people who struggle with depression. But I think that the way you think about something as powerful as depression can have an impact on how you deal with it and move beyond it. I think that my role as a therapist who walks with people through the darkness of depression is to help them develop a different relationship with it.
Several years ago, I worked with a client who began his time in therapy with these familiar words: I am depressed. Every week, he would come in and talk about the state of his depression: I am really depressed. I am mildly depressed. I am more (or less) depressed that I was last week. Our work together involved a variety of invitations to not just get rid of his depression but to develop a different relationship with it.
The turning point in his work happened one week when he came in and said something different, “The depression is here.”
With these words, he was saying that the depression was not who was or something he had; it was something that was present in his life. We explored some questions together that invited him into a different relationship with his depression. What does the depression look like? Does it have a shape or color? How big is it? We decided to put the depression in a chair across the room and interview it. When you show up in his (my client’s) life, how do you get him to think? What do you tell him? How do you convince him to act? Is there anything that he does that makes it easier for you to show up and take over? Is there anything that he does that makes it harder for you to do that?
Then, I turned to my client and asked him about what the depression was saying. Did he like how the depression was describing him? Would he describe himself differently? How would he want to describe himself? What would he want to say to the depression? What would it be like to be mindful and accepting of the depression…and still make choices that gave expression to what he valued?
All of these questions did not convince him that he was not depressed. All of these questions did not make the depression go away. In fact, when we invited the depression to sit down in a chair for a conversation, the depression was a real presence in his life. It wasn’t a describe of who he was or what he had. It was a presence with whom he could now develop a different relationship.
To learn more about how developing a different relationship with depression can help you experience a meaningful life, please visit my depression treatment specialty page.