Years ago, I was working with a client who was struggling with depression. When I asked him how the week had been, he would describe it in these ways:
“I am still depressed.”
“I am more depressed (or less) than I was last week.”
“I keep trying to figure out why I am so depressed. What do I need to do so I won’t be depressed.”
All of these statements have one thing in common. For him, depression was not a description of a state of mind. Depression was part of his identity; it was who he was in some essential sense.
When you look at depression this way, it makes it a challenge to move beyond it. I am depressed. They only way to get beyond that is to reach a state where you are not depressed. Even if you are able to reach that state, the moment a depressed thought or feeling shows up, the only option you have is to move back into the state of “I am depressed.” To not be depressed, you would have to change your character in a significant way.
One day, he came in and answered the question differently. He said, “Well, the depression showed up again. It is still here.” I’m not sure if he was aware of the difference, but it led to a fascinating conversation that helped him turn a corner.
“Hmm, so the depression showed up again. When it showed up, what did it look like?” He looked at me puzzled for a moment, but finally described the depression as a burly figure who was large and ominous.
“So when the depression showed up, what did it tell you about yourself, about your situation, about your life?” He used many of the phrases he had used before. “It tells me there is no reason to get up and do anything. It tells me I am worthless. That I will never accomplish all that I want. That this is just the way you are and the way your life will be.”
The next questions took our conversation in a different, more helpful direction. “What do you think of what the depression is telling you? Do you believe what it is saying? Do you want to challenge it in some way?” He was able to access and describe some of how he really wanted his life to be. We went on to talk about how he could implement some of these desires. We wondered what the depression would think about those efforts, how it would try to dissuade him from trying them. How would he respond when the depression tried to do this?
This conversation is an example of developing a different relationship with depression.
Sometimes words are just words, but for this client, when he was able to move from seeing depression as who he was to a presence in his life that he could hear and respond to, it made a difference for him. He didn’t have to change his character. He didn’t have to eliminate all the thoughts and feelings of his depression. He didn’t have to see these thoughts and feelings as wrong or bad. Instead, he could hear them, and even with them there, he could make choices that were an expression of the person he wanted to be.
He was able to stop living out a depression-saturated story. Before this conversation, the only events in his life that were included in the story he told about himself were those that supported the message, “I am depressed.”
This is an example of the many conversations I have with people who come to me for counseling. You can learn more about this on my depression treatment specialty page. You will learn how I help clients defuse from these thoughts and feelings—not try to eliminate or control them—so they can express their values in a meaningful way.