The Blame Game

Do you ever find yourself blaming the depression for bad habits or poor choices? As in, "I wouldn't do X if I wasn't this down," or "I must be more depressed since I just did X?" As if the depression is the answer to every negative thing in life?

Yeah, me too. It's so easy. It's THERE. The perfect scape-goat. You know that old depression med commercial (maybe for Zoloft?) where there's an umbrella that follows you around, only when you open it, it rains from the umbrella - because the umbrella is meant to represent your depression? I view my own depression similarly. Not specifically as an umbrella, but as a non-formed entity or presence that's always there. The Presence is stronger in the winter, but it is always there.

My point is that thinking of the depression as a separate entity that floats around like a shadow makes it super easy to place blame. Because there's a thing, an Entity. It's got substance of some sort (ideas are nouns too!) - and that means I can deflect blame for some (all? most?) of the stupid stuff I do onto the Entity that is not me. Convenient. Simple. It wasn't me, it was the depression. Boom.

Except, all I'm doing is a disservice to myself. If I simply get to blame everything wrong or stupid I do on the depression, all that does is allow me to trick myself into thinking that I'm above reproach. "It was the depression, not me." Meaning, of course I would never do anything like that. Only under the influence of the depression. But, if I allow that to be true all of the time, who's really in control here, me or the Depression Entity that I've created in my mind to separate myself in some way from my mental illness?

[That's a struggle I've, well, struggled with ever since I was diagnosed: who's in control? And if I cede control to the Depression Entity, who is really running my life? Hint: not me.] 

In order to truly come to terms with myself and my depression, I've known for awhile now that I need to stop viewing the depression as this separate Entity. The depression is just as much a part of me as my brown hair, my smile, my creativity, and my shoe size. The depression is part of my identity. I would not be who I am right now without it. I would be drastically different (and I like to think not nearly as fabulous). But, in order to allow the Depression Entity to dissolve I have to stop blaming it. I have to give up my scape-goat. I have to take responsibility for all of the stupid shit I do. [Let's be real for a second here... none of the "stupid stuff" I do is life-threatening or earth-shattering. I'm talking little things: like leaving the dishes in the sink overnight...not remembering to call my mom on her birthday...missing a deadline at work... forgetting to call HR about some mundane admin thing. But just because they're little things doesn't mean this applies any less.]

Aye, there's the rub. I love having a scape-goat. I don't want to say I'm to blame for the stupid shit I do from time to time. I don't like people seeing I'm less than perfect. Or at least that I'm as flawed as everyone else. Sometimes I feel like I need to prove myself more because of the depression. Like, "the depression doesn't make me worse, see guys? It makes me even better!" Which is ridiculous and silly and 100% real. And facing that is so much harder than dragging a Depression Entity behind me to act as the ever-convenient scape-goat.

What's my point in all of this rambling? Depression is easy to succumb to. It's easy to let it take over. Because it's so much easier to lie back down in bed and pull the covers over my eyes. It's so much easier to say the depression is the culprit and that's why I didn't call you mom - I was just having a down day. It's so much easier to watch 4 more hours of TV instead of doing the chores I should do so my roommates don't run into a mountain of dishes when they want to cook or bake in the kitchen. 

But just because it's easy doesn't make it right. And that's what I'm currently working on in my continued struggle with my depression: stopping the blame game and accepting the depression as truly a part of myself. 

Wish me luck.

Bad to worse...and how I keep the happy

It all started with a taxi ride. Okay no. It started with a job interview. That I had to get to. In SW DC. [Let's put this into context. I worked this morning in Bethesda. SW DC (the southern end) is 45 minutes by car or 1.5 hours by Metro.]

I'd miscalculated timing. To get to my interview. The Metro would make me a half hour late. Not okay. Answer: taxi ride. Expensive taxi ride. Ugh. But he gets me there on time. All good, right? No. My card gets declined when I go to pay him. Seems there's a hold on the check I deposited yesterday until Friday. Friday??? How does that help me? It doesn't. So I freak out. And I tell him I can't pay him. And he gets pissed. [rightfully so, here's this young white yuppie girl in a suit saying she can't pay this rather large fair after you drove her clear across the city] And threatens to call the police (which might have landed me in jail). But I'm crying at this point. And repeating "I'm so sorry, I don't know what to do." And telling him I'm trustworthy and I'll pay him and I don't know how to make him believe me.

So, we work out that I'll have to pay him later. He takes down all of my information. (So he can call the cops if I do try to evade the fare. Fair enough.) [See what I did there? Fare and fair? I'm hilarious.] And I let him keep my drivers license for collateral. [...right? exactly how stupid am i?] And we agree on a meet time. And I get out and miraculously ace my interview. [What can I say? I got mad interview game.]

Okay. Now I gotta get cash. So I call people. Lots of people. Too many people. How embarrassing. I'm broke, I need to pay this cab fare, and I feel like some beggar on the phone asking for money. Sure, friends/family are happy to help me out because I'm lucky and have awesome family and friends. But that doesn't change the feeling I get when I have to ask people for money. I feel worthless. And judged (yes by me). And irresponsible.

After a way-too-complicated web of complication, I find a way to get this man his money. And he doesn't show up. I wait AN HOUR. Because, you know, my phone's battery just died so that's helpful [if you didn't catch the sarcasm, I can assure you it's there]. And then I give up. And go home. Because it's warm there, and I can cry at will about how stupid I am and how bad this day has gone (except for that interview).

In the end? The cabbie was busy on a fare and he's going to drop by my house after his shift to get his money. Okay. Great. Relief! Angels sing! Fans do the wave! There is much rejoicing! The Monty Python guys dance a jig!

Here's the catch: depression sucks at times like this. Because it's so good at making me dwell on the negatives. All the stuff that went wrong. All the stupid decisions I made. All the embarrassment,  the shame.

This post did promise to explain how I keep the happy in spite of all the bad, though. You know what I do? I take 3 deep breaths. (Okay sometimes 5 or 7 or 10.) Then I ask myself if I can do anything about the past. [Hint: the answer is always "no."] No. I can't. I can't change what happened. It happened. So I consciously turn off the worrying. I turn off the negative thought reel. And I give myself a break. I'm human. I make mistakes. I do dumb things. It. Happens.

How do I just turn the worry and the negative thought reel off? Practice. It used to take me a day or two (or 5) to turn that all off. Usually by then, time had moved far enough that I could skip turning it off and just focus on forgetting it.

But, the truth is: practice. I bought a self-help book (Feeling Good, by David D. Burns). And I did the exercises in the first several chapters. And it was corny as hell. But it taught me how to challenge the negative thought reel. How to reverse it. Or simply shut it off. And I practice all the time - for a good 6 or 7 years now. And I talked with my counselor. She and I worked on how to let things go that I can't control. Interestingly, I found that was easiest when I focused in what I could control in the situation. I can control my reaction (sorta/sometimes). I can control my breathing! Awesome. I can control what I do next, be that asking for help or walking down a sidewalk or hiding under coats. [I've always wondered what that proverbial coat closet looks like. The one with all the coats that we all talk about hiding under. I imagine it as a large mound of coats heaped over a square footstool in a small sorta-walk-in closet. And when you go hide under them, you curl up on that footstool.] Learning to refocus on what I could control in order to stop worrying about what I couldn't control took a lot of hours with my counselor and a lot of practice. Again, we're talking 6 or 7 years here.

I practiced. I still practice. I call it "going to my calm place" - but that's kind of a misnomer because I don't really envision myself going to a place. Instead I ask the important question (can I do anything about the past), get the inevitable answer [insert clip of Rafiki hitting grown Simba over the head with his walking stick and saying "Eet doesn't mahttah, it's een de pahst"], and that answer has become a trigger that almost automatically grinds through the process of calming me down. And once I'm calm, I can reflect on what went well in the situation. What did I do right? What good came out of it? And once I have the answers, I've found my happy.

It strikes me that I know people who can naturally do this. They've been good at it all their lives. But how nice it is that it can be learned. It can be practiced. It can be taught.

(Of course, it's only October, so this is easier for me to do now than it will be in the dead of winter...but the only real difference is that what I've practiced takes a little longer, and a little more effort and focus. It's not nearly as automatic in the winter time. But it still works, and that is the ultimate point.)

I'll close with one of the best things that David Burns taught me in Feeling Good:
Happiness is not a state of mind that rushes over you. Happiness is a choice. And it's not always the easiest choice. But it's always the choice that feels better in the long run.