Getting Out of Situational Depression

I saw a particularly beautiful sunrise the other morning.  It was pink and cloud-streaked.  Intellectually, I knew it was beautiful.  Emotionally, it made me feel exactly as numb as I’d felt before I noticed it.

Situational depression (also known as “adjustment disorder”) occurs when a person is has trouble coping with, or adjusting to, a particular source of stress (a major life change, loss, event, etc.)  It’s typically short in duration (six months or less) and has many of the same symptoms of long-term depression (sleeping issues, eating issues, stomach upset, malaise, feelings of hopelessness).  It can happen to anyone, but the good news is that it usually resolves when the source of the stress is removed or the person adjusts to the loss.  (More on the illness here.)

I’ve been in a tar-pit of sadness for the last month or so, finally working through the emotions of a lost relationship, the end of grad school, and failing connections with friends.  Yoga is partly to blame; it’s been gradually wringing out every emotion I’ve buried in my muscles, bringing it all to the surface.  Though I believe I’m on the road to something better, my world has been very gray, of late.

Little by little, I’m fighting my way out.  When, clarity cuts through the fog, I can remember that I’ve done this before.  I’ve pushed through my moments of collapse, wondering what will become of my life.  I’ve been to the bottom of my own emptiness and managed to get back.  It’s more intense this time, but I’ve been here before and I know I’ll eventually step out on the other side.

I don’t believe there’s a shortcut for getting out of situational depression.  It takes time and work.  I do, however, tend to gravitate to a few techniques that help me get a little perspective when I’m stuck.

Cry.  I cry pretty easily anyway, but situational depression always seems to crank it up a notch (or 30).  I’ve found that trying not to cry just ensures that I’ll cry harder later, so I might as well get it done.  Deep breath.  Find a tissue.  Let it happen.

Sleep.  Sleep is my emotional hidey-hole.  I turn up the noisemaker and drown out whatever yucky thoughts I’ve got swirling.  The dreams will wake me up after a few hours, but at least I’m getting some rest.
 

Write.  Writing is a great stand-in if I can’t or don’t want to talk it out.  The computer is totally non-judgmental and will happily “listen” to everything I blather (even the really embarrassing stuff).  More importantly, I think there’s an opportunity in seeing the feelings on the screen.  It’s easier to call “bullshit” when you’re literally looking at it.

Eat a Carb.  I’ve done pretty well with cleaning up my eating over the last couple of months, but in the last week – as the depression has reached a new low – I’ve cut myself a little slack.  A piece of chocolate is likely to do more good than harm right now as my brain scrambles to figure out how to make enough serotonin to keep me functioning.
 

Walk the Dog.  Getting out of the house and doing something nice for an animal helps.  It also makes the animal less needy – which also helps.  (This tactic works similarly well for children.)

Listen for the Argument.  In the middle of the hopelessness, I sometimes find that there’s this “other” voice offering an opposing viewpoint.  It’s the voice that says “hey, do you really believe that?”  This voice is the authentic, unchanging me.  It’s the mentally-healthy-me that will be there when the depression fades.  Listening for that voice (even when I can’t quite hear it) helps to remind me that I’m still there beneath the fog.

Reach Out.  Making connections helps to keep everything right side up.  I tend to turn into Hermit-Girl when I’m feeling awful.  There’s something to be said for doing the solo-work of getting through it, but I have to strike a balance with some people-time.

Get help.  So far, I’m managing with these techniques and a few supplements (magnesium, 5-HTP).  If it keeps up for too long, though, I’ll call in the big guns.  Stubborn as I am, I have too many responsibilities to let this get me down for too long.  If a professional is what I need, so be it.

Of course, the only real way out of situational depression is to go through it.  The ‘cure’ for adjustment disorder is to adjust…and that takes time.  And while “this too shall pass” feels like an empty aphorism, I know that it’s true – just a matter of when.

Stronger

My ex-boyfriend is dating a body builder.  If it were possible to construct a polar-opposite body type to mine, she has it.  She’s super muscular and extremely lean and obviously athletic.  I’m round and soft and curvy everywhere.  She has a visible eight pack…I have some vague notion that there might be something muscle-esque tucked away in the space behind my belly button.  She’s completely comfortable posing mostly naked for pictures…I’m seriously camera shy below the neck. 

I mention this woman not because of her relationship with my ex (that’s not the point)…but because being confronted with the idea of her has forced me to evaluate myself in new ways.  Being faced with the pointless (if familiar) self-torture of “he chose her, what does that say about me?” I’ve had to consider an onslaught of questions borne of raw insecurity:

What is it about me that’s valuable?
Why can he move on with his life so easily and I’m still grieving months and months later?
Am I even meant to be in a successful, long-term relationship? 
Is my relationship-past a harbinger of my future? 
 
And, the real doozy...
If I have this many self-worth questions all of the sudden, just how far in the toilet is my self esteem, really? 

Though it stings, I’ve found it useful to be confronted with these questions.  I’ve forced myself to stay with the feelings…to cry, if need be…to dig in and wrestle with the hard parts in an effort to wrap my head around my own sense of value and why I ever allow it to be influenced by anyone else.

There is a concept I’ve been calling “self-referentialism” (that may be the wrong term, however).  The idea is that the value of oneself is intrinsically derived, rather than externally dependent.  (This article talks, beautifully, about the notion).   It’s kind of the ultimate emotional end-state.  Understanding the idea and knowing how to get there, unfortunately, are two different things.  Like so much in my life, I’ve never really had a plan; I’ve only known, in some vague way, that it’s where I need to go.

So how do I get there?  Eh, I’m still figuring that out.  I think part of it is exactly what I’m doing now:  facing the hard questions straight on.  I’m not running away.  I’m letting it hurt if it hurts.  I’m challenging my assumptions.  I’m crying foul when I catch myself spouting a line of unsubstantiated crap. I’m reading (and reading and reading) inspired writing that encourages self-kindness and openness and a life lived authentically.  I’m working on it like my life – like my happiness - depends on it. 

Because I know that it does.

At the end of the day, I also want my ex to be happy.  Genuinely loving someone means wanting the best for them, even if “the best” is someone else who makes them happier – and he appears to be very happy, so this is good.  Moreover, the universe has, as always, chosen an interesting way of delivering the message…and the metaphor isn’t lost on me.  Muscles grow by being stressed…broken down…then reformed into something stronger and more capable.  The heavier the strain…the more repetitive the stress…the better the muscle develops.  Building those muscles hurts…but the pain is worth it. 

And so it goes with me.  These moments of stress…of breakdown…of painful questioning…are all opportunities for me to build my emotional “muscles” into something sleeker and more refined.  My lesson in the repetitive struggle is that my life can’t be lived by comparison.  My own happiness can’t be dependent on anyone else’s validation of me.  In yoga, I’m learning to “keep my brain inside my body,” a reminder to stay focused even when we’re in motion between positions.  The same must become true of my self-esteem. 

The path to self-referentialism - the path I’m working to find - lies in discovering a way to keep my sense of worth strong and steady, no matter who or what changes around me.  I’m not quite there yet, but I’m getting a little stronger all the time.

Yoga makes me cry.

Sometimes, yoga also makes me want to throw up, but most of the time it makes me cry.  I started taking Dahn Yoga just after I got the osteoarthritis-of-the-knee diagnosis in early February.  My logic went something like “fight a lifestyle disease with a lifestyle change (rarr!)”…so I signed up for yoga.  I’ve managed to attend classes somewhat regularly (1-3x a week) and so far, it’s been a very…interesting…experience.

My initial impressions of Dahn are that it’s largely stretching-oriented rather than “pose” oriented.  We have five posed positions that we do in the second half of each class, but they don’t seem to mirror any of the poses you might typically associate with Yoga (distinct lack of downward dog, for example).  The whole first half of the class is dedicated to stretching, and it’s amazing.  I’m reasonably bendy-stretchy naturally, and the class work has helped me to regain some of the flexibility that too many years at a desk had stolen from me.  The poses are a sneaky core workout (and soooo much better than sit ups); and the meditation at the end generally leaves me feeling relaxed and fairly peaceful.

Except for the parts where I cry.

Twice now I’ve inadvertently attended a “brain vibration” class.  I’ve not fully read the literature on the purpose of brain vibration, although I believe it has to do with energy movement…getting things un-stuck.  There’s a lot of “tapping” involved.  Tonight, we pounded on the top of our head with fists.  We beat our chests while vocalizing a long, low note.  We tapped our lower abdomen and our solar plexus and our shoulders.  We tapped until our fingers tingled and our arms ached.

I cried partly because I’m in pain.  I slept funny last night and I’ve got a pinched nerve in my back that’s preventing me from moving my head properly.  I physically hurt in a variety of places and I haven’t quite figured out why.  The stretches were harder than they should have been tonight.  I made such a face at one point that the (incredibly attentive) instructor came and adjusted me (love her!), trying to reposition my side-bend into something less grimace-y.  My body just had no fluidity to give, so frustration compounded the pain.

But mostly, I think I cried because “brain vibration” seems to work.  The tapping and the vocalizing….the loud swell of the music…the rhythmic head movements … it actually seems to provide some release for all the emotional baggage I’ve pushed down into my muscles. 

Though my emotions are experienced viscerally, they’re stored physically.  My body literally holds on to accumulated emotional energy – particularly those negative emotions that I’ve not given myself time/permission to fully experience.  All the residual “stress” (I hate that word) and fear and sorrow and frustration collect in my muscle tissue, tightening everything up in a giant knot.  When my body finally releases, it makes sure I feel every single emotion on its way out.   And the tears come unbidden and unrelenting…

By the end of class, I was exhausted and stunned...but ever-so-incrementally better.  And even though it hurts like hell (I literally feel bruised in places), I know I’m doing the right thing.  Holding on to emotion has never served me well.  It’s not that I try to hold on to all these feelings…I’ve just needed a good gateway to release.  Dahn yoga appears to be exactly that.

I told the Monkey on the way home that he needed to be a little gentle with me tonight and I tried to explain why.  He suggested that maybe I shouldn’t take the brain vibration class if it’s going to have that effect on me.  He doesn’t like it when I cry…and, truthfully, neither do I... 

...except during yoga.  I’m starting to think it might be ok that yoga makes me cry.

The Graduate

I was ready to graduate.  

I did the work.  I put in the time.  I studied and fretted and lived under the avalanche of guilt of never doing enough for anyone.  I cheered for my teammates and rallied the troops.  I engaged professors and asked a million questions and lived a life of heavily perforated boundaries.  

I even began making lists of things I'd do after I graduated!  I'll write more...learn my camera...tackle some of those house projects.  I'll exercise and cook more and do more things with the Monkey.  I'll renew friendships put on hold.  I'll stop hiding behind the "oh, I'm in grad school" excuse.

I was ready to graduate.

I made the trip to Monterey.  I made plans to visit with a memorable professor or two.  I made plans to see my classmates.  I made it to graduation rehearsal and I made it through the post-rehearsal reception....far too much of which put a focus on me.  As proud as I was of my achievements, I'm never comfortable being the center of attention...and there was no escaping the poster-sized version of my head in the center of the room:

Awesome.  My research partner and I are the center of attention and I look like a crazy lady.

Maybe I'm not ready for graduation.

And then it was suddenly graduation day and I was pretty sure I wasn't ready at all.  My stomach threatened revolt.   My clothes were all insufficient and weird.  My stockings looked wrong.  I suddenly couldn't bring myself to do basic things like make coffee or eat.  Being there without a dedicated support system suddenly seemed like a terrible idea.  Why hadn't I planned to have someone to talk to that morning?!  Why hadn't I designated someone to be in charge of me?  I'd gotten through grad school largely "on my own"...but graduating on my own was much, much more difficult than I expected.

Two years of work and all that was left was to walk across a stage.  And I wasn't ready.

The ceremony was brief...but the name-calling took forever.  I was seated approximately 315 out of 320 graduates....way up high in the last row of the auditorium.  My classmates and I sat impatiently...marveling at the number of international students and the general restraint of the audience as they held their applause and cheers.  An hour or so later, we finally made our way to the front for our turn.  The moment had arrived, at last, and everything settled as I stepped up to the line as my name was called.

I'm totally ready to graduate.

I was, however, utterly unprepared for what would happen next.  About the time I'd begun making my way back up the long aisle to my seat, the announcer called "And last, but certainly not least, Scott W..."  The last name.  The last graduate in the class.  That was all of us.

I was still in the aisle when it happened.  No sooner had the last syllable been spoken, but the audience erupted....exploded into thunderous applause and cheering and joy so large and so loud it was not unlike being suddenly overtaken by a tidal wave.  I couldn't breathe.  I couldn't feel my feet as I climbed the stairs back to my seat.  And from that vantage point in the topmost row, I saw the most amazing spontaneous display of honor I've ever experienced:  Every single person in those side sections stood up, and without planning or provocation, turned inward toward the middle, and presented a standing ovation.

I don't know if that's a normal audience response or not.  I only know that I couldn't sit down.  I nearly hyperventilated from the effort it took to not collapse into tears...and it took until today for me to be able to get through telling the story without getting overly emotional.  

I'm still sorting out why it hit me so hard.  I think maybe in that moment, I finally felt the full weight of it all...the tremendous import of this thing I'd done...the sacrifice...the struggle...the achievement...the things I lost along the way...and the things I gained.  In that moment, I was ambushed by every single emotion I've been way too busy to properly acknowledge over the last two years.  Until just then, I had no idea how much I was holding back.

Truthfully, I've felt a little untethered ever since...floating a little more freely than is comfortable in my well-ordered world.  Graduation feels like a bit of a paradox this time around:  the closing of one chapter and the prologue to a lot more unwritten ones.  I'm staring at blank pages and wondering how to write the first line in the next part of my story.  I haven't really figured it out yet, but I'm trying to be a little patient with that.

I just graduated, after all.

The Love of a Tribe

You are such an ocean of Love,
That you have no boundary.
~Rumi

It's been quite a week.  While I could spend words upon words musing on the difficulties I've been sort of trudging through over the last five days, I think I won't.  Ultimately, the realization I came to this week seems much more important than the circumstances that precipitated it.  What I learned is simply this:  It is impossible to stay in a place of sadness when you find yourself overwhelmed by gratitude.

I'm bad at being needy.  I'm terrible at asking for help.  I don't like to admit that there's ever a time I can't handle something entirely on my own.  But the reality is that humans (yes, even me) were designed to depend on each other.  We were built to love and to give support.  We were created to bond.  In tribes, in families, in packs or pairs...we are intended to rely on each other.  And the simple truth is this:  if I would be willing to drop everything to be there for a friend in need -- and I would, absolutely -- why would I ever have expected anything less from those who care about me?

This week, in the midst of an hour of darkness, I was so taken aback by the love I was shown that I couldn't linger in sadness or self-doubt.  This week, I was forced to admit to myself that though my "tribe" may resemble more Picasso than Rembrandt, it is absolutely there...and its members are absolutely willing to mobilize...to support...to listen...to offer an overwhelming deluge of love. This week, I realized that it's difficult to mourn a loss when so much is there to be found.