The Myth of Depression
Depression is a myth.
Depression is but a state of mind or mentality, a feeling or perhaps no feeling, some dark thoughts, negative beliefs, or a low mood. From this state of mind nothing seems worthwhile because what felt good previously doesn’t feel good any more. Perception becomes distorted. Many symptoms occur. The list of symptoms pertaining to a medical diagnosis of depression is growing all of the time. If we look at this list of symptoms commonly stated by doctors, physicians, psychiatrists and health workers we realise all of these many ‘symptoms of depression’ are actually common daily experiences. Nonetheless, when we have a certain number of these at the same time or they cease to go away within a certain time frame we are considered to have depression.
Therefore, the term ‘depression’ becomes a generic word, a ‘catch-all’ for a whole list of symptoms that can be in any number of combinations and identified in many different ways. This is not to say that the symptoms are not real. The feelings, the behaviour and the observations are definitely real and we should take notice of them. Each of the symptoms is a uniquely felt experience, which is painful or disturbing, but when we try to add them all up and give them a name we are only adding one more problem, the problem of labelling. With the label ‘depression’ we do a deep disservice to ourselves and others as we must then prescribe treatments in the form of pills and a bit of therapy. And when we try to tease out all the elements behind the label and take it all apart to identify all the origins we will only in the end find that the bogey-man of 'depression' never really existed at all in the first place. Many states of mind exist extending from just having a blue day right through to a severe loss of connection with one's own mind.
Loss of appetite, anxiety, insomnia, over sleeping, lack of concentration, loss of libido, agitation, sadness, feelings of hopelessness, indecisiveness, despair, fatigue, physical pains... the causes of all these symptoms, when looked at more deeply, do not relate to this label – ‘depression’. These disturbing painful conditions all arose separately and affected our mental, emotional, physical and mind states due to earlier and present day experiences and how we as individuals responded or failed to respond to them. That is why I say that depression is a myth.
However, there is a state of being, a mental state we could call it, where we can find ourselves very withdrawn from the world to the degree that we are unable to respond to anyone, any event or any requirement of us at all. If given a label we could call this depression. How any one individual gets to be in this state is tremendously varied. People in this position are unable to function in the world without assistance. In my experience of helping people deal with so called depression they are most often able to function reasonably well. They can work. They can parent their children and be reasonably active in daily life. They may not feel very happy in their deeper selves but most of the time they have enough energy to function in an ordinary way.
One such person, a young woman who is studying psychology in her third year at university told me just recently she has never had even one single happy day in her life. She had been diagnosed with 'depression' three times and failed to have her prescribed medicine made up for her as she did not believe that was the answer. What she did want though, was to be happy, to find a longed for happiness... "even just to feel OK for one day," she said. We began to explore abolishing the depression label and immediately she felt very different, a little bit OK. Now we are exploring the fact that the happiness she longs for must be known to her somewhere inside as it is not just something she sees in others' happy smiling faces. She too smiles and laughs sometimes but that is not the 'happy' she wants. So now the work requires an exploration and dismantling of the blocks, the worries, the troubles she has lived with her whole life.
The depression myth destabilised and busted once again.