It's gray and cold up here in the great Northeast.
I am gray and old. Not much I can do about that. Dye my hair?
Physically healthy? Today I am, yesterday I had that stomach thing that everyone shared.
Mentally healthy? Now that's an interesting question.
Yesterday I was reading about Behavioral Activation It's a treatment for depression. On the website of Dr. Christopher Martell, who devised this treatment, he states that he doesn't think that depression is a disease, like, say diabetes. Well, I never thought it was either, at least not more than 10% of the time. People don't just catch depression the way I did that stomach thing yesterday. It comes from having a rotten life, and not knowing how, or not being able to change it. You end up feeling powerless, worthless, and useless. When those feelings last for a while, your are what we call, depressed.
But, to me, that doesn't mean you are unhealthy. Often, being depressed is the only response you can have. Why some people are not totally immobilized is what amazes me.
One of my favorite clients, let's call her Amy, comes to see me about once a month, if she can make it. She has very bad knees, a broken foot that has healed badly and a degenerative bone disease that causes her back and hips to crumble. It takes her about three minutes to walk into my office from the waiting room. She is fifty-six years-old. She has had cancer in her forties, and last year a heart attack. She takes so many medications that her digestive system is a mess.
Amy was raised by a father who terrorized both her and her mother. He was demanding, abusive and overbearing. If Amy reacted too slowly he would take out his gun and fire it over her head. Well, he only did that three or four times.
When she was about seventeen she thought she would turn him into the police. But she didn't bother, because her father was the judge.
She was married twice. The first time she got pregnant and then her father set out to kill her. He would have but her mother hid her in a different state. The first husband was a kid who was lost and a drinker so the marriage fell apart. Ten years later, Amy met a man who had been in high school with her and had always wanted to be with her. They married and had five marvelous years together. Then he died of cancer.
And last year, Amy, who now was living alone, befriended a seventy year-old man and cooked suppers for him and cheered him up. He fell in love with her. She told him she was complimented but no thanks. He came back, tanked up on Viagra, and threw this mostly crippled woman on the bed and tried to rape her.
Stuff happens.
Now, Amy is depressed. But when she comes to see me, she worries about me. She is actually very funny, and has a real will to live and carry on. She gets discouraged. She lives with a lot of pain. She tries, as long as her energy hold out.
But I would call her healthy. Her depression is not a disease.
6 comments:
No, no, don't dye your hair!
How about a light-bulb, though?
We get gray and cold 6-7 months out of the year, sometimes more. I finally bought one of those SAD bulbs for 30$ a few weeks ago and now I want to kick myself for not buying one sooner.
I think I get what you're trying to say. Amy sounds like a really cool woman to know. Either way, I have a post-it on the upper left part of the screen that says "Just Be" now. :)
o_0
.....sh*t.
Give Amy a hi-5 for me.
I have a Q since you said it's not a disease. Do you not think a chemical imbalance is a disease?
Diseases are treated with medication(s). Does the fact that not all patients require medication make you think it's not a disease?
I agree completely.
Most of the time when I get depressed it IS for a reason... same thing with anger.
Emotions are typically reactions for me...as opposed to actions(such as the Viagra man). In my head, that makes me more mentally healthy than that fellow.
My brother has diabetes. Without his insulin he dies. period. Most people, in my opinion, who have been told by a doctor that they are depressed are told so because they walk in and say, 'I'm depressed.'
I have a neighbor addicted to Xanax. She has been on it for 9 years. It all started when her spouse of 20 years died & she was stressed... which I think is a natural & normal way to feel after such a loss.
I firmly believe that it's rather irresponsible to compare actual diseases to psychosomatic disorders and throw drugs at an assortment of conditions that not long ago, didn't even have a name!
I've kept up with the 'natural progression' of pharmacology and the direct correlation between naming a disease and coming up with just the right chemical potion to treat it...
This is not to say that depression can't escalate and be elevated to the category of disease, because it happens! Which again, in my personal opinion, is a direct result of poorly managed crises and the tendency many people have to just lie down and let it take over. Even at the expense of allowing this tendency to consume their entire lives.
There's also a big difference between situational depression and deep-seated emotional issues, which cause people to lose any sense of hope. For the most part, people find it much easier to call it a disease and thereby, shed their personal responsibility to make things better, on their own or with the assistance of a qualified professional, AND heed the advice.
Yes, internal struggles and outside influences can affect our ability to find the motivation to snap out of a vicious cycle, there's no denying that, but each one of us also has the ability to deal with life's issues in a much more productive way.
Based on personal experience, I know that if it were possible for me to rely on other people to carry me, or drugs to ease my struggles, maybe I would resort to that but I'm not into those kinds of temporary cures. Instead, I've chosen to exercise 'the other option': Pull myself from my own boot straps and face my issues, head on, rather than hide behind the generic disease label.
Courage. It's a powerful antidote for most of what ails us. I'm not making it up either, been there, done that, do it every single day as a matter of fact!
i'd like to further add that there is a difference not only between situational depression and longstanding trauma-induced depression, but there is also actually a chemically-based depression that doesn't have anything to do with a person's life or background at all. my husband, for example, has been chronically depressed since adolescence. he had a family so good you have picked them from a Lake Wobegone catalog. I mean, not *superficially* perfect, these people are just good, good, good people, through and through. Perfect childhood, as perfect as you could ever have. No traumatic anything, not ever. Depressed anyway. He takes medicine, and he is transformed. He misses a few doses, and it's almost like you can watch the big black clouds re-taking their place above his head, and we are all helpless to stop it from happening. No amount of therapy could touch that stuff, I'm sorry. We tried. He's got a sensitive system and doesn't like taking pills, but there just wasn't any other way that worked even slightly. Myself, I'm cyclothymic and my crashes are not necessarily related to anything that's going on in my life, although sudden stress can make things cycle quickly at times. But i don't feel "depressed" when I'm in that phase, either. I feel drugged, thick, can't think, can't move, my body hurts all over, I can't focus, I can't interact, I can't cope. I don't feel "depressed", I feel sick. Physically sick. But I'm not. I'm having a brain issue. Sometimes I can push through it with the behavior modification methods, the "fall back plan" that I developed in therapy years ago. And also lots of exercise, B vitamins, etc. Sometimes, I can't shake it without a little help. Well, not in time to keep from ruining my life anyway. Not all depression is a disease, yes. But not all depression is situational or based on a bad history, either.
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