I am off work at the moment, and so I made my way over to the usual cafe, for the usual morning coffee. Its so nice to wander slowly along the street, and take in the dry roasted brown of the autumn leaves, the as yet unopened shop fronts, the quietness (compared to the coming bustle of the day), and the smell of hot bacon sandwiches.
Over my coffee, I remembered a conversation with a friend of several years ago, who had said;
We have to be careful, in case our depressions get together and take us over!" and then laughed
about it.
The way that she had said it surprised me. It was if she had described her depression as a well understood companion. She knew about it, had experienced it, even liked parts of it. She seemed to see it as always there, on the periphery of her vision, whilst she got on with life.
I have thought a lot about the idea of "forming a relationship" with my depression. Having such a relationship means that it can be explored, in just the same way as you'd explore a relationship with a friend, parent or lover. Just as these people are not ever the perfect lovers, friends, or parents, or the absolute enemies, neither are our depressions. If you have a relationship with it, you can see how you can both like it, and hate it. In just the same way that you might get bored and indifferent about your other relationships, so you can be disinterested and inactive with your depression.
Relationships once begun, are never ended. They may be forgotten or ignored, but they all remain, even if it only as fragments of our memories. When we re-read our old diaries, (or poetry, or other creations) we are surprised by how relationships that seemed so involving and all consuming and important at the time, have now become forgotten episodes, that seem so.......unimportant!
Could we treat our depression like that? Instead of seeing it as something "wrong", or an "illness" that needs to be treated until we are "cured", we should consider treating our relationship with our depression as an entity in itself. With understanding, experience, and maturation, we will get to the point when we consider our depression as an accepted, and almost forgotten part of ourselves. A constant, but nonthreatening and receding presence.
Here's a few points that describe such a relationship;
- Depression is not an illness, or failing, it is simply a presence in our lives.
- It can be explored to discover its character and peculiarities.
- We can give it an identity, or image, much as we do with each other.
- We can enter into a discourse with it!
- We can admit to loving parts of it, and needing it for a while.
- We can allow the relationship to change, and eventually fade, just as we do with other relationships.
- There is no "ending" to the relationship; we merely move on to other relationships that we choose.
(NOTE; just to be clear about this, I am referring here to depression as experienced by most of us at some point in the normal course of our lives. I am not referring to depression that has an organic cause e.g post natal depression etc, or the more severe forms of depression associated with acute mental disorders. Nor should these ideas and discussions be seen as a replacement for prescribed treatments.)
