Indefensible Despair

Posted by fxckfeelings on April 2, 2012

When you’re overwhelmed with depressed or anxious feelings that don’t seem “justified” or connected to the usual events of your life, you first doubt whether you deserve to feel that bad, then doubt your sanity entirely. That’s because these intense, negative emotions tell you that you’re worthless and/or doomed when you’re not (at least, no more than anyone else), and most people assume their emotions must be at least a little right. In reality, symptoms pass and you’re never worthless or doomed as long as you can keep your perspective, so instead of jumping to dire conclusions when intensely negative feelings try to seize control of your brain, stand your ground.
–Dr. Lastname

I feel guilty for feeling like I might be depressed. I have no reason to feel sad (and that word makes me cringe because it doesn’t quite sum up the multitude of emotions that devastate me on a regular basis; desperate, useless, pathetic, oxygen thief, loser and plenty other perfectly good adjectives could cover it) and because I can’t justify it, I start to feel frustrated. I’m like an elastic band – one minute I’m the happiest person on earth and the next I’m scraping the bottom of the barrel, ready to drop where I stand and content to never get back up again. I’m twenty and so it might just be that I’m walking the boundary line between physical maturity and teenagerdom, where angst haunts us all. I’ve had difficulties with this kind of thing in the past—my dad died when I was nine and I developed anorexia shortly after and while I’ve since ‘recovered’ (I hate that word), I still have issues with the way my body looks. I tried to kill myself when I was thirteen for no other reason that I can remember other than I had a rope and a bunk bed and fuck it, why not? Obviously I failed and I’ve never tried it again, but now and then I’ll look up at my ceiling fan and think, “Why not?” And then I’ll feel silly and awkward. But then I’ll be driving down the freeway and think “one jerk of the wheel and I’m out”. Or I have a headache and I’m staring at a very large bottle of aspirin and it’ll be there, in the back of my head, whispering away. It’s not normal to feel like that, is it? Even if they are just passing thoughts, it shouldn’t be like this. Does everyone think like this?

When you find yourself with frequent feelings of self-loathing and an urge to end it all, the question isn’t whether other people think like this (not usually), or whether you should have to feel like this (should or not, you do, and that’s the way it is), or why you feel like this (life is indisputably unfair and some people carry inexplicable pain).

The question you should instead be asking yourself is whether you can find a reason to live, knowing that you often don’t really want to.

There are many people who would say you need and deserve help and that depression can be treated. I would agree, but I’m not sure that the kind of help that you and they would be thinking of actually exists.

What I mean is a treatment via talk, medication, or otherwise, that would make you feel substantially better or different. Sometimes, such treatments provide substantial relief, but often they don’t. Severe problems don’t have simple remedies, so time and finding your own reason to keep going are the main weapons to rely on while you try to find other treatments that will help.

A simple thing to acknowledge is that depression frequently strikes those who feel “undeserving”—those with good families, jobs, lives—because the nature of the disease is feeling awful despite yourself. So first off, stop trying to convince yourself that having good circumstances gives you the power to just snap out of it. If it were that simple, I’d have no job, there would be a lot less good art, and Ben & Jerry’s would go out of business.

Unfortunately, your depression is chronic and severe—you’ve been down so long it looks like up to you—and it’s probably aided and abetted by your imagination, intelligence, and talent for self-expression. The danger with depression that starts as early in your life, as it evidently has, is that it can shape your attitudes and prevent your from developing a broader perspective, thus becoming part of your personality (often called a borderline personality disorder) and all the more dangerous. All of which means you must work harder, using your imagination, to construct the perspective that might come naturally to someone who experienced depression later in life.

It requires a great deal of work, at least during those days when you feel like shit, to remind yourself that there’s value in what you do. Being open about your struggle (which your are) can help you find others who feel the same way and have nevertheless built a philosophy of hope, and these people have the most to offer. As for therapy, look for a positive coach who offers exercises that will make your mind stronger against misery’s pull (a great source for this kind of therapy and therapist is DBT, Dialectic Behavioral Therapy, which is now available in most cities).

Don’t give up. Remember, despair will often lie to you about your own worth and the value of your loves and achievements, so you need determination and vision to see through those lies, make a realistic assessment, and learn to trust your own judgment.

Stick with it, and you can find a deeper hope that despair can’t touch. That way, the next time your depression asks, “why not?”, you’ll be ready with an answer.

STATEMENT:
“I feel as if I hate myself and life is meaningless, but I know that’s just the way I feel and that, in truth, I find things about myself and others that deserve respect, beginning with the ability to bear pain with dignity. I will cultivate that vision and protect it from the onslaught of negative feelings that I can’t help. I may feel despair, but I won’t believe in what it tells me.”

I’ve never doubted my sanity before, but after what happened 2 weeks ago, I think I’m falling apart. I’ve always seen myself as a competent executive, but suddenly in the middle of the workday I had pain in my chest, couldn’t breathe, and felt like I was going to die. At the emergency room, after putting me through a lot of tests, they told me I had an anxiety attack and should see a psychiatrist, which I did. He gave me Valium, which helped, but we can’t find a single thing in my life that would cause an attack, so I feel like we’re not getting to the bottom of anything and I’m not sure what to talk about. I feel helpless and spinning, because I could have another attack any moment and I’m convinced the next one could kill me. My goal is to recover my sanity.

Not only do anxiety attacks feel terrible (they can reduce a tough guy to quivering jelly), they also have an amazing ability to put pains in your body and negative thoughts in your head that no amount of education, testing, and medical reassurance can make go away.

Some, like yours, create anxiety that wasn’t there before (at least in an obvious way). Either way, it’s understandable that you’re equating anxiety attacks with heart attacks, but with anxiety attacks, you’ll live (even if your peace of mind will suffer)

Of course, the standard prescription is to let psychotherapy get to the bottom of your problem and take medication to control your symptoms. Trouble is, the problem is often bottomless (and as difficult to find as the Holy Grail) and each medication has its drawbacks. So if you expect to get back to your usual self, or regain total control, you may well wind up disappointed and more anxious than ever.

Instead, suck up the possibility that your anxiety attacks may continue, off and on, for years, much like migraines and back aches. That’s not unusual, whether or not you get psychotherapy, particularly when there’s nothing new or unusual setting off your attacks.

Now that you’ve accepted the bad news and purged yourself of false hope, (deep breath), the good news is that psychotherapy can help you manage anxiety and negative thoughts, especially the ones that try to burrow into your brain. It takes work and daily practice, and benefits greatly from the support of friends and exposure to the right books, but you can develop an ability to tolerate anxiety without taking it personally or feeling bound to comply with its do-anything-to-feel-better blackmail.

Antidepressants can help, but you have to take them every day, and they’re far from guaranteed to work. On the other hand, many people who suffer from anxiety attacks find that the pills that work quickly (which are usually addictive) work best with external use, i.e., that just carrying the pills makes them feel more calm. It’s certainly less bulky than a security blanket, and there’s no treatment with lower side effects..

In the long run, you can’t count on controlling the symptoms, but you can prevent them from controlling you. Knowing what they feel like is to respect the strength that that requires.

STATEMENT:
“I can’t stand anxiety, but I’m determined to stand against what it tells me and pushes me to do. I may always be prone to nervousness, but I’ll never let it scare me or prevent me from going forward.”