It's Not Me, It's You

12 Sunflowers In A Vase
Van Gogh

When my eyes opened this morning at 6am it was because the ideas that had been in there from previous days were crashing about, awake long before me. They were excited and confused and eager, like children. And so I went downstairs with them in my head and promised to write a few of them down.

I read a few different blogs and the beautiful and extraordinary power of the internet means that I am not confined by geography. And so I see, neither is depression. I subscribe to a website where members post about their problems and the community respond. I find especially on difficult days it can be easier to help others than to help myself… so I get involved from behind the security of my laptop screen. Yesterday there were some rather cruel replies from one member across a number of posts. An ugly side to the internet, afforded by the anonymity it provides. Cleverly written replies that appeared sympathetic at first and drew readers in… making them feel foolish I imagine.

Having reported the posts to the website they replied saying that whilst some of the advice could be considered ‘harsh’, it was also ‘practical’. Here is a tame extract to contrast with the words harsh and practical.

“Go to Africa and work for AIDS victims. Help the homeless. Do something that will deflect your attention AWAY from your own problems. I am not saying you don't have problems, it's obvious you do, but they will not improve by constant navel gazing” (from discussion board member in reply to a post about depression).

Well, that is what harsh but practical advice looks like.

When the reader picks their jaw up from the floor they might be left wondering if he has a point. He wouldn’t be the first to say ‘keep the hands busy and the mind will take care of itself’. Activity therapy is nothing new, and surely my own reasons for participating on the website are concurrent with his advice. And the expression ‘navel gazing’ certainly brings to mind the introverted nature of depressive thoughts, the self analysis and identity searching.

Getting on with things, as the post suggests, is more difficult than it sounds when your centres of motivation, energy and self confidence are under attack. In fact such a suggestion can feel a little inflammatory. It must be so hard for people to understand depression from the outside. It isn’t as simple as extrapolating their own experiences of a low mood or a bad day. It must be hard then for such people to understand the challenges and know how to be supportive and helpful.

‘Navel gazing’… it is interesting though. When depression breaks me apart, the journey back does seem to involve something of an identity crisis. I am of a mould… a flawed mould that makes me turn on myself. I wind up here in this broken place because, regardless of my momentum, I am tethered to this spot by childhood. I do want to be rid of core beliefs that betray me, and replace them with something of my own making. To do that, I do find myself searching for the new whilst barricading against the old. I’m searching about to understand and create a healthy me as much as I am trying to cut ties with my old habits.

My ‘going to Africa’ or ‘working with the homeless’ as the advice suggested was to work in education and give myself very completely to my work and the lives of the children I worked with, at the expense of my friends, family and health. Depression took me down just the same because I was broken inside. I’d get better, go back, and then break again. So maybe we become introspective not just because depression makes us that way, but also because attending to ourselves holds the key to long term mental health.