Posted by Mark H. on March 25, 2002, at 20:09:50
In reply to Hate drug?, posted by OldSchool on March 25, 2002, at 18:43:51
Dear Old School,
I certainly have experienced my version of what you're going through, and the very fact that it changes (because I'm bipolar) undercuts my entire experience of reality.
If "everything is awful" is not true, and "everything is better than wonderful" is not true, then what is true? In the end, I think each of us makes up our own story about reality, and to the extent that others share it, we imagine that we are "normal." I think that what passes for reality is a form of majority consensus, an agreement among people about the meaning of the experiences we share.
Like the old man in the children's tale with limburger cheese in his beard, I sometimes have found the world to smell bad everywhere I went. Severe depression was like that for me. I could start a sentence with totally positive intent, yet a few moments later, my words were full of despair and loathing. I felt like I had no control over my perceptions or my speech. The negativity seemed completely real, and the ability of my intellect to find and point out evidence to support my negativity didn't help at all.
What helped me was the right mix of medications. I've told this story so often that I'm afraid it must sound trite, but there was absolutely nothing subtle about the onset of my healing. After three years of experimenting with different augmentations, my doctor and I finally found the four drugs that (in combination) work for me. I felt like a huge, dark, suffocating stone had been lifted from my chest. I could not believe how small my world had become in those years. Within days, I could not remember with any immediacy what it had been like to be severely depressed. It was as though it had happened to someone else.
Yet the damage was done, and getting the depression off of me was only the beginning. Habits of mind are powerful and resist change mightily.
Besides three additional years of therapy, the other thing that helped me was remembering that my perception of reality is never truly objective or accurate. At first this was a source of discouragement -- if I can't trust my own perceptions, what can I trust? But over time I also realized that it gave me great freedom and the power to change my depression-damaged mind.
While habits of mind are strong, I think my mind itself is relatively gullible and easily directed. After all, it fell for the gloominess of depression and then projected that gloominess all over my experience of life. Why not make up a new story, one more in keeping with what I want and value? If my perception of the "truth" is unfounded, ever-changing, circumstantial and relative, why not select a "fiction" more in keeping with what I most cherish?
So I started practicing looking for the positive and useful, for the perfection that is already there (except for my flawed perception). There are lots of ways to do this. I read the paper and watch the news less. I decide not to see some types of movies. I try to remember that we're all in the same boat, that everyone has pain and loss, along with joy and achievement. I try to notice when I have strong aversions or attachments to people or circumstances, and remind myself that everything is always changing, especially me. Since I'm never "right," at least I can be positive, encouraging and kind. I can extend the benefit of the doubt. I can stretch my limited compassion to include ever more people and circumstances, even myself.
It's all a work in progress, but I'm less attached to the outcome than I used to be. For me, sadness is a long way up from depression. I feel sad frequently now, and I welcome it. It means my heart is opening a little. As I have allowed myself to be OK with being sad, I have also experienced much, much more joy. I have good days and days I judge myself worthless -- but even those labels are inherently empty, and (paradoxically) the less I apply them, the more competent I become.
Counteracting my anger and hatred required making up new stories, "tricking" my mind into believing in something better. That it worked seems like a miracle to me, but it also reminds me that I have to be vigilant if I'm not to fall back into old, well established habits.
With what you are experiencing right now, Old School, I don't know if what I'm writing here makes sense or seems like gibberish to you -- you're OK with me either way. What I'd like to suggest, though, is that you consider approaching it empirically, as an experiment, with as light a heart as you can muster, treating it like a game rather than as the serious business of life.
Don't give up on yourself or the world. There are good people right where you live (as well as stinkers, of course). Forgive the stinkers and focus on the good, if you can. Heaven and hell are just two blocks apart in the small town in which I work every day, sometimes even in the same block for two different people. More and more, I'm choosing to live in a safe, happy, productive world peopled with noble, caring, honest and sincere people. As always, I'm finding what I expect to see.
In friendship,
Mark H.
poster:Mark H.
thread:100102
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20020322/msgs/100128.html