sun seeker
Diamond Member
I'm fuming inside after a combination of reading the thread about people's opinions on why people commit suicide (my own fault, I knew it would be a trigger), looking fruitlessly online for more resources, and thinking about my own life. I don't know if I can express my thoughts very well but I'm going to try. I realize as I write this that philosophizing is easier for me than actually expressing how I feel when it gets really bad. Feeling is too out of control, so I philosophize to give myself some distance from my feelings. I'm having a lousy time quite honestly. Anyway....
It seems to me that both the mental health profession and the general public (which came first I wonder, the chicken or the egg) hold the opinion that not only is depression characterized by helplessness, but that this helplessness is all in our heads. That if we would only "ask for help" or do something proactive to fix our problems, we would be less depressed.
I'm going to propose a different idea, just wondering what people think. What if sometimes the helplessness is not all in our heads? What if in some cases at least, it is real? What if we get depressed or go on being depressed because we are in an intolerable situation and there really is nothing we can do about it? You can see it in animals. Why not in people? Almost universally the party line seems to be that the feeling of helplessness is erroneous, either the result of faulty thinking or faulty chemistry. But if you look at life on this planet, you see that not only do huge numbers suffer from horrific abuse and other trauma, but a majority live in grinding poverty and varying degrees of oppression. Women who are being abused by a partner may not feel able to leave because the alternative is starvation or homelessness, and yes, that is true for some people even in developed nations. Children who are dependent on abusive parents for their survival can't just leave, and foster homes are often just as bad. The "help" that is so glibly held out as the solution is often unavailable or woefully inadequate.
Wouldn't it be kinder to say that people get depressed because of feelings of helplessness, real or perceived? I'm imagining how that way of looking at it would change the culture around depression. When people assume that the feeling of helplessness is imaginary, they can write off the problem as a lack of willpower or a mental illness. Either way, not their problem. Not something they have to think about any further. Let the experts handle it. But suppose more people recognized that sometimes people really are living in unbearable situations and feel terrible because of something real. There might be more of a collective sense of responsibility. "Oh, this person is in a bad situation. What can I do to help?" is very different from "This person is depressed. Let the doctors handle it."
I am fairly well traveled and have talked with people from all kinds of cultures, and I would make the tentative observation that by and large, people from less "developed" countries are much more likely to take the former, more compassionate approach. The more modernized a country, the more present the psychiatric model there, the more judgemental people tend to be of the suffering of others. There is also, at least in some cases, what feels to me like a more humane way of thinking about what people need to be happy. I'm talking about things like loving family, companionship, affection. One of my distraction tactics lately has been watching a show that aired when I lived in Mexico (it's amazing what you can find on youtube!) Looking again after all these years, what impresses me about it is the importance given to family closeness and that it is taken for granted that when a person is denied this, they will be chronically unhappy. The unhappiness isn't seen as a character flaw.
I've been chronically depressed for most of my life, with ups and downs within that. The past several months I have been pretty depressed, and yes, I feel helpless. There are several very big ongoing situations in my life about which I feel there is nothing I can do, ranging from family relationships to finances. It would take a book to explain all the details and you'd be dizzy by the time you finished, so I'll just say any one of them alone would be stressful but all of them together are intolerable. There is honestly very little I am able to do about any of them, and they are all hanging over my head so to speak. They are all tangled up in each other, so in a very complicated way I feel as though my survival is tangled up in my relationship with my mother, which is tangled up with my health, which is tangled up with a close friend who dumped me, and there isn't much I can do about any of it but wait and hope. Repeated efforts to access that so-called "help" have failed. Because of my PTSD symptoms it is hard for me to work enough to make ends meet, but there are also problems with getting on disability which are tangled up in all of the above.
I suspect this may be why some people turn to Eastern religions and meditation, and I've noticed a recent trend in therapy, at least in what is available in this neck of the woods, teaches acceptance of things we can't change and living in the moment. I've tried to follow that approach too, but don't find it works very well for me.
I have one friend who sort of knows what I am going through but has nothing in her own life to compare it to. I've stopped telling her how bad it is because her responses usually make it worse. "Well, you should try a different counselor" (even though I've already ascertained that there are none available) or "It sounds like you need to let go of expecting that to change" (if I knew how to do that, I would have) or "it helps me when I'm having so much fun I get in the flow and forget my problems" (I'm happy for you, really, but what would you do if you weren't able to have fun?). I have another friend who has had a pretty hard life and worked through her own stuff enough to be respond to the problems of others with compassion, and her way of responding when I share what I am going through is so different. "Oh wow, there are real reasons why it's so hard. Anyone would feel that way in those circumstances. I'm glad you called." The acceptance and understanding that I am suffering through no fault of my own, and that I am still a good and lovable person, makes all the difference. Obviously it hasn't cured my depression, nor do I expect it to. But it helps a lot more than the other way. If more people knew how to respond to others with this kind of compassion, maybe as a society we would be less depressed. What do you think?
It seems to me that both the mental health profession and the general public (which came first I wonder, the chicken or the egg) hold the opinion that not only is depression characterized by helplessness, but that this helplessness is all in our heads. That if we would only "ask for help" or do something proactive to fix our problems, we would be less depressed.
I'm going to propose a different idea, just wondering what people think. What if sometimes the helplessness is not all in our heads? What if in some cases at least, it is real? What if we get depressed or go on being depressed because we are in an intolerable situation and there really is nothing we can do about it? You can see it in animals. Why not in people? Almost universally the party line seems to be that the feeling of helplessness is erroneous, either the result of faulty thinking or faulty chemistry. But if you look at life on this planet, you see that not only do huge numbers suffer from horrific abuse and other trauma, but a majority live in grinding poverty and varying degrees of oppression. Women who are being abused by a partner may not feel able to leave because the alternative is starvation or homelessness, and yes, that is true for some people even in developed nations. Children who are dependent on abusive parents for their survival can't just leave, and foster homes are often just as bad. The "help" that is so glibly held out as the solution is often unavailable or woefully inadequate.
Wouldn't it be kinder to say that people get depressed because of feelings of helplessness, real or perceived? I'm imagining how that way of looking at it would change the culture around depression. When people assume that the feeling of helplessness is imaginary, they can write off the problem as a lack of willpower or a mental illness. Either way, not their problem. Not something they have to think about any further. Let the experts handle it. But suppose more people recognized that sometimes people really are living in unbearable situations and feel terrible because of something real. There might be more of a collective sense of responsibility. "Oh, this person is in a bad situation. What can I do to help?" is very different from "This person is depressed. Let the doctors handle it."
I am fairly well traveled and have talked with people from all kinds of cultures, and I would make the tentative observation that by and large, people from less "developed" countries are much more likely to take the former, more compassionate approach. The more modernized a country, the more present the psychiatric model there, the more judgemental people tend to be of the suffering of others. There is also, at least in some cases, what feels to me like a more humane way of thinking about what people need to be happy. I'm talking about things like loving family, companionship, affection. One of my distraction tactics lately has been watching a show that aired when I lived in Mexico (it's amazing what you can find on youtube!) Looking again after all these years, what impresses me about it is the importance given to family closeness and that it is taken for granted that when a person is denied this, they will be chronically unhappy. The unhappiness isn't seen as a character flaw.
I've been chronically depressed for most of my life, with ups and downs within that. The past several months I have been pretty depressed, and yes, I feel helpless. There are several very big ongoing situations in my life about which I feel there is nothing I can do, ranging from family relationships to finances. It would take a book to explain all the details and you'd be dizzy by the time you finished, so I'll just say any one of them alone would be stressful but all of them together are intolerable. There is honestly very little I am able to do about any of them, and they are all hanging over my head so to speak. They are all tangled up in each other, so in a very complicated way I feel as though my survival is tangled up in my relationship with my mother, which is tangled up with my health, which is tangled up with a close friend who dumped me, and there isn't much I can do about any of it but wait and hope. Repeated efforts to access that so-called "help" have failed. Because of my PTSD symptoms it is hard for me to work enough to make ends meet, but there are also problems with getting on disability which are tangled up in all of the above.
I suspect this may be why some people turn to Eastern religions and meditation, and I've noticed a recent trend in therapy, at least in what is available in this neck of the woods, teaches acceptance of things we can't change and living in the moment. I've tried to follow that approach too, but don't find it works very well for me.
I have one friend who sort of knows what I am going through but has nothing in her own life to compare it to. I've stopped telling her how bad it is because her responses usually make it worse. "Well, you should try a different counselor" (even though I've already ascertained that there are none available) or "It sounds like you need to let go of expecting that to change" (if I knew how to do that, I would have) or "it helps me when I'm having so much fun I get in the flow and forget my problems" (I'm happy for you, really, but what would you do if you weren't able to have fun?). I have another friend who has had a pretty hard life and worked through her own stuff enough to be respond to the problems of others with compassion, and her way of responding when I share what I am going through is so different. "Oh wow, there are real reasons why it's so hard. Anyone would feel that way in those circumstances. I'm glad you called." The acceptance and understanding that I am suffering through no fault of my own, and that I am still a good and lovable person, makes all the difference. Obviously it hasn't cured my depression, nor do I expect it to. But it helps a lot more than the other way. If more people knew how to respond to others with this kind of compassion, maybe as a society we would be less depressed. What do you think?
