Negative Self-Talk or The Mean Girl in Your Head

I know I haven't been seeing a therapist for long, but I have had enough therapy to have learned that the most harmful thing to someone with depression, and the most difficult thing to change, is negative self-talk. It's also the difference between having a depression disorder and being depressed.

Everyone, EVERYONE, gets depressed. When something bad happens in your life, depression is a normal reaction. (NOT being sad when your favorite aunt dies is a symptom of a different, much more scary disorder.) There is not a single person on this planet who can claim they have never been depressed, never been sad. Sadness is a normal, healthy part of life. Depression, however, is not normal, nor is it healthy.

So, what changes to make "being depressed" become "depression?" I think you may remember a couple months ago that I drove to Seattle with my father for my uncle's funeral. On our trip, my father asked me to explain depression to him. Unlike my mother, he doesn't suffer from this disorder, so he doesn't understand that I'm not just sad. Before I explained how I felt, I asked him what he thought about the disorder. This is what he told me.

What he said was that he didn't understand why I couldn't just put on a smile, and go do something. Doing that always makes him feel better, always actually cheers him up. He wasn't trying to be offensive, or to hurt me, but it did hurt. I told him that if doing that worked for me, wouldn't I do it? I asked him if he thought I enjoyed feeling useless and sad and angry and worthless all the time? He shut up, and I silently cried for a while. Once I gathered myself enough to talk some more, I apologized.

I told Dad that I knew he wasn't trying to be hurtful, but this disorder blows everything up and makes it hard to talk about, which also makes it hard to get help with it...figures! Anyway, I tried to explain what it feels like to have depression, tried to explain negative self-talk. I think it helped him to understand me a little better. For those of you reading who suffer from depression, I write this to let you know you aren't the only one. For those of you reading this to understand someone with depression, I hope this helps.

Negative self-talk is the thing that affects a person with depression the most. In fact, I might venture to say that the reason we suffer from depression is because we can't control our negative self-talk. Everyone calls themselves an idiot for doing something stupid, but most people can move on afterwards. People with depression can't move on. We become fixated on that mistake, and idiot is the least of the names we call ourselves for it. Here are some of the things I call myself when I make a mistake, little or big:

stupid, worthless, ugly, fat, know-it-all, loser, soul-sucker (yes, I actually call myself this,) drain on your family, unworthy, unemployed, lazy, bitch, useless, hopeless, unwanted, not able to hold a man or a job, unable to make a good decision, poser, freak, smelly, hairy, incontinent, unwomanly, half-woman, infertile, hag, spinster, FAKER!

I call myself every single one of these things, and more, EVERY TIME I make a mistake, no matter what the mistake is, no matter whether it's actually a mistake or just something unfortunate that has happened. In my mind, all the bad things that happen to me are my fault, whether they actually are or not (kind of like the opposite of entitlement.) Can you see how this could become a problem? What does being hairy have to do with dropping a spoon? (Yup, I run through this list when I drop a spoon.) I can't stop calling myself names! As I explained to my father, imagine having a bully following you around all day long, every day, saying the most horrible things possible to and about you. After a while, it wears you down. Now, imagine that the bully is your own brain. My father asked me why I didn't just tell my brain to shut up? (It's a valid and intelligent question.) I told him that I do tell my brain to shut up, all the time! But it doesn't listen to me. It won't shut up, and it won't turn off. I told him that for people with depression, our own brains are our worst enemy. While I don't think he really understands what I go through, I think he understands that an "attitude adjustment" isn't going to be a quick fix for me or others like me.

And that leads me to something else I want to talk about. You know all those cute, little memes on social media that talk about changing your attitude, that say all you need to feel better is to take responsibility for your own happiness, and make yourself feel better? Well, they really piss the fuck out of me! (And there's the non-obligatory cursing.) Yes, to a certain extent these memes are right. The only person who can make you happy is you, and in order help yourself, you must help yourself. But they are so, so simplified and patronizing! Grrrrrr! They make it sound like all you have to do to fight depression is slap on a smile, or go fishing, or commune with nature, or grab a friend and go dancing, or whatever else is being proposed on the meme. 

For norms, this might work. People who are sad can often be cheered up by a quick change of location, situation, frame of mind, etc. But people with a depression disorder have to work a lot harder to make these kinds of things work. JUST spending some time at the beach isn't going to fix everything. It may help to get that vitamin A, but it's not a quick fix-all. (Emphasis on the quick part.) The only things that can help someone with depression get better is therapy, learning positive coping techniques (which include, but are not limited to the above quick changes,) and sometimes, medication.

Which leads me to the most important part of recovering from depression: be patient. You must understand that it takes time to learn new behaviors, to apply the new behaviors, and to believe in the new behaviors. Like I said earlier, there is no quick fix, so patience is the only thing that is going to keep you going. Medications may help, but even they require up to two months to kick in. Once they do, you will feel better, but pharmaceuticals are not an actual cure. They WILL become ineffective over time. If you have not learned what is at the root of your depression, and how to cope with the problems that arise from your depression, you will be right back where you started. Medication is only a tool to give you time to learn what you need to learn. While it is an effective tool, ultimately it is a temporary one. 

Please, please, please, be patient! You deserve to get better! I deserve to get better! No one, I don't care what your faith or your politics say, NO ONE deserves to feel like their brain is bullying them. NO ONE deserves depression. No one.