Seeking Balance in Managing Depression

Depression is one of those things that comes in many guises. We often don't even recognize it. Most of us have struggled with bouts of depression at one time or another. These past two years have tested a lot of us in this regard. 

The causes of depression vary. Repressed anger can make us depressed. Broken relationships can devastate us. The challenges of dealing with a major health event like cancer, heart attack or stroke can become overwhelming and draining. A grinding long-term disability can drag us down as well. The loss of a loved one can put our emotions in a tailspin. Wrestling with guilt and failure leave us drained, sometimes leading to an existential crisis of meaning. Disillusionment  likewise steals our joy and undermines hope. 

In short, depression is not an uncommon occurrence. It almost seems like it's part of being human. My grandmother once wrote wrote a poem that compared depression with a springboard or trampoline. The deeper we go the higher we fly. These emotional ups and downs can be agents of self-understanding. 

My brother Ron is a psychologist (PhD, Temple) who has regularly addressed this issue in his  three decades of counseling. I asked if he might share his thoughts on this topic. 

Seeking Balance in Managing Depression

Depression is everyman’s illness.  People experience a loss of interest or enjoyment in life, lack of energy, social withdrawal, feelings of worthlessness and hopelessness, and even suicidal thoughts.  The causes may be varied, including various losses in one’s life, trauma in a person’s past, unhealthy family relationships throughout one’s life, or even genetic and generational predispositions.  

The following suggestions are meant to inspire you toward successful coping approaches that will facilitate pulling you out of the dark places of life.

Treat yourself with compassion.  Self-hate is often your enemy.  Seek to show yourself the compassion you would show someone else going through a similar struggle.  

Tone down your inner critic.  Related to the above suggestion, this involves tuning in to what your critical inner voice is saying, then turning down the volume.  Simultaneously, you can tune in to the “positive coach” in your head and turn that volume up.  

Resist guilt and shame.  Actually, accept their existence in your life, but resist dwelling on these emotions. Instead, let go of the root causes of these feelings and focus on what is more important and of value to you. Forgiveness can help you make healthy changes in your behavior.

Activate yourself.  Resist the temptation to become more passive. Find those “baby steps” that can keep you doing activities you used to find meaningful. Believe that you have the power to do this, even when you do not feel like doing anything. Ideally, increasing exercise in your life and eating in a healthy manner can be part of this “activation”.  

Avoid spiritualizing the problem.  Many people of faith beat up on themselves for not having enough faith, or praying enough, or doing some other spiritual discipline or exercise. This only makes the depression worse.  Focus on the emphasis of grace in your faith-tradition, and seek strength to deal with the practical areas where you can make healthy choices.

Get medical tests.  In some cases, thyroid problems and other medical conditions can precipitate depression. This should be ruled out before assuming it is due to other psychosocial reasons.

Hold on to hope.  Develop a belief and confidence that your emotional state is temporary, not permanent. This hopeful attitude can be nurtured. This can be done through meditating on stories of hope, or even more positive movies that used to make you feel good. Or consider other people who have wrestled with depression and come out victorious.

Avoid depressing stimuli.  Put aside tragic movies or depressing stories. Stop replaying your own depressing stories in your mind, unless it is for the purpose of finding a healthier way of looking at the situation such as you would do with a psychotherapist.  

Build a healthy support system.  This may involve setting boundaries on others who are less healthy and do more harm than good to you. On the other hand, “no man is an island.” We need other people in our lives. Building healthy relationships is essential in overcoming depression.

Get professional help.  There is no shame in obtaining help from a professional who has studied depression and understands its dynamics, including various approaches to breaking free from its clutches. Different areas of focus may be working through the grief of past losses, identifying and addressing unhealthy thought processes, and building healthy communication patterns with others.  Medication is always a safety net which can be utilized if other approaches are unsuccessful.  

Ronald S. Newman, Ph.D. is a psychologist at the Lakeview Professional Center on Route 30 in South Jersey. He can be reached at: write2balance@gmail.com.

Related Links

Henry Wiens Talks About the Power of Music as an Agent of Healing and Hope

It's A Wonderful Life

Daily Mirror

"...leaning over the mirror of our acts, our souls will recognize what we are."- Andre Gide

For nearly all of us mirrors play a role in our morning rituals. Whether for shaving or make-up, fixing one's hair or straightening one's tie, the mirror is a useful tool, presenting to our eyes a true reflection of what is there.

On other occasions, a reassuring glance in the mirror before a job interview or an important date gives us confidence that at least the external things are taken care of - our hair isn't mussed, collar turned right, no food crumbs on our chin.

At the end of the day there is another mirror which is equally valuable to us, and perhaps even more so once we practice using it. We can call it the mirror of our acts. As we quiet ourselves and reflect on the day, we discover that our actions reveal our souls as surely as the bathroom mirror reveals our faces.

The mirror of our acts reveals us as we truly are, giving a more precise picture of ourselves than we may wish to see. For it will reveal not only our strengths, but also our limitations; it will show not only our inward beauty, but also the defects that mar that beauty. When I look back on my day, with honesty, standing before this mirror of my soul, what do I truly see reflected there? Thoughtfulness and sensitivity? Selfishness? Duplicity and deceit? Laziness? Industriousness? Courage? Courtesy? Foolish pride? Pettiness? Carelessness? The character defects we see need not discourage us. Recognizing one's shortcomings is the essential first step toward seeking a cure.

As we "get ourselves right" we are making the world a better place by at least a little. Personal reflection can also help us become more effective in helping others. Taking time for reflection at day's end can be a useful tool to help us achieve these ends, improving our selves and making a positive impact in our world.

The Magnificent Seven, Consultants

Last night I was watching The Constant Gardener, featuring Ralph Fiennes and Rachel Weisz in a compelling drama set in Africa, when at 100 minutes into the film the DVD freezes. Not able to watch the rest of the film. Bad.

I reached into a stack of DVDs from library and grabbed The Magnificent Seven, a film classic. It’s a film packed with big names – Yul Brynner, Steve McQueen, Eli Wallach, Charles Bronson, James Coburn and others – and a memorable film score that everyone in my generation recognizes in an instant. Essentially the film is a remake of a Japanese story of heroes protecting common people, Kurasawa’s The Seven Samurai.

I remember as a kid thinking James Coburn was just so cool. And the heroic opening with Yul Brynner and Steve McQueen putting their lives on the line to bury a Negro in the cemetery on Boot Hill takes you to the epitome of cool.

There are a lot of great moments in the film, though. The seven men who come to rescue the Mexican villagers from the cruel band of outlaws led by Wallach (Calvera) are hired guns, men who have put their lives on the line before, though usually for a reward. In this case, the reward is integrity and honor.

One of the great lines in the film is delivered by Bronson when three of the boys from the village express admiration for his courage, and contempt for their fathers’ lack thereof. Bronson verbally chastens the boys saying that the burden of responsibility their peasant fathers bear for nothing more than love for their families, whom they could easily abandon, shows a greater courage than he has ever shown by carrying a gun, having no family and no responsibilities.

Afterwards, I began to think about how the consulting industry is something akin to these hired guns. Each has a different specialty, a different personality, and in the end, when the job is done, a different destiny. There is an appeal to that fly-away freedom that gives the appearance of being greener grass for many. But the reality, by this film’s end, four have been shot dead. And one decides to remain in the village.

In one scene the youngest of the seven is blathering about the thrill of it all when he is brought up short by Steve McQueen’s hard bitten observations about the realities of life on the road. The youth declares to Brynner, with admiration, “Your gun has gotten you everything you have. Isn’t that true?” Brynner looks up, ever the realist, “Everything?” Then McQueen outlines this “everything” that he has gained from being a hired gun. He knows 200 bartenders by name. “Rented rooms you’ve lived in, 500. Meals you eat in hash hounds, a thousand. Home none, wife, none. Kids… none. Prospects zero.” McQueen scratches the sheen off the veneer with realities about life on the road, lessons learned the hard way.

Many consultants are superbly talented with a panoply of tools and weapons, but may lack the ability to remain for the long haul in a structured and potentially boring commitment. Others have personal issues and avoid working things out by constantly being on the move. Still others have great social skills but suffer from wanderlust and limited attention spans. Some see rainbows with bags of gold at the end everywhere they look. Some are simply not cut out for unexpected circumstances, get cut down from behind in the heat of battle. And some ride off into the sunset, with jubilant villagers writing songs about the great things they have done. All these can be recognized in the Magnificent Seven.

At the end of the day, Charles Bronson’s words are the ones that resonate most fully for me. It’s lonely on the road, and there is value in being able to get rooted in a place where you can bloom. It’s a good reminder, too, that it takes more courage to stay than many people realize.

Whether the road or the office, if you make your choice with your eyes open it will be better for you.

The Luxury of Clutter

Alas, spring is in the air, and with the season comes the awakening desire to tackle all that clutter we've stowed in the garage and in drawers and under desks and in closets. It's a never ending battle. Clutter seems to gather like dust and you just have to deal with it.

There must be more clutter in America than in any country in history. As I drove to the re-cycle center this morning I began thinking how clutter is really a luxury, it's a symbol of our wealth and success. Think of the efficiencies required for impoverished people to raise a family in a two room house. There is simply no room for all this baggage we store.

Our refrigerators and freezers are so large that as much food often goes bad as gets eaten. This simply doesn't happen in rural Mexico, Haiti or Pakistan.

As a writer I have developed the bad habit of believing "someday I will use that article" or that folder of notes, doodles, ketchup labels, or whatever. As an artist, too, it gets difficult to let go of the rest of this debris, because it does glisten and glitter so. And these rocks, wires, pens, notebooks.... eeek.

Worse still, my mother is a clutterbug and my brothers share the trait, so the battle appears to have potentially deep genetic origins. At least the case could be made that I should be excused for this propensity.

Let it be known I am not excusing myself. The battle cry has been raised, and I've taken my stand. To the wonder of many eyes my desktop at work made an appearance this past month and has remained partially cleared for several weeks. There are no mags on the floor and amazingly this cleaner office has not hindered my productivity.

On the home front, well.... I don't have any old eight track tapes tucked away. Little by little I will chip away, and occasionally get my gumption up to fling a few things into the trash. If it feels good, I'll do it again. Like shedding pounds, it's not the binge diet that wins but the lifestyle change that makes a difference.

Sometimes you find things you hadn't seen in a while. For example, I just came across this self-portrait I painted about 26 years ago. (click to enlarge)

In the end, if we don't deal with it, someone else will have to. As we all know too well, you can't take it with you.

Recommended readings: Clutter's Last Stand by Don Aslett, Organizing from the Inside Out byJulie Morgenstern. Or just do a Gogle search and fire up your motivation with whatever stokes you.

No Country for Old Men

Cormac McCarthy's book No Country for Old Men is an incredible story so very well told. I listen to audio books and this one made me want to keep driving. I could hardly wait for the morrow's commute.

It's one of the classic thriller story lines. An ordinary person accidentally gets caught up in extraordinary circumstances. Dustin Hoffman in Marathon Man is a nail-biter example of this genre. A Simple Plan, with Bill Paxton and Billy Bob Thornton, is another.

And like any exceptional story, No Country has memorable characters. Llewelyn Moss is the unfortunate man who while hunting comes across a dope deal gone bad in the expansive back country of South Texas, and ends up with a satchel containing two million dollars in cash. There's a lesson here, though it is never stated as such: if you ever find a couple million dollars that are not yours, it's best to just stay out of it. Even though everyone involved in the transaction appears shot up and pretty much finished off, Moss knows that there will likely be others coming for the money. Little does he know how bad one of these others is.

NOTE: This Review Contains Spoilers

The guy who keeps you sitting straight up in your seat, and may keep you awake at night after, is Javier Bardem as Anton Chiguhr. Think sugar and chigger, and you have this pathological, human version of The Terminator, relentless in pursuit and seemingly indestructible. Nothing sweet about this man whose conscience is dead and determination unstoppable. Your heart rate increases every time he's on the screen.

No Country for Old Men has been receiving fabulous reviews. The Coen brothers (Fargo, O Brother, Where Art Thou?) wrote the screenplay and directed this first rate film. Like another current book adaptation, Charlie Wilson's War, there is much that has to be sifted out and only hinted at, lest we have something tiresome to watch after a while. The Coens were successful at creating the emotional tension that is generated by the book.

How did they do it? One noteworthy item is the total absence of a music soundtrack. They deserve high praise for avoiding the commercial temptation to make a music bed that would generate additional revenues afterward. Instead, they went the direct opposite way with this film. No music, no sound at all in the opening or closing credits. No fake strings section to tip viewers off that something bad is coming. The tension is created totally by the intersection of characters and circumstances. And it does get intense.

In terms of execution the film was flawless. Congrats to the Coens for their ability to bring everyone together and pull off this kind of feat.

But there were a number of problems for me with this film adaptation. First, Tommy Lee Jones as Sheriff Ed Tom Bell. I mean, I just couldn't get past that this was Tommy Lee Jones playing a caricature of himself. He has been in too many movies where he's this hard boiled veteran whose seen too much of life. It is through his eyes that we see the story unfold. As a central character he plays this role well, but I know him as an actor from The Fugitive to Men In Black and, gosh, couldn't we find anyone else to do this? Sorry, guys. That's how it was for me.

Second, some have criticized the short amount of time Woody Harrelson is onscreen. Yep. He is a more important character in the book. Like William Hurt's brief appearance in Syriana, it was not necessary to have such star power here. O.K., it maybe sells more tickets at the box office? I really liked this character in the book, and Harrelson does play Carson Wells the bounty hunter very well, but I just don't know.

I consider both of these criticisms relatively minor compared to my one major criticism. It simply ended too fast in too confusing of a manner. I think a tight, fast ending is usually great in films so that they do not drag on after the final rush. The problem here is a tight, fast and confusing ending. If I had not read the book, I would not have known what happened. And I am not talking about the scene where Chiguhr is hit by the car. I'm referring to the preceding homicides that end the cat-and-mouse drama.

The reason this is a problem is that, in my opinion, the last emotion one should have after this kind of a thrill ride is that same relief you get when the roller coaster slams back into the station and they unlatch the mechanisms that keep you in the car. Relief. Catch your breath. Instead of a big "wow," I left the theater perplexed and disappointed, with jumbled thoughts. Instead of being in awe at the way they created such a fabulous film, I walked out baffled, dampened by the lack of clarity in the films last scenes. This should not have happened.

I still think it a powerful film and worth seeing if you like this kind of story. It will put you on the edge of your seat.

Press On

"Keep pressing on. When one person makes it, others see that maybe they can do it, too." Line that was never used from a screen play I wrote called The Extras.

Journal note. Dec 19, 1993

1993 was an interesting year. A big Hollywood production came to town and filmed Iron Will, a Disney flick with a number of mid-range stars along with the up-and-coming Kevin Spacey. Like hundreds of others, I got involved with the film as an extra and became mesmerized by the experience. While in the holding area during the shooting of the ballroom scene, I introduced myself to Robert Schwartz, one of the producers, seeking an opportunity to pitch a movie idea.

Mr. Schwartz listened and said that if I wrote up a ten to twelve page proposal he would read it. In point of fact, when the film was a wrap, and everyone had returned to Hollywood, he called me to say that if I wrote the screen play, he would read that, too. Thus began the distracting traipse along the garden path that led to three screen plays and a lot of diverted energies.

Such is the power of Hollywood, to fire up our dreams and then to let us down. Mr. Schwartz did read my work and said "it was good"... but that to make it in Hollywood you really have to BE in Hollywood. With a young family and a secure job, it seemed just a little too much risk to trade my little piece of paradise in Northern Minnesota for a small stash of fools gold.

Albeit, the dream was motivational. I became a dues paying member of the screen writers' guild, I produced a lot of work and my second screen play was actually quite powerful. (Uprooted: The Ralph Kand Story) The Disney producer said so himself. But my agent had difficulty finding it a home and like the early mists on a Minnesota highway, those dreams quickly evaporated in the light of day.

Words

A while back I read a book on advertising in which the author noted that words do not have meaning until we invest them with meaning. That is, words do not have meaning in themselves, but are just a shell that the hearer fills with meaning.

This idea immediately intrigued me for a couple reasons. First, because it explains why sometimes we say things and other people don’t know where we are coming from. Try describing New York City skyscrapers to people in East Africa who have never seen a two story hut. And what does "love" look like to people who today for whom the word love is only a sex act?

We say a word, and people hear something different than what we mean. The word Conservative is highly loaded these days. For some it means “family values” whereas for others it means narrow-minded bigots who (if they had their way) would become jack-booted, freedom-stealing fascists. To some the word Liberal means compassionate people who care for the less fortunate, and to others the word means anti-American, anti-business, tree-hugging communist or idealistic airhead.

The point is, we say a word, and it can be invested with a range of different meanings by the hearer. Words are like triggers that awaken meanings in the mind, often with a lot of emotional baggage attached.

Take the word God, for example. For many Christians this is far more than a word. It is the Almighty Creator, Yahweh, the high and holy one, awesome in power, who humbled Himself to die in shame to conquer death and make a way for us to be part of His great family. But if you say “God” in some circles, it means “a concept by which weak people comfort themselves.” Or perhaps a concept by which certain cynical people manipulate manipulate the masses and oppress others.

How are we to communicate in this world where words have become so divested of meaning? Think about it. What do you do when words no longer have any meaning? How do we reach people? How do we help meet needs or make a difference if we can’t use words?

The answer is ever the same: our lives are a book read by all. Our deeds communicate, even when words fail.

Let's not give up on words, but let's also remember that nothing speaks louder than our actions. When our words and deeds correspond, only then will we make a difference in this world.