Bill O'Hanlon, a changemaker whose work I frequently recommend, has a training video of a one session treatment for depression titled "Escape From Depressoland." Bill is a therapist, and I'm not, so if you need to see a therapist for depression, for goodness sake, go see one.
But, if you are feeling down, feeling like you're somewhere in Depressoland but not in a bona fide state of depression, then you may want to utilize some techniques here to help you get back "up," to move out of minor Depressoland.
First of all, it can help a lot if you drop the term "depressed" if it's not clinical depression (check it out if you have any doubts about whether it is or not). People tend to say they are depressed or suffering from depression when they are actually simply sad, discouraged, "down in the dumps," feeling like they don't want to do much of anything, and are engaging in any number of useless seat of the pants on the seat of the chair pursuits. If that describes you, then how about not giving what you've been experiencing a fancy technical name like depression, and let it be in the minor leagues of not quite ailments. You've been feeling down, and you'd like to be feeling up.
What we call things, including how we feel, affects how we feel. Better to call it a set of feelings, and not a "something." It's easier to change a set of feelings and experiences, one by one, than it is to break up and kick out a big "something" term we've attached to that set of feelings and experiences.
Validating Your Experience/Feelings
Having said that we don't need to call what you've felt anything fancy if it's not a clinical situation does not mean that I think you should dismiss or minimize those feelings and experiences. I'd encourage you to own them and respect them. You feel what you feel, and it's OK to feel what you feel and OK to think what you think.
Allow yourself the freedom to do that, to feel what you feel and think what you think. And, it's also OK, when you're ready to feel something else and think something else to go ahead and do that. You may not know when that will be, but you could be curious about it.
Years ago, my husband had been fired from his job in a most unjust way, and our whole family was suffering the results. It bothered us a lot. It made us feel sad and angry. One day, some months after he'd been fired, I was thinking about how badly I felt about it and wondered how long I'd feel that way. I wondered if I'd feel the same about it in ten years. No, I decided, I'd probably be well beyond feeling bad about it in ten years. But, I thought, how long will it take for me to feel better, to not be preoccupied with this event and its results? After musing on it for a few moments I realized I was already tired of feeling that way and ready for a change. I said to myself, I'm ready right now to stop feeling this way. It surprised me to realize I could go ahead and move on from the feelings I'd been preoccupied with.
That did not bring an end to all the angst and anger and sadness about the firing. From time to time we'd think we were over it only to have something bring it to mind and suddenly those feelings would come back again. But, it was never a preoccupation after that realization that I was ready to stop feeling bad about it. You may find you are ready now to move to a higher level of experience and feeling. Being ready may not mean you know how to do it, but you may sense that you are ready to explore and experiment with ways to move that direction.
A Feeling Is Just A Feeling
That's true, and feelings can change. There are many techniques to change them. You will find several in the Tools category on this site. I'll be sharing others as I continue to write posts in this series on Getting Up. But, meanwhile, it helps to realize that feelings are not valid indicators or proofs of the length of recovery, or severity of an event or experience. Because feelings and emotions can be triggered by slight and unimportant events--triggers even as simple as a touch, a view, a sound, or a scent--we cannot rely on them as sole indicators of how important something is, nor of its exact meaning.
Emotions are important, but they aren't very useful as proof. They can make us think that we are stuck, not very useful, all sorts of negative things, and be totally wrong. They can make us mistaken about other things and other people. So, make sure you allow yourself to own your emotions, but not give them permission to make decisions for you without other types of fact finding and reasoning. I like to think that emotions and feelings are the confirming or rejecting indicator we need to check in with after we've done our other fact finding homework. They can represent what we know on a visceral and unconscious level, and as such, provide valuable input, they just should not be the only input.
