When I first started seeing my psychiatrist for clinical depression over a decade ago, we discussed how clinical depression can either be physical (meaning your genes leave you not making enough of something your brain needs) or situational (meaning that one of those water-dropping helicopters they use to fight forest fires accidentally loaded its bag full of shit and then dumped it on you, leaving you to have to try to figure out how to dig your way out from under the shitpile).
Only time will tell which type you have, but the first thing she gave me to do for homework was something I grew to call Rule 1. I find Rule 1 to be a great rule for virtually anyone. Okay, maybe psychotics and sociopaths might not feel the groove of Rule 1, but otherwise normal folks would. Not that I'm normal. I know I'm weird. I know weird is attracted to me like stink sticks to a bong. It is a simple rule.
Rule 1 states: Cut the negative people from your life.
Oh, so much easier said than done. How do you know a person is a negative person? Everyone has a bad day. Everyone must bitch at some point and do so righteously.
She said, pay attention to how the people in your life treat other people. It's easier to see what they're doing when you aren't trying to look at how you think they treat you.
Are they happy for other people when something good comes the other person's way or do they make fun of it, talk shit about it, or decide the race is on to outdo the other person?
Are they sad when something bad happens to another person or do they seem so to that person's face, then get the giggles over it as soon as they are out of earshot?
Those two questions were all that mattered to start. It wasn't anything like I expected it to be. I expected questions like: Do they put other people down? Do they make fun of other people? Do they hurt puppies and kittens?
None of those things mattered because they were covered by the two questions.
I pondered and thunk and watched and listened. I found that there weren't that many negative people in my life, but the ones who were there had to go.
People, I was so deep in the well of depression that I would've shucked anything and anyone if I thought it would make me feel better. I shucked Evil Granny for a number of years. At one point, I got so shuck-happy with the easier living that comes from not having to care what someone was going to say behind my back because I knew they were good people who wouldn't secretly get a kick out of me being down that at one point I was down to only Grasshopper and Sugar Bear that I trusted.
I knew there were other great folks in my family and in my past whom I could have contacted and trusted, but for a while the comfort of not socializing with anyone who couldn't love me as I came each day (and many days I came real ugly: could be pissed and railing to beat the band, could be sorta normal but not really happy, could be the tears that flow from the fears that grow from not being able to really feel the way I used to feel...in other words, it was a crapshoot with a 2 out of 3 chance of getting crap).
As I got better, it was hard to start getting in touch with folks from the past whom I knew I could trust. No one wants to answer the question
"What have you been up to?" when what you've been up to is nothing but trying to squeeze your shit firmly back into one sack. Needless to say, I put it off. I did not want to tell people that my life sucked so hard I had to take medicine just to live it.
And, that's how I looked at it, too, as if it were some failing on my part that led me to fall into the well of clinical depression.
That's not how it works. On this, we are like snowflakes: Each of us who's been through it or continues to deal with it came to it in his or her unique way.
With the strides I've been making lately, I have come to believe that my tendency to face hardship or hurt as if simply living beyond it would leave me with no emotional scars was a big factor. I simply spent my life stuffing a lot of really bad things deep into the crevices of my brain as if I couldn't feel the trouble left in their wake if I didn't think about the bad thing that happened.
As I faced them and felt stronger with my med changes this year, I've found myself getting back in touch with loads of old friends I've missed dearly. You know what? A lot of them were going through something just as bad in our down time. They could totally relate.
But, it takes time to get there and lots of talking and thinking, too. Still, no matter how good you feel, you cannot underestimate the importance of Rule 1. Ignoring it just lands you in under a brand new shitpile.
If anyone remembers the movie "What About Bob?" with Bill Murray and Richard Dreyfus, then you'll understand my mantra throughout the fight to feel better has been, "Baby steps, Bob."
