MOOD FOLLOWS ACTION: tools for moving through depression

Depression can be a demon. Andrew Solomon famously described it as the “Noonday Demon”—a beast that can leave you miserable even though you are held in positive relationships, or surrounded by an idyllic environment.

Depression can be toxic, but it is also a pervasive fact of life. There is no clear dividing line between depression that is brought about by challenging or traumatic circumstances and depression that is neurochemical or biological in origin. This essay will explore tools for working through depression and also ask what we can gain from the process.

I wrote this zine after drafting a prior piece on dealing with mania and hypomania while living on the manic-depressive spectrum. I wanted this piece to stand alone because depression is a far more prevalent phenomenon than mania or hypomania. Millions experience depression without countervailing highs.

In that piece, I stress the positive energy, creativity, intuition, insight, and growth that can come from handling the highs of the manic-depressive spectrum. I am challenging myself to apply a similar approach to depression. This is hard for me because my own bouts with depression have been eviscerating and sometimes nearly deadly. In the midst of a protracted five-year depression, I jumped off a bridge into a frozen river and somehow survived.

There is a growing literature arguing that depression is a natural part of the human emotional spectrum and that it can train us to act more carefully and to adapt. Depression can draw our attention to aspects of our lives that we may want to change.

My first therapist offered me an axiom for dealing with depression. She says, “mood follows action, action doesn’t follow mood.” This suggests that if one waits to feel uplifted to do the things one feels most called to do, one may end up staying in misery for quite some time. Instead, we should act “as if,” making choices and doing things we think we would do if we weren’t depressed. Over time, our mood has a way of catching up with our choices.

That said, we often have very good objective reasons for our depression. Setbacks and losses can be the proximate cause of a depressed mood. It is critical to take an inventory of your own depression and figure out what the organic causes might be. If there is anything you can do to deal with root causes, you should.

When we identify a root cause, we may actually be able to thank our depression for showing us what we are called to change or let go of. One of the valuable roles of depression is to draw our attention to dynamics or relationships in our lives that need to be changed. Sometimes, we need a dose of emotional pain to teach us to redirect our energy.

But often, the forces sending us plunging into bleak moods are beyond our control. In these situations, we need to remember the wisdom of the serenity prayer, asking for the grace to make peace with what is beyond our control while taking the initiative where we can.

Also, there is a bit of a Venn diagram between grief and depression. It can help to identify what you are grieving, be that a relationship, a job, or some social injustice. Moving through grief as such allows you to tap into an understanding of its stages that may help break the monolith of depression into manageable packages.

Conventional wisdom on grief suggests that there are five usual stages: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. This process is not linear, as you can move between these poles unpredictably. Some thinkers use the term phases, emphasizing the flow between one way of coping and what follows.

We have to permit ourselves to feel the full range of our emotions. Personally, I struggle to access the cathartic power of crying. The ‘boys don’t cry’ axiom somehow rooted itself in by psyche. I have found that music that hits those emotional chords can free me up to let out the tears. On the flip side, it can be essential to feel good about the underlying cause of our pain. For example, we may need to acknowledge that a relationship ending is hard because of what we loved about that person. Appreciating our capacity to love can be critical, while accepting that circumstances have changed.

There are many ways to approach the concept of taking actions to which your mood will adapt. Expressing and appreciating creativity are both natural antidepressants. I have found myself struggling with depression for months, then finding that the mood lifts after I write a poem about the experience and share it. Without depression and emotional turmoil, our emotional and creative output might be diminished starkly. Getting to art shows or galleries or absorbing emotionally compelling films, television, or theater can be healing. They also can put us in social situations where we reconnect with other people.

Exercise is always an important part of physical and mental health. It is particularly critical to managing depression. Exercise generates endorphins, our brains’ organic antidepressants, and elevating neurotransmitters like dopamine. Whatever you can convince yourself to do is better than nothing. If an aggressive session at the gym feels beyond your capacity, take a longer walk than usual. But if you can really work out seriously, I recommend doing so.

It is said in recovery that the opposite of addiction isn’t abstinence; it is connection. This is also a salient feature of depression. At our existential core, humans are deeply social animals. We need one another. When we are weighed down by depression, we may feel like charlatans in social situations. We may think that our pain is too much to share. We may also feel shame if we see the roots of our depression as factors we should be able to deal with on our own.

So, connect however you can. Turn to those you trust most, and be as open and honest as possible. Perform acts of service. Altruism and emotional generosity are great healers. Sometimes a volunteering or organizing commitment can help pull your mood positively.

Try to listen to your depression, letting it guide you into new ways of being. Fighting a feeling generally sinks its roots deeper into our psyche. Accepting a feeling and letting yourself move through is a critical emotional skill. Let cognizance of your emotional darkness become a fire lighting your way into recovery and resilience. I like to tell my clients to resist depression, while we listen to it.

These are suggestions for making choices that can alleviate depression. Medication can support this for many people. The process of figuring out what antidepressant or medication cocktail will work is usually more of an art than a science. There are antidepressant medications that target different neurological networks. Sometimes, pairing medications that hit different brain chemicals can be helpful. When medications are inadequate, there are other interventions–including electroconvulsive treatments and transcranial magnetic stimulation.

Yet whatever we choose from the medical model, we must understand where we have choice and agency. We may feel eviscerated and humiliated by our depression, but we are not powerless. We can “act as if.” We can remember that mood follows action.

Depression can be a cancer of the psyche. However, it can also be a teacher who helps us grow stronger over the long term. We have the power to choose how we process these painful feelings. We have the power to build community and resist.

POETRY:

https://byporevolution.com/2011/02/becoming-phoenix/ https://byporevolution.com/2011/03/contending-with-grey/ https://byporevolution.com/2010/12/reflections-on-lost-time/ https://byporevolution.com/2018/07/an-intrusion-of-grey/