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A Rest Stop From Depression and Thoughts of Suicide
Depression, Suicide:
Cognitive-Emotional Self-Help
Stephen L. Bernhardt
Volume V
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Chronic Depression (Ongoing or reoccurring depression which is extremely resistive to treatment)
First a note about this article. If you are new to being depressed, this may be the most important article which I have to offer you. If you possibly identify with one or more of these concepts and begin to address these problems now, your life will be the better for the effort.
Unfortunately the very people for whom this article is designed, the chronically depressed, are the very ones that are most likely to summarily reject my offerings and rush off to find someone who actually knows what they are talking about. That behavior is a classic symptom of chronic depression.
Dealing with chronic depression is by nature confrontational. We are trying to reverse the addictions of the unconscious mind and the unconscious will for certain, resist our efforts.
I have, time and again, been e-mailed by someone who has stated that they have been depressed for 10 to 30 years and that they are sure that I am an idiot. They think that my Emotional Thought Stopping is simplistic and that I do not understand the complexities of depression.
Why then, do I voluntarily subject myself to such abuse? It is because of the slim chance that a few chronically depressed people might be able to overcome their anger and rise above their despair just long enough for them to read further and gain benefit from my concepts.
CHRONIC DEPRESSION
Not one of us sat down one day and said ‘I think that I want to be depressed, this is what I’ll do to reach that goal.’ Depression is a process that happens, we do not willingly cause it to happen, nor do we actively want it to continue. Those who have never been depressed many times think otherwise. To them it is crystal clear what we are doing wrong to cause and perpetuate our own depression. Yet they do not truly understand the workings of the unconscious mind, nor do we.
Genetics and chemical imbalances aside (I’ll explain why later), chronic depression is the result of our inadvertently allowing the depression itself to determine and dictate both the cause and the cure of our depression. In other words, we are relying on the depressed mind to come up with the answers needed to end the depression.
But, truth be known, Dr. Depression is a hack! Our depressed mind does not have an innate knowledge of the cause of our depression nor does it understand or have direct control of the unconscious mind. Even so, our depressed mind Dr. Depression, would have us think otherwise.
I have chosen to try and help those people in society who, as many would say, are beyond help. Unfortunately and characteristically, those afflicted are many times the first to affirm that they are indeed, beyond help. But, in their support, many do have a preponderance of evidence to support their claim.
Some of us have been prescribed up to 10 or more different medications in a guinea pig approach to psychiatry. Many have met with inept therapists who sometimes have more problems than the patients they are trying to ‘cure’. We are led astray by a plethora of choices, each a subliminal promise of cure. There are over 200 differing talking and curative therapies, there are herbs, angles, aliens, white buffalo, bleeding statues, ‘experts’ and miracle drugs. Each with promise to ease our pain. Yet the pain remains.
In addition to these outside forces, our own depressed mind sabotages our efforts to find the true cause and cure of our depression. As the depression progresses our problem solving sessions digress from time spent trying to solve undue and unresolved stress, into a time spent worrying that there is no solution. We begin to devise solutions aimed at relieving the pain and the symptoms of depression rather finding solutions to the underlying cause of that depression.
I have identified certain behaviors and thought processes which place depressed people at risk of becoming chronically depressed.
1. The Quick Fix.
2. Intermittent Therapies.
3. The Cause and the Cure of Depression.
4. Dysfunctional and Maladaptive Thinking.
5. The Illusion of Solution.
6. Ghosts From the Past.
7. Luck of the Draw.
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THE QUICK FIX
“Shut up with all the words, already. I am too depressed to read all these long articles. Why can’t you just help me?” Why? Wish as I may, I do not possess a magic wand that I can use to instantly wave away your depression and make it all better with a few choice words. That is the promise of the mystical guru, and the cultist, a power which I choose not to have at my disposal.
There are millions of depressed people World wide who jump from Web Site to Web Site, from therapist to therapist, from drug to drug, continually seeking that most illusive ‘quick fix’. Instant gratification is what we are programmed to expect. Our unconscious mind needs to reduce stress at the time of origin, it does not have the luxury of being able to wait on a long drawn out plan of resolve. The chemistry of our emotions will destroy us if we do not keep the level of stress within the bounds of our genetic tolerance.
So we see countless numbers of people on a never ending search to find that illusive instant cure which is sure to be around the next corner, on the next page, in the soon-to-be discovered miracle drug. All the while the depression worsens and the addictions increase their grip on our minds.
A young man once told me he had tried my ETS and that he had failed, ETS could not help him! He had tried for hours to stop the negative thoughts, even going so far as to beat his head against a brick wall in order to drive the constant negative out of his mind. His was a lost cause!
My first thought was that there is no way a young man in his condition should have been trying to deal with his depression without the aid of a professional. That is tantamount to performing ones own open heart surgery without the aid of a doctor or anesthesia.
My second impression was that it is unrealistic to even think that the addictions of the unconscious mind acquired over a lifetime, can be reversed in a few hours, or even a few days.
It reminds me of the relentless pursuit of get rich schemes such as winning the lotto or making a killing in the stock market. The odds are against us, but there is a thrill in the promise of hitting it big and having enough money to fix all of our problems and ills. Since the vast majority of us do not win, we would be better advised to save the money spent on the get rich scheme. Over time the benefit of compound interest would assure us of more money than we could spend in our later years. But where is the thrill in that?
Some will win the psychiatric lotto of the quick fix, most will not. It is the mundane, the day to day directed and informed efforts that will make tomorrow a little better. It is for sure that the odds are better. In retrospect the mundane is transformed into a satisfaction that you were able to make your life better without the need to rely on the illusive luck of the quick fix.
INTERMITTENT THERAPIES
Much of the failure of traditional self-help programs and talking therapies is their lack of intensity and their intermittent nature. If we find a beneficial procedure in a self-help book or during a therapy session, we possibly feel better for a short period of time, but the nature of our depression soon overwhelms this feeling and we are back where we started. One hour of help once or twice a week, even with possible home work assignments, allows ample time for our negative ruminations and suicidal urges to return and plague us once again.
This may cause a constant state where we are forever on the brink of cure, but we never really get there. It could go on for years, this constant up and down. Over time the prospects of cure become more and more dim and the depression becomes worse. We end with just maintaining and never getting well.
From this one might think that all therapy should begin with an intensive one week stay in the hospital. But this is not practical and may not be that beneficial. Few of us could afford a prolonged hospital stay and although a hospital does protect us from the outside world for a time, it also allows us ample time to lie around and think ourselves into an even more depressed state.
It is for this reason that I suggest an intensive two days when one first begins using Emotional Thought Stopping. Of course ETS does not cure depression in a two day period, it merely gives us a ‘jump start’ by showing us that the unconscious will respond to our conscious decision to provide alternative solutions. Potentially the most powerful use of ETS is when it is used between therapy sessions so that we do not loose the benefit from session to session!
THE CAUSE AND THE CURE OF DEPRESSION
Our depressed mind deals with depression as if those forces outside ourselves cause our depression and that the cure is also other enabled. “It is they who cause my pain, they are the reason I am depressed, it never ends. Why won’t they help me, they don’t care, who will help me? Will I never find the answers?”
They do cause us pain, and many of them do promise cure. But, let me assure you that the cause, and the cure of depression comes from within. I have already shown the cause of depression, it is something that happens, we are not at fault.
The cure for depression comes when you change you, not when you change them. Is this fair? Of course not! Is this easy? Certainly not! Is it possible? Yes it is!
DYSFUNCTIONAL & MALADAPTIVE THINKING
This is by far the most difficult concept to address and for many it is also the most important. It is relatively easy to identify those ‘solutions’ which are causing us further stress when those solutions are blatant, such as intense suicidal thoughts, or cutting oneself. Yet there lurks, in many of us, a pattern of thought which is dysfunctional, maladaptive and almost impossible to self-diagnose. It is the result of learned and reactional responses which help us to cope with stress as we are growing up, but it is possible that these responses put us at odds with our environment in later years as life circumstances change.
It is unfair and maybe even hurtful when I use the words
dysfunctional and maladaptive to describe behavior and
thought patterns which are a normal response to abnormal
stress. One of the first reactions I see when I use these
words is one of intense anger. “It is society that is screwed
up, they cause my pain, why the hell do I have to be the
one to change?” The simple answer is, because you do not
posses the power to change society, or even another
individual, you only have within you the power to change
yourself.
You have no other options.
This does not mean that you must change your basic belief system, you are not the cause of what has happened to you. Nor do you have to forgive those who have done you harm. The change comes when you free yourself of the anger and the despairing thoughts which continue to exercise control over your present behavior and emotions.
These patterns of thought cause us to narrow our
perception of reality and to prejudge people and situations
in life according to those narrow views.
They might include:
-All or Nothing Thinking. “I always”, “They never”.
-Self Pity or Self Guilt. “I am worthless”, “I am evil”.
-Feeling Alone.“They don’t understand”, “No one cares”
-Feeling Unique. “I am the only one with this pain”
-Unrealistic Expectations of Self, Others and of Life.
-Prejudging and Stereotyping People without evidence.
-And last, but not least is the ‘yes, but’ syndrome.
This might be better illustrated by a hypothetical situation:
I am a helper, sitting at my desk, awaiting the next person
to enter my office. I am very unsettled by what had just
happened to me.
Outside a young woman starts to climb the steps to my
front door.
She says to herself,
“This never works, I don’t know why
I put myself through this. But, I must do something, I’m
about to explode!”
She opens the door, sees me, steps
back. “Oh my God, this guy is an idiot! I knew it, I
should leave now. No wait, maybe there is someone in the
back room who can actually help me, I’ll humor him for
awhile. This always happens, my God, why me?”
Unknown to the young woman I had just an hour before
had a vision of God, right here in my office! No it wasn’t
a vision, God was actually here, burning bush and all!
He asked me if there was some knowledge he could impart to
me that would help me better understand the human
condition. I told him of my frustration about the cause
and the cure of depression and suicidal thoughts.
But, he didn’t answer me, and then he was gone!
On my desk lay a tablet, still slightly smoldering.
Bewildered, I sat fingering the smooth warm stone.
And then she walked in...
She said, “Can you help me?”
I hesitated, “Why, yes I think I can.”
I began to read.
“The cause of depression is...........”
She replied, “Yes but, you see in my case it..............”
I continued.
“The cure for depression is............”
She replied, “Yes but, for me it is different, I.............”
I concluded.
“Do these things and your depression will pass...........”
Exasperated she said, “Yes but. You see, that is all fine
for many people, I can see the logic in what you say, but
those things never work for me. When I was a child......”
We talked for a small while, she told me her story. And
then, in mid sentence she abruptly stood up and said,
“I have to leave.” She turned for the door.
Hastily I blurted out, “Yes, but.......”
And then she was gone!
Rushing down the stairs she thought, “I knew it,
I knew it, I knew it was hopeless to come here!
That jerk should be put out of his misery!
Wait, maybe the book on depression that I bought
this morning, maybe it has some answers.
I’ll go home and.....”
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This exact scenario happens thousands of times, over and over, less of course the visitation from God. It has happened to me, time and again. I have never had a visit from God, he must think it is better that I learn from my own pain. I also do not know all there is to know about the cause and the cure of depression.
But, my heart is with that young woman, for she is well on her way to becoming chronically depressed. With each encounter her options narrow, her pain increases. It may well end that her only solace, her only release, becomes that of suicidal ideation.
There are many reasons why the young woman has come to the point where she would reject that which would do her more good, than harm. She may well be justified in her actions and reactions given her life circumstances. But the fact remains that if she is to free herself from depression, the change must come from within, no matter how unfair or unjust.
These things I speak of are not set in stone.
Never is seldom, and always is never.
We grow, we evolve.
Life is change.
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-How is it possible that we might spend our whole lives searching for a quick fix, when in truth the answer lies in a relatively short term directed and informed plan of action?
-Why do we only intermittently work on a problem which has the potential to ruin our lives or maybe even prematurely end our life?
-Why do we fixate on, and blame others, when in our heart we know that the answers lie within?
-How is it possible that we acquire behaviors and thought patterns which do us more harm than good?
The answers to all these questions is that we do not understand the workings of the unconscious mind and that we rely on the depressed mind to determine both the cause and the cure of our depressed state. The depressed mind does not have the knowledge needed to end the depression and it is more influenced by the addictions of the unconscious mind than it is by logic and reason.
© Stephen L. Bernhardt - 2001
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© Stephen L. Bernhardt - 1996-2001
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