5 reasons you may feel depressed
Part 1 of a 5-part series
We all feel down and blue from time to time but if you find yourself feeling like that more days than not, then it may be time to look deeper and get help. Depression can be debilitating. You try to will yourself to get out of bed but your leaden body won’t cooperate. Food loses its appeal. Sleep evades you. You burst into tears at the thought of having to write that report. Things that were fun no longer seem so. Spending all day in bed under the doona no longer seems heavenly but necessary. You snap at your kids and partner. You rage at random drivers on the road. A big hole has opened up inside you. It simultaneously feels empty and it’s bleeding. Yep my friend, you may be going through a bout of depression. And whilst I may not know the exact circumstances and factors that have contributed to your depression, some of the reasons for your experience may be found in this blog series. If you notice your symptoms last for more than several weeks, or are present most days than not, then you might want to consider professional help.
1) Hello critic my old friend
Many of us walk around with an automatic internal voice that criticises and comments on every move we make. “Oh my gosh, did you really say that to Johnny, he’s going to think you’re such an idiot”, “You’re not working hard enough”, “Ugh….I look horrible today, look at those bags under my eyes”, “She did such a good job at the presentation, I’m never going to be as good as that”, and the list goes on…..and on…..and on!
I call this voice the “hurtful helper”. Why would I use the word “helper” for a voice that most would consider nasty and critical? Stick with me while I try to explain. As researcher Brené Brown has uncovered through her work, human beings need 2 crucial things to thrive 1) to love and be loved 2) a sense of belonging. Let’s see how not having these may play out in someone’s life.
Let’s imagine for a moment that we are a fly on the wall observing a family interact. The young child, maybe 7 or 8, comes home from school proud of the B on their report card and excitedly hands it to their caretaker. The caregiver takes the report card, notices the B, and automatically a frown descends on their face which is accompanied by a clipped voice saying “What, only a B! You can do better than that!”. In that moment, the child sees that they have disappointed their caregiver and feels the pain of that. On some level, they believe that they are in jeopardy of losing the love of their caregiver, and hence their place in the family, if they do not improve their grade. This is when the hurtful helper comes online.
In order to get back into the good books with their caregiver and maintain both a sense of belonging and keep their caregiver’s love, the child needs to ‘do better, be smarter, try harder etc’. What better way to push oneself to “do better” than to have an ongoing internal voice that comments on ways that we can improve and change so that we never lose the love of our caretakers and those important to us. “Oh my gosh, did you really say that to Johnny, he’s going to think you’re such an idiot” aka “I need you to be careful about what you say around Johnny because I really value his opinion and it’s nice having him as a friend and if he starts to think you’re an idiot then he may not want to be friends with you and it’s so much fun hanging out with him and you need friends because if you don’t have friends then you’ll be lonely and I really don’t want you to be lonely because that doesn’t feel good”.
The problem is, most of us are not schooled in the art of deciphering the underlying messages of our hurtful helpers (i.e. I want you to have friends and connection and joy) and instead take what they say at face value (i.e. Johnny is going to think you’re an idiot if you keep speaking). So this is an invitation to have a look at some of the messages that your own hurtful helpers may be trying to give you (I’ll talk in more detail about this in another blog within this series) and approach them with a sense of curiosity. If you get stuck, or it seems too daunting to do this on your own, please seek professional help.
Some of the things our hurtful helpers may be trying to give us are:
A sense of belonging
Companionship
Connection
Acceptance
Inclusion
Love
Respect
Safety
Stability
Support
Peace
Autonomy
Freedom
Creativity
Growth