Dark Night of the mind

My experiments while in depression

Prelude

Mental health is the buzz word these days, with Corona Virus secluding people into their cocoons, and celebrity suicide causing us to question the status quo of our lives. But are we looking at the problem deep enough to be able to uproot it? Or is it enough to simply voice opinions, and offer solutions and move on? To even answer the question of mental health, one must first ask what is the mind? Most of us would say its that 1.5 kg organ sitting between our shoulders. Is that really the mind? Do animals have a mind? If so, then do they also suffer from mental illnesses? What is it that makes us mentally suffer? It's the same mind that does all our thinking, solves our challenging problems, and someday turns against us. Why? Unfortunately, I don’t have the answers, all I have is a story and some inspiration.

My Story

I first heard of the term ‘depression’ when I was in the first semester of my college. Being an above-average student in school, and having negative self-esteem, I always had high demands from myself. I was naturally intellectually inclined, but the demands I posed on myself, to ‘look’ smart and intelligent, was way too much. To the extent that the end goal started mattering much more than the journey itself. That's where the downward spiral began, and with this ‘wonderful attitude’, I entered my college in Goa. Yes, I spent four years of my life in Goa struggling with anxiety and depression, in a place where everybody comes to party and relax. The symptoms began gradually, from occasional loss of sleep (I am naturally a very light sleeper), and a few anxious thoughts and gradually led to full-fledged insomnia, and a constant state of anxiety. I had made a few friends, none very close but I had established my self-image as a chilled out tomboy (an image that appealed to me the most back then). From this point onward, I would suffer from anxiety and depression on and off and was on meds for quite some time. I would appear to get better with no signs for a couple of months and then BAM! one fine day something would start feeling off, and that trigger was enough to start the vicious cycle of self-sabotaging thoughts and fear of getting into depression again. In these times, I tried communicating to people around that I am not feeling alright, only to get the typical response of, ‘go for a run’, ‘watch a movie’, ‘go to the beach’, ‘just chill’ and the ‘naive me’, tried all of them with no relief. At one point I even reached out to the campus doctor who would brush me off as though I were pretending because I am too weak to handle any stress.

What depression maybe

According to me, depression happens when one has taken up so much stress that the brain can longer take it and shuts down to protect itself. It is like a state of deep rest as coined by a writer I admire, Jeff Foster. It’s when the brain is tired of playing the pretence game, tired of putting on a happy mask, and going around with life, oblivious to its deeper needs. So for four years, I played the depression game on and off. It’s of course, not a fun game to play, for starters the brain has stopped producing dopamine (mood regulator) and serotonin (the feel-good hormone), so I would hardly feel any emotions, not even grief and sadness. (That’s when I realized the importance of crying and how much it helps in emotional release). Add to that, the stigma of being mentally ill and the pressure to keep it hidden by wearing the happy mask, forcing myself to smile and talk. Sleep was a distant dream and I was exhausted all the time. Guilt was another dark emotion that was consuming me, I felt I was letting down myself and my parents, that too for no good reason. With all of this, I fought, I fought to get better, never to go back, but yet it kept coming back the harder I fought. Even medications seemed to have no effect at a point.

Role of Meds

Let’s talk about anti-depressants and sleeping pills. These were the two meds I was taking as I had no access to therapy despite being in a premier institute. Medical science turns depression into a chemical imbalance in the brain (just like it treats any other disease). So most antidepressants work by increasing the level of these chemicals in the brain. They gave me just enough energy to get out of bed and I would still feel like a bag of shit. But at least I was able to sleep for a few hours (very unrestful sleep) and have some energy to attend classes, despite feeling dull and lethargic. The important point I want to make here is that depression is way more than just a chemical imbalance and treating it like that will keep one hooked to pills life long. Meds should just be a means to mitigate and deal with the current life situation. In my case, it was to pass through the semester and not drop out, and it did serve that purpose. Also, most doctors prescribe small doses for a short duration for it is a well-established fact that antidepressants have side effects and resistance build-up where the same dosage will have no effect that it had initially and can cause dependence.

Spirituality and therapy

There was a point when spiritual reading started giving me some hope and I clung to it fully. I would spend hours on the web, reading articles and books on ego, awareness, spiritual ascension, dark night of the soul, and whatnot. It was funny, the kind of hope I had, that I will wake up one day and have a profound realization about life, and be free of all sufferings. I kept waiting for this to happen but it never did, that made it worse as my hopes were getting crushed. One fine day I drank DEET (a chemical used to kill cockroaches) in the hope of falling sick and getting hospitalized (I had researched enough to not take lethal amounts). This was the closest I got to physical self-harm or suicide. But nothing happened, all I had were burps of the chemical throughout the day, eventually, I thought it was a bad idea and stopped contemplating physical harm (lucky for me).

I also tried intense meditation by going for the 10 days silent Vipassana retreat. I could sit through all the 10 days but in the end, nothing felt good, it became an onset of another depression episode but this time I was doing my internship and staying with parents. Medication was something I had to start again but this time I also tried therapy alongside. It didn’t go too well for me and was too expensive. Again, most therapists don’t themselves know what depression feels like or why its caused, they have studied the mind and some cases here and there but nothing apart from it. My therapist even gave up the hope of CBT for some reason and we would have philosophical talks more often. Hell, I wasn’t paying her to talk philosophy!

This was also the time when I started questioning my life, ‘why am I doing what I am doing, what am I here for’, and so on. I started feeling as though I needed to dig deeper to know myself. As though everything we do is for external accolades and that didn’t bring me any happiness, so what is all this slogging for?

Fast forward another year and another episode of depression, by now I have taken a firm decision of not taking any meds and I am sticking to it. My escape is still reading spiritual books but now I have graduated to J.Krishnamurty :P (suggested to me by a neighborhood therapist, who, I must say was good terms of his reading suggestions). Months pass by, I forgot to mention that by now I also have a full-time job which requires me to show up every day. So my old friends, ‘pretence and a smiling mask’ come to use more often.

Yoga and Road to Healing

Healing finally did come to me in the most unexpected ways, in a yoga class. Totally anti-climatic as in my head I wanted a sudden snap to fix everything for me. Frustrated with me, my mother put me to a yoga class (just like parents did when we were 5-year-olds). I told my problems to this teacher and he told me to just focus on coming to class every day. There was something about the conviction in his words that made me believe in him and do just that. So all I did was, get through the day somehow and wait for the 7 pm yoga class where no one was going to judge me (because I didn’t know anybody there). I have been physically fit throughout so I could very well manage the easy beginner postures he taught. After class, he would chat with me and fill me with some humor and confidence. This went on and in three months I had improved, from having no energy and motivation to someone looking forward to the mundane events of the day. I started finding it okay to genuinely smile, talk to people, and even feel good about it. There was still the fear of going back to the old state but I had some faith in Yoga. In nearly four months, I was back to my normal self who enjoyed going out and visiting places. I started traveling almost once a month to nearby hill stations and found it very full filling. This time of transformation was also when I started surrounding myself with good friends who I had lost touch with and distancing from those who did not have a good influence on me.

Since I was attributing yoga to my healing, it became very close to my heart. I started exploring different styles of yoga and finally settled on the ‘Mysore Ashtanga method’. This is a form where the emphasis is given on physical postures, breath, discipline, and spiritual learning. Fast forward to the present, its been three years of regular consistent practice (people who know me will tell you about it :P) and it has done wonders to me, physically, mentally and spiritually. I wake up in the morning just for my practice, the rest of the things just happen.

Summary and TL;DR:

1. Depression is way more than just a chemical imbalance. There might be no one single cause, it is generally a combination of a lot of factors, intrinsic and extrinsic. More often, it happens because the brain is too tired to think, it has been overwhelmed with constant stress and anxiety for too long and it needs to rest.
2. Depression doesn’t require a terrible experience to have occurred. It can be small errors in thinking or repressed emotions piled up over a long time that can lead to it. So don’t blame yourself or feel that you are depressed for no reason. You are just not aware of all the good reasons that led to it.
3. Medication is just a temporary relief, not a cure. It should be leveraged along with other holistic cures.
4. There is no single cure, but having someone close to you be there for you will really help. Someone to remind you that you are okay in whatever state you are, without judging you in any way. Or if needed, get you some sort of medical help.
5. Meditation is not recommended as it can deepen the melancholy and emptiness which is not what we want. It is important to have a healthy state of mind and an experienced teacher for taking up serious meditation.
6. Baby steps like getting out of the bed, taking a shower, going out for a walk need to be appreciated. There will be days where you feel like you are getting better and right the next day you might feel terrible again. That's okay, its a part of recovery.
7. You might not feel like calling a friend, but anonymously participating in forums might help. Reddit is a wonderful platform to know that you are not alone and there are a whole bunch of people going through a similar phase, or worse. Knowing this is very comforting.
8. It might seem like the end of the world but please please do not toy with the idea of suicide. Trust that you are stronger than this passing phase and that life is yet to show you its real beauty. You are not defined by your depression, it's, just a small wave in the vast ocean of who you are. A wave cannot consume the ocean, it can disturb the calmness for a short while. More of such beautiful writings that brought solace to me: https://www.lifewithoutacentre.com/writings/
9. It can also be viewed as an opportunity to go deep within and connect with the core of oneself. This is normally very hard as we are busy chasing materialistic goals. But a time like this has no materialistic distraction, and so when you do come out of it, you are going to be much more grounded and self-aware. You will have a story to share and help out others, ‘I fell apart, broke down, and yet I survived to rise beyond my sufferings’.
10. Movement does feel good, you might not feel like getting out of the bed but trust me moving the body makes a huge difference. Whether its a walk, stretching, jumping, or dancing ...
11. Nobody will ever understand what you are going through, its a very personal and intimate experience. Whatever suggestions, advice people give may or may not work for you. But trust that there is healing and there is way out, just one beacon of hope is enough to slowly move you towards recovery.
12. Therapies are generally way too expensive for an ordinary person and require a lot of sessions. Personally, I don’t see it as an effective solution though it might help for a short while. It all depends on how lucky you are to find a very good therapist who can look at you as a fellow human being and not just a patient who needs treatment.
13. For those who have a friend or a relative going through depression, it might be hard for you to relate to what the person is going through but you can still be compassionate. Do not judge or criticize the person for being in the state, it wasn’t his/her fault or choice. Rather, give space, check-in with the person once in a while, appreciate whatever small progresses that comes about.
14. I have a bias towards Yogic Asanas as it really helped me in healing and discovering myself inside out, not just on the surface. It is beautiful because Yoga has so many practices including physical postures which are thousands in number, each has its own different benefits for the mind and body. An experienced teacher can take you through the practice based on your current situation and facilitate recovery.

I will end by pointing out that human beings are extremely complex creatures. Any chronic illness whether it is physical or mental has multiple factors involved and cannot be reduced to a single thing. It is important to approach it holistically, especially when it comes to mental illness as it is much subtler than physical illness. Also, one can very well lead to the other. We need to develop more awareness and sensitivity towards these issues before declaring remedies and solutions.