5 Lies of the Depressed Mind
As I type this, I am skirting the edge of a “funk”, uncertain of how I will feel in the next moment.I tend to avoid the D-word, understanding that calling it depression might be disrespectful to those who do suffer from depression as a serious medical condition that they can’t just think their way out of. However, there are various types of depression, and a “rut” or a “funk” might be Big D in disguise for some.
Recently, I have struggled to come out of an extensive funk. I feel good now and would love to tell you that the worst is behind me, but I don’t know. There have been days I woke up feeling “myself” again, and found myself back in the rut by lunch. So, I am dancing victoriously on the rim of a rut, treading happiness cautiously like a frozen lake in the spring. Hopeful it gets better, yet fearful it will get worse.
Identifying the lies your mind tells you during these episodes might not help you get out of the funk, but can certainly help you navigate it; becoming less engaged with the thoughts, recognizing them as #FakeNews. Here are five false narratives I noticed my brain devising while I was down:
“What a liberation to realize that the ‘voice in my head’ is not who I am.” — Eckhart Tolle
1. This has been going on for eternity: It feels like you’ve never known happiness. Like you’ve been feeling this way for years, and surely your best years are behind you. You can’t remember the last time you journaled, cooked, or socialized or maybe even showered. It might have only been three weeks, but three weeks not feeling like yourself can feel like a very long time. I know it does for me since I am accustomed to meal prepping every Sunday and working out every day. It is easy to get caught in the downward spiral of anxiety and self-pity/loathing, feeling you’ve “lost so much time” and “woe is me”.
My Advice: Be patient and compassionate with your mind and body. Each day will look different until you are out of the funk; today you might cook and gym and socialize, tomorrow you might barely crawl out of bed. Remember it has not been this way forever, nor does it have to be forever. Instead of looking at it as time derailed from your life’s goals, think of it as part of your journey, time that was factored in by the universe.
2. This is it! Being in a depressive mindset can feel like there is no out. During these times (for me, that’s around my time of the month), you might catch yourself thinking Is this my new normal? Is this who I am now? Unhappy, lethargic, dragging your way through to all the places you absolutely must go, like work, then racing home for Hulu and Halo Top. Thinking this is it means giving up control and giving in to the voices that are not who you are.
My advice: Know that who you are at your core, your “Being” cannot and will not change until you decide to change it. Change job, seek help, move to a new country, join CrossFit, find a new community, meditate, pray, intentionally observe the feelings, feel all the feels, but do not give in. If you are like me, remember you’ve been through this before. This is not it.
“Control your own destiny or someone else will.” Jack Welch
3. Nothing is working. Nothing is exciting: None of the hobbies you had are particularly thrilling, everything feels routine. If you were dating, you delete your apps. What libido? Everything is going bad. Work sucks, people are stupid, the city is trash, friends are fake. One perceived negative occurrence dominos into the next. When incidents at work or with squabbles with loved ones occur in the funk, they are magnified and my reaction (typically in my head during excessive rumination) is intensified. I don’t need to question a friend’s character and 15 years of friendship because she forgot to call me back. Nor does my boss not value my time and warrant my resignation notice because he was 5 minutes late to our meeting.
During my funks, if I get around to meal prepping, it is usually around midweek when whatever I cooked has stopped being exciting. I then order in, spending more money than I’d budgeted for, my finances go into a deficit, the food I cooked goes bad, I gain weight, now both my diet and financial planning are “not working” I get more frustrated and deeper into the rut. Rinse and repeat, the cycle continues. The whole cycle is all a lie rooted in the “all or nothing” aspiring perfectionist’s mind. It takes one mistake to stop being enough and justify going completely off the rails. “I already had a slice of cake, so… pizza anyone?”
My advice: One misstep does not justify repeating unproductive behavior with a “might as well…” mentality. The damage typically isn’t done until after we’ve run with the narrative that damage has been done. Also, be mindful of overstating and dramatizing negative realities. Negative thoughts embellished with words like “everyone” and “everything” are good indicators of catastrophizing. Little things are working. Find them, hang on to them.
4. Was I ever truly “happy”? This one sneaks up when you least expect it, in moments of silence; in the shower, during a commute. You get flashbacks to the best times of your life: parties in college, family vacations, a past relationship. Was I happy then? You question if you masked your unhappiness with socializing or were simply not self-aware enough to realize you were unhappy. You begin to question your character as a whole. Is my brand #TheJoyceofLife, fraudulent? Am I putting out a skewed image on social media like everybody else? The PhotoShopped curve is on my face. Everybody knows me as joyous, happy, joyful, funny and incredibly positive and optimistic. Has that been a facade? Or maybe I was young and naive so I could afford to be those things, but now this is who I am (see thought #3).
The thought of being a sad person makes you a sad person. You consider deleting social media. You scroll through old pictures and read through pages of old journals to see if you can identify what that person was hiding from the rest of the world, what sadness must be behind that big smile. None. You were happy. You were happy then and will be again once this episode is over.
My advice: The depressed mind will make you believe unhappiness is your default setting. It will tell you your best days are behind you and you will no longer have the enthusiasm or energy to live as fully as you might have in the past. Don’t believe this, the best is yet to come.
The depressed mind will make you believe unhappiness is your default setting.
5. What is the point of all this anyway? Terrible things are happening around the world. Maybe your own life is not terrible, but it is lukewarm; nothing too bad going on, but nothing particularly exciting either. You spend a lot of time in your head wondering if it gets better — when it gets better, why you’d ever want it to get better, what you’d get better for and the spiral goes downward and downward. This is a dangerous one because it can quickly spiral into thoughts of ending life not because life is unbearable per se but because “it doesn’t matter anyway.”
My advice: If it persists, seek professional help. When I catch glimpses of those thoughts, I look at a map of the world, all the places I want to go, all the cool people I am yet to meet. Even if all of this is for nothing and we are all just players in a little kid’s video game, I want to live. To see the world, eat the foods, drink the wine, meet the people, learn the cultures, dance, fall in love for a night, fall in love for a lifetime, fall in love in as many different languages or with no words at all (yes, I am a hopeless romantic). Travel is a passion of mine, and I don’t know yours, so my advice is to think about in great detail and hold on to it as a reason to get out of your funk.
“Remember who you are” — Mufasa
Note from the author: I am not a medical professional and have written this solely from my personal experience with the hopes that you can relate. Since misery loves company, know that you are not alone in these destructive thought patterns. The advice herein is more so to myself in the unfortunate event that this piece, written in hindsight should become foresight.
