THE LIFTING OF DEPRESSION
Many people have described their experience of depression. Few remember to look back once they are free, and to share the benefit of their liberation with others. When depression lifts, by itself, permanently, only then can we really begin to understand what it was that afflicted us. Through the transition and the comparison, we can start to understand more deeply both the natural state of our being, and its distortion.
When we feel the veil lifting, (the description of St Paul at his conversion, of ‘scales falling from his eyes’, would as well fit this experience), we are freed to see what we could not see before. Depression is a kind of hard-wired, structural, constriction of our experience of the world. Part of that constriction prevents us from looking directly at the depression itself, like the Gorgon Medusa in Greek mythology that turned anyone to stone that looked on her face. It is like a dimming of the light that prevents us from seeing. Only when it lifts, can we begin to see. What we begin to see and feel is ourselves.
We have to have a sense of self in this life. The sense of self may be an illusion, but within the illusion of this life, it is necessary. It is only through the medium of our sense of self that we can navigate through the challenges this life presents. When depression lifts, we find the sense of self has survived under its cloud and is now released, like the bulb of a flower that has sprouted under a stone, and is now exposed to the light. Instead of a medium of discomfort, we start to find assurance in our sense of self. What seemed to be the enemy is found to be an ally. The sense of our own being imbues our experience with meaning. The new-found sense of meaning liberates our will, gives it movement and purpose. We can start to find our direction.
It is important to know that depression can lift. We can change the experience of depression by, for example, physical activity, chemical intervention in the brain, or insight therapy. But that is not the same as its spontaneous lifting.
One morning, you may awaken and know that things are different, different in a way that you are not able to recognise because you have never experienced them like that before. Yet, in the same way that you know you are awake, you know that some unaccountable thing has changed. Something that was there has simply gone, and yet you cannot quite remember what it was that has departed. You know that you have a lightness of being, though it is not an identifiable feeling of joy or happiness, it is simply an upward release. (Interesting that the sensation is upward, whereas before we might have said we felt ‘down in the dumps’.) We realise that something that was pressing on us has been taken off, as though we have carried a heavy burden for so long that we considered it part of ourselves, and now that part of ourselves is gone, and yet, we feel more present, and no loss.
The world looks different. This is important. The way a depressed person behaves is perfectly rational within the context of their experience of the world. But it is a different world that they are inhabiting from the un-depressed. Neither more nor less real or valid. There is nothing to say that the un-depressed state is the final state of emancipation of the mind. It is just a step. But being released from depression, apart from the obvious ‘housekeeping’ aspects of coping with the challenges of everyday life, releases you to experience the naturalness of your own being. It is a step closer to yourself.
Gradually it dawns on you that what pressed on you before was your depression, and that it has gone. You have known about the depression, but you could never look it squarely in the eye. Your depression was a ‘condition’, a set of symptoms, but you could never grab it by the throat and confront it. It was just a shadow looking over your shoulder that moved away no matter how quickly you tried to turn and catch it. And now it is gone. And now you can feel who you are with that ‘hump that is black and blue’ as Kipling described it, safely out of the way. Now you have a sense of awakening, just like the sense of awakening in the morning, only a second awakening on top of the first. And now you are pleased and joyful – pleased that you are no longer depressed, that life can now begin. The myth of Sleeping Beauty, when she awakens, describes the sensation. You have been asleep for 100 years, caught in a permanent dream, and now that you are awake, the world in which you have been for so long, seems strange.
But you never for a moment doubt that the new sensation is preferable. You may, however, catch yourself missing the habit of depression, strangely enough. Freedom is not something we adjust to immediately. And you may, from your new position of freedom, recognise that there was some element of addiction to your depression. There was. And even your new state of enlightenment is only another level of addiction, just one that is more common and easier to cope with. But it is only a step along the road. You are free-er, not free. By comparison, it seems you have reached the ultimate. You know, though, that there was no exercise of will that could have changed your condition, because there was no fulcrum against which you could lever your will. You did not have that sound, solid, sense of self you now have. Whatever you pressed against, gave way. There was no secure footing on which you could base your sense of self, only a continuing unease and a listlessness that held your mind in thrall. Now that you have awoken, your will feels active and confident. But that war has been won. You cannot return with your new-found will and fight it over again. If ever you were to return to that state of being, you would be no more powerful to overcome it than you were before. That’s the pathology!
You know you will never return whence you have come. But you had no choice to heal yourself by a resolute act of will. Your only choice was gradually to learn to turn towards the depression, to embrace it and recognise it as your own. Paradoxically, you had to learn to feel the depression. Strange to think of depression as something you might feel, like sadness. It seems more like an absence of feeling. That is its power and its deception. Behind the symptoms of depression lies the feeling of depression. And the only way out is through. And the only way through is to allow yourself to open to the feeling you least want. Perhaps that is the way of the Tao – the yielding that overcomes.
Depression conditions the entire framework within which we experience everything else. We look through different glasses and see the world differently. When depression lifts, there is a moment of surprise. Something familiar is gone. It is interesting to note that it is not a feeling of something having been added, but of a restriction that has been lifted. A shadow has passed from your world. It is the same world, but now you see it in sunlight instead of shade. You have a sense of having woken from a trance. Perhaps you have.
In the absence of feeling lies the deadness of depression, upon which foundations the mind then builds its rational castles of interpretation, all consistent with their foundations. Foundations laid in air. And yet you know that you are somehow the richer for having had the experience. It has given you a humility, an empathy with the sufferings of others that you would never have had otherwise. Twenty-eight years in prison can do that to a man. So can 28 years of depression.
What the depression has done for you is to make you aware, make you able to discern that your perception of reality can be so convincingly distorted that it seems certain. And it has enabled you to know that it is possible to awaken from that certainty, and see beyond it. And from that experience you might, if you are fortunate, start to believe that you might also wake up from your current state, and continue in a series of awakenings until you are fully awake. Or you might simply decide to camp where you are. How far do you have to journey in one lifetime?
The shadow that darkened your mind and dimmed your perception, has passed suddenly away. The webs of reasoning that you endlessly wove to hold together the fragments of reality, have evaporated. You feel the world directly and have no need of explanation.
From infancy we develop our conceptual structure – we learn to perceive space and time.[1] In our very early stages we develop the conceptual structure which we experience as ‘reality’. This process of development, if undamaged, occurs from within the child. Children learn to speak and to walk without adult intervention. An environment can be supportive or hostile. Supportive does not mean intrusive. A supportive environment means that the process will unfold naturally and operate as it was designed to operate. And we are generally designed to operate positively. Only traumatic events, such as the death of a parent, or a hostile environment such as malnourishment, or destructively intrusive adults, will cause a distortion in how your reality if formed.
One such distortion is depression. We are not designed to be depressed, as a species. There may be more than one set of causes of depression. What is important is that it structures the way we experience the world just as extensively as our sense of space and time do. And the perception is just as convincing.
What is even more important, is that that structure, primary as it is, can still be healed. The depression can lift, and your life can continue its natural course. And the course of life is a movement, however gradual, to a clearer perception of reality. We do not have to do anything to improve on reality. We have to learn to recognise and acknowledge it as it is, rather than through our distorted perception.
One of the key elements in awakening from depression is time. And time is linked to reality because reality is always in the present. [2] We are strongly bound to our memories of the past as constituting reality. Is this not part of what is called karma? Even when we think we live in the present, we are still trailing far behind. When we wake from depression, it is as though we have leapt forward in time, closer to the present. There is an immediacy to our experience of the world that was never there before. A septum, or membrane, that stood between ourselves and the world, has been removed. Through this change we may become aware that, though we are closer to the present, we are not yet fully there. Now we may choose to stop and rest – or continue. © John Mitchell 21 06 08
[1] In an experiment with a sheet of glass laid over a table, a baby below a certain age would crawl over the edge of the visible table beneath the glass. Above that age, it would stop at the edge of the table. What had changed is that it had developed ‘depth-perception’. Before that age, it simply did not have the capacity to know that it would fall off the edge of the table.
[2] Bertrand Russell said that, if we believed in creation, then there was no logical reason why the world could not have been created, complete with records, history and memory, half a second ago.
Many people have described their experience of depression. Few remember to look back once they are free, and to share the benefit of their liberation with others. When depression lifts, by itself, permanently, only then can we really begin to understand what it was that afflicted us. Through the transition and the comparison, we can start to understand more deeply both the natural state of our being, and its distortion.
When we feel the veil lifting, (the description of St Paul at his conversion, of ‘scales falling from his eyes’, would as well fit this experience), we are freed to see what we could not see before. Depression is a kind of hard-wired, structural, constriction of our experience of the world. Part of that constriction prevents us from looking directly at the depression itself, like the Gorgon Medusa in Greek mythology that turned anyone to stone that looked on her face. It is like a dimming of the light that prevents us from seeing. Only when it lifts, can we begin to see. What we begin to see and feel is ourselves.
We have to have a sense of self in this life. The sense of self may be an illusion, but within the illusion of this life, it is necessary. It is only through the medium of our sense of self that we can navigate through the challenges this life presents. When depression lifts, we find the sense of self has survived under its cloud and is now released, like the bulb of a flower that has sprouted under a stone, and is now exposed to the light. Instead of a medium of discomfort, we start to find assurance in our sense of self. What seemed to be the enemy is found to be an ally. The sense of our own being imbues our experience with meaning. The new-found sense of meaning liberates our will, gives it movement and purpose. We can start to find our direction.
It is important to know that depression can lift. We can change the experience of depression by, for example, physical activity, chemical intervention in the brain, or insight therapy. But that is not the same as its spontaneous lifting.
One morning, you may awaken and know that things are different, different in a way that you are not able to recognise because you have never experienced them like that before. Yet, in the same way that you know you are awake, you know that some unaccountable thing has changed. Something that was there has simply gone, and yet you cannot quite remember what it was that has departed. You know that you have a lightness of being, though it is not an identifiable feeling of joy or happiness, it is simply an upward release. (Interesting that the sensation is upward, whereas before we might have said we felt ‘down in the dumps’.) We realise that something that was pressing on us has been taken off, as though we have carried a heavy burden for so long that we considered it part of ourselves, and now that part of ourselves is gone, and yet, we feel more present, and no loss.
The world looks different. This is important. The way a depressed person behaves is perfectly rational within the context of their experience of the world. But it is a different world that they are inhabiting from the un-depressed. Neither more nor less real or valid. There is nothing to say that the un-depressed state is the final state of emancipation of the mind. It is just a step. But being released from depression, apart from the obvious ‘housekeeping’ aspects of coping with the challenges of everyday life, releases you to experience the naturalness of your own being. It is a step closer to yourself.
Gradually it dawns on you that what pressed on you before was your depression, and that it has gone. You have known about the depression, but you could never look it squarely in the eye. Your depression was a ‘condition’, a set of symptoms, but you could never grab it by the throat and confront it. It was just a shadow looking over your shoulder that moved away no matter how quickly you tried to turn and catch it. And now it is gone. And now you can feel who you are with that ‘hump that is black and blue’ as Kipling described it, safely out of the way. Now you have a sense of awakening, just like the sense of awakening in the morning, only a second awakening on top of the first. And now you are pleased and joyful – pleased that you are no longer depressed, that life can now begin. The myth of Sleeping Beauty, when she awakens, describes the sensation. You have been asleep for 100 years, caught in a permanent dream, and now that you are awake, the world in which you have been for so long, seems strange.
But you never for a moment doubt that the new sensation is preferable. You may, however, catch yourself missing the habit of depression, strangely enough. Freedom is not something we adjust to immediately. And you may, from your new position of freedom, recognise that there was some element of addiction to your depression. There was. And even your new state of enlightenment is only another level of addiction, just one that is more common and easier to cope with. But it is only a step along the road. You are free-er, not free. By comparison, it seems you have reached the ultimate. You know, though, that there was no exercise of will that could have changed your condition, because there was no fulcrum against which you could lever your will. You did not have that sound, solid, sense of self you now have. Whatever you pressed against, gave way. There was no secure footing on which you could base your sense of self, only a continuing unease and a listlessness that held your mind in thrall. Now that you have awoken, your will feels active and confident. But that war has been won. You cannot return with your new-found will and fight it over again. If ever you were to return to that state of being, you would be no more powerful to overcome it than you were before. That’s the pathology!
You know you will never return whence you have come. But you had no choice to heal yourself by a resolute act of will. Your only choice was gradually to learn to turn towards the depression, to embrace it and recognise it as your own. Paradoxically, you had to learn to feel the depression. Strange to think of depression as something you might feel, like sadness. It seems more like an absence of feeling. That is its power and its deception. Behind the symptoms of depression lies the feeling of depression. And the only way out is through. And the only way through is to allow yourself to open to the feeling you least want. Perhaps that is the way of the Tao – the yielding that overcomes.
Depression conditions the entire framework within which we experience everything else. We look through different glasses and see the world differently. When depression lifts, there is a moment of surprise. Something familiar is gone. It is interesting to note that it is not a feeling of something having been added, but of a restriction that has been lifted. A shadow has passed from your world. It is the same world, but now you see it in sunlight instead of shade. You have a sense of having woken from a trance. Perhaps you have.
In the absence of feeling lies the deadness of depression, upon which foundations the mind then builds its rational castles of interpretation, all consistent with their foundations. Foundations laid in air. And yet you know that you are somehow the richer for having had the experience. It has given you a humility, an empathy with the sufferings of others that you would never have had otherwise. Twenty-eight years in prison can do that to a man. So can 28 years of depression.
What the depression has done for you is to make you aware, make you able to discern that your perception of reality can be so convincingly distorted that it seems certain. And it has enabled you to know that it is possible to awaken from that certainty, and see beyond it. And from that experience you might, if you are fortunate, start to believe that you might also wake up from your current state, and continue in a series of awakenings until you are fully awake. Or you might simply decide to camp where you are. How far do you have to journey in one lifetime?
The shadow that darkened your mind and dimmed your perception, has passed suddenly away. The webs of reasoning that you endlessly wove to hold together the fragments of reality, have evaporated. You feel the world directly and have no need of explanation.
From infancy we develop our conceptual structure – we learn to perceive space and time.[1] In our very early stages we develop the conceptual structure which we experience as ‘reality’. This process of development, if undamaged, occurs from within the child. Children learn to speak and to walk without adult intervention. An environment can be supportive or hostile. Supportive does not mean intrusive. A supportive environment means that the process will unfold naturally and operate as it was designed to operate. And we are generally designed to operate positively. Only traumatic events, such as the death of a parent, or a hostile environment such as malnourishment, or destructively intrusive adults, will cause a distortion in how your reality if formed.
One such distortion is depression. We are not designed to be depressed, as a species. There may be more than one set of causes of depression. What is important is that it structures the way we experience the world just as extensively as our sense of space and time do. And the perception is just as convincing.
What is even more important, is that that structure, primary as it is, can still be healed. The depression can lift, and your life can continue its natural course. And the course of life is a movement, however gradual, to a clearer perception of reality. We do not have to do anything to improve on reality. We have to learn to recognise and acknowledge it as it is, rather than through our distorted perception.
One of the key elements in awakening from depression is time. And time is linked to reality because reality is always in the present. [2] We are strongly bound to our memories of the past as constituting reality. Is this not part of what is called karma? Even when we think we live in the present, we are still trailing far behind. When we wake from depression, it is as though we have leapt forward in time, closer to the present. There is an immediacy to our experience of the world that was never there before. A septum, or membrane, that stood between ourselves and the world, has been removed. Through this change we may become aware that, though we are closer to the present, we are not yet fully there. Now we may choose to stop and rest – or continue. © John Mitchell 21 06 08
[1] In an experiment with a sheet of glass laid over a table, a baby below a certain age would crawl over the edge of the visible table beneath the glass. Above that age, it would stop at the edge of the table. What had changed is that it had developed ‘depth-perception’. Before that age, it simply did not have the capacity to know that it would fall off the edge of the table.
[2] Bertrand Russell said that, if we believed in creation, then there was no logical reason why the world could not have been created, complete with records, history and memory, half a second ago.
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