Ways to Always Have the Support You Want

            A concept emerged from self-exploration and journaling that I later found mirrored by ideas in Barbara Sher’s ‘I Could Do Anything if I Only Knew What it Was’ and a website I’m frustratingly unable to find again that gave advice to survivors of child abuse. It’s been so enormously beneficial to me I want to share.

            I want supportive people in my life. I think that’s pretty universal. However, other people have their own lives and concerns and stuff and can’t always be there for us, and even when they are they may not say what we need to hear (or listen as much as we need) or provide the support for which we long.

            I, like many, find inspiration and encouragement in quotes from famous people, and in the creative work and behind-the-scenes sharing of artists who inspire me—television, movies, music, art of all kinds. In my imagination I found I could extrapolate on what I knew about these people, what I liked best, what words they had said, and envision characters based on them, sitting with me in my distress. I could clearly imagine what they looked like (like Jim Henson’s awesome sweaters), their expressions (like Audrey Hepburn’s winsome smile), and most especially what they would say to me.

            This for me was a good way of finding out what I wanted to hear, what the support I craved looked and felt like—not only that, but giving it to myself. Once I realized this I started listing the people that I would like to imagine supporting me, that seemed to offer me the best comfort and advice. I look at this as a way of tapping into that place in my imagination and subconscious that knows what I need, and giving it to myself.

            Even if your imagination has been repressed, as mine was and many others as well, I truly believe there are ways that most everyone who wants to can create within themselves the support of the people they find most inspirational.

            Here are some of the ways I find and give myself exactly the support I want—whenever I want it, and particularly when I need it most. They’re incremental, but each also can be used independently.

Collecting Quotes and Putting them Up Everywhere

            This is a pretty common idea and practice. It’s also a really good way to figure out who it is you want in your corner, and familiarize yourself with their ‘voices’—what words they say, how those words ‘sound’ in your head, what you see in your mind when you sit with those words.

            I have a list of my favorite short motivational phrases, but also longer quotes taped up where I’ll see them every day, and a document of quotes I collect whenever I spot one I like.

Collecting the Work of Inspirational People

            Books, movies, television, music, interviews, audiobooks, pictures, sculptures, poetry—go to town collecting the stuff that lifts you when you feel down. Make playlists. Set aside a shelf in your library for your favorite books, underline or highlight passages and turn down corners (or mark passages in your favorite e-reader; I often export highlighted Kindle passages using Bookcision), bookmark the best bits. Make a section of DVDs you watch when you’re blue, or when you have what Holly Golightly in the movie ‘Breakfast at Tiffany’s’ refers to as the ‘Mean Reds’:

            “Suddenly you’re afraid and you don’t know what you’re afraid of. Do you ever get that feeling? Well, when I get it the only thing that does any good is to jump into a cab and go to Tiffany’s. Calms me down right away.”

Making Self-Comfort a Daily Practice

            This is one of the hardest parts for me. Sometimes cultural, financial, health, life, work, or family pressures mean we don’t prioritize or take seriously making ourselves feel better. It’s all about working, and serving others’ needs, and doing things necessary to keep our lives going and all the plates spinning.

            It takes determination and practice to overcome the sense that if you’re taking time out for yourself you’re being lazy, unproductive, or selfish. Yet it’s so important to take care of yourself in order to be productive, active, and be able to give to others. You are the only you there is, and it’s your job to take care of you for the good of yourself, your life, and everyone you encounter.

            I still struggle with remembering to use things that I’ve found that help me every day. I make and protect time in my daily routine for it. As much as eating, drinking water, showering, and sleeping, it’s part of self-care that is essential to being healthy. Like those other basic self-care things, the easiest way to make it a habit is to make practice a part of your daily routine.

            You have your collection—use it. Suggestions: have music you like when you’re getting ready in the morning or on hand in the car or at work, have pictures and quotes of your favorite people up in your workspace and on your computer, watch or read favorite quotes or poems or passages every day. Find the best time and things that work for you. You’ll know you’ve got it right when it feels good and you want to do it, rather than getting that ‘eat your vegetables, it’s good for you’ feeling.

            Doing this not only gives me daily doses or inoculations of positivity to offset the world’s negativity, it also ingrains favorite people and kinds of inspiration I like in me. It helps me notice and seek out more. It helps feed my imagination and build my capacity to extrapolate from what I know, and create new phrases and words tailored to specific times of distress.

Having Imaginary Conversations

            Barbara Sher refers to the people one looks up to and is inspired and influence by as a ‘cheerleading squad.’ I call them an ‘Imaginary Family.’

            After saturating my life with my favorite words and inspiring people, I would imagine and often write down in my journal conversations between myself and what I imagined the other person would say. Having put in all those hours watching and listening to and reading what I love—a positively reinforcing experience—I could begin to create my own imaginings based on what I knew about the people who inspired me.

            It wasn’t easy at first. I was self-conscious, and it took a while to learn to tap into those voices and practice imagining them more and more. It also felt wrong, selfish, and like a violation of these other people. I’ll share what I’ve come to think and feel to help me cope with that.

            First, I hold strongly to belief and knowing that the people I imagine are characters and figments of my own imagination. This not only keeps me from mixing up reality and fantasy and creating unrealistic expectations about the real people these characters are based on, it reminds me that everything I’m imagining these people saying to me is something within me, some part of my subconscious that knows how to take care of me. This doesn’t diminish the value of the imaginary play for me. It helps me feel safer from losing touch with reality and more confident and aware of my own capacity to support and encourage.

            Practicing this not only makes me more effective at taking care of me, but also gives me access to that source of comforting and soothing to share with another person. If I have these words of support and affirmation and encouragement in me to give to myself, and I practice that, I can call on them to support and encourage and affirm others.

            Second, and equally important, I resist the temptation to share these things with anyone else, especially any living persons I am imagining. Again it’s important for me to remember that although I am inspired continually by these people, that is all I am getting from them—inspiration, and what words they’ve actually said. I give them credit for that, and I am very thankful to them, but I remember that everything else is something I am giving myself, and it’s important to recognize and give myself credit for the words I am imagining and creating. It helps me build up belief in myself. It also helps me remember that I always carry around these ‘people’ I imagine with me.

            The more I play with and practice this, the more accessible this place of self-comfort becomes for me. In the BBC series ‘Sherlock,’ they refer to and show Sherlock Holmes’s ‘mind palace,’ a space in his imagination to organize and access what he knows to work. I sometimes imagine not just the people who comfort me but actual places—the imagination is unlimited in what places and characters and  things one can create.

            It’s important for me to practice imagining first when I’m just a little distressed or down, for the little things. It builds up my imagination muscles—think of it like starting out with little weights before moving on to bigger ones. This makes it easier to try draw on my positive imagination when I’m really freaked out.

            Sometimes my thoughts are spinning so fast I can’t possibly use my imagination for anything but terrible fears of apocalyptic destruction and failure and shame. Recently I’ve found something really special to deal with the most distressing times in life.

Making Tangible Representations of What I’ve Imagined

            This is what I do to prepare for those times when things are just so bad, or busy, that I can’t sit down and imagine my cheerleading squad, my imaginary family. This way I can still draw on them in the times when I need them most!

            First I made collages of my favorite pictures of them, sometimes with quotes and words woven in. Collages are something I like to do. You can draw on whatever creative talents and skills you have to put together something you can look at that don’t require much imagination work.

            I started working recently with self-hypnosis, under the guidance of my therapist. I’m drawing on everything I know about hypnosis, trance, the power of story to subliminally suggest and aid learning and retention, narrative therapy, DBT, positive psychology, behavior change, the principles of implanting and reinforcing ideas (which can be used negatively in brainwashing and mind control but also positively to overcome the results of such abuse), and what I know about myself and what words and mediums are most effective to me. I record scripts for me to listen to, paired with music that puts me in the right state of mind—soothing, gentle, invigorating, inspiring, whatever is called for by the subject of the script.

            I write them in a kind of open verse poetry form to have the freedom to switch between prose and powerful words. I interweave phrases and quotes that are inspiring to me. Some of the scripts are just audio collages of my favorite inspiring quotes, or short stories and zen koans that encourage and inspire me.

            The final ingredient for these audio tracks is the piece de resistance. I’ve enjoyed editing audio digitally for eighteen years as a hobby. The first things I recorded and collected were sound bites from movies that lifted my heart.

            Because I’ve so often turned to these things for comfort I could easily call to mind words I’d love to hear over and over again. Using Audio Hijack Pro and audio editing software Audacity I captured and edited down just what I wanted from online videos and DVDs and MP3s, and pieced them together into sound collages, tracked over music. I can sprinkle the voices of the people who inspire me most in with whatever hypnotic tracks I make, or build tracks entirely out of words of encouragement and support in the voices I’ve come to associate with those things.

            I can even cut apart phrases and words to create things that these people haven’t said all at one time, but that I have imagined my characters based on them saying, and written down, that I find most effective in self-soothing. ‘I love you exactly as you are, no matter what,’ is a favorite of mine, and ‘How can we make it easier?’ helps remind me to use my creativity and knowledge to do that.

            It sounds weird, but think on this: How many times have we had something specific we wanted someone to say to us? And we know we can’t force someone to say that particular thing, or to say what we know we want to hear exactly how and when we want to hear it. In a lot of ways it’s not fair of me to expect or demand that of others. If I know what I want to that specific degree, why don’t I find a way to give it to myself?

            That’s what I’ve done. It may sound weird, selfish, even a little creepy to mess around with the voices of people we don’t know. But it’s not for them or for anyone else, it’s just for you.

…And the Benefits Keep on Growing

            By giving myself these things I’m no longer solely dependent on others for emotional support and encouragement. I’m no longer making unreasonable demands of them or having unreasonable expectations. When I can soothe and comfort myself, I can be more effective and calm. I’m less afraid and needy or clingy when it comes to other people when I draw on what I’ve created to take care of me.

            I also found out a lot about what I want and what it feels like for me to be comforted and supported. I can recognize a lot more readily when I find those things in others, and when I don’t. This means I spend less time and energy on relationships that aren’t healthy for me or the other person. I’m naturally more drawn to invest time and energy in people with whom I get the feelings I get from my inner support system.

            When I know what I want it’s easier to go after it, to give it to myself, and to find others who find value in what I have to give as well. With all this practice, I’m getting good at knowing what I have to give, and giving it—whether to myself or someone else.

How to Give

            “Generosity is not giving what’s easy; generosity is giving what’s hard.” —Diana Wynne Jones’s grandmother, as quoted in ‘Reflections on the Magic of Writing’

            Giving, generosity, sharing one’s fortunes with those less fortunate are noble intentions. Yet often, without mindfulness of a few key elements, giving can hurt others. Giving can become about the unconscious (or sometimes conscious) agenda of the giver, rather than the needs of the recipient. This is especially common when giving advice, suggestions, and feedback. It is crucial to have care and be mindful of the points below in those situations.

            Here are five key things to keep in mind, to reduce potential harm and promote healthier giving.

1. Self-care

            Know yourself.

            Know your limits—don’t give what you haven’t got to spare, be it time, money, energy, attention, or anything else. Don’t say ‘yes’ when you need to say ‘no.’ This is a fast track to burnout and resentment. Take care of yourself first or you will not be helpful to others. As they say on airplanes: Put on your oxygen mask before helping others.

            Know your motivations. Don’t nail yourself to a cross. When you give, give mindfully and without expectation—two elements explored in depth below.

2. Humility

            Give humbly. If you think you know what’s best for someone else, better than themselves, HALT. Stop immediately. You are not the judge of what is right for anyone except yourself. Stop placing your expectations and judgments on others. You are hurting people if you carry this assumption, and you are hurting yourself and your chances for mutuality in friendships and relationships.

            No two people are alike in resources, limitations, goals, challenges, needs, feelings, beliefs, and so forth.

            “You’re not interacting with clones of yourself. The only person who truly thinks and acts like you is you. You don’t really need the person if all you’re going to do is project onto them who you think they should be. You have to take the time to get to know people as they are and see them for who they are, not as extensions of you. If you don’t, you’ll become complacent and you’ll make dangerous assumptions.” —Natalie, ‘If it were me, I’d…’ Baggage Reclaim

3. No expectations

            There are a lot of expectations that get attached to giving, especially in friendships. Don’t loan shark—don’t give ‘freely’ and then later expect a return on the favor, or a free pass on some behavior that the other person doesn’t like. Don’t treat friendship like an accounting ledger that you are in charge of maintaining. It’s important to have balance and mutuality in friendships, but equally important not to have unvoiced expectations, or give out of a sense of obligation or a desire to incur one from someone else.

            Especially don’t offer advice or feedback or suggestions with the expectation of unconditional acceptance of what you have given, a lack of argument, doing what you’ve suggested, or even courtesy, especially if this feedback was not asked for—but even if it was. Whatever you’ve given feedback on—life, work, relationships, challenges—it’s theirs. They have to live and deal with the results of anything they choose to do with it—not you. (In the case of their behavior that affects you and how they treat you, please see the ‘Special circumstances’ section below.)

            You need to give not in order to gain acceptance, social standing, or an image of being generous and kind. You need to give not in order to prop up your self-esteem or ego, or because you want to ‘fix’ people or situations to be the way you think they should be. If you have hurt someone or made a mistake, do not give for the sole purpose of getting off the hook with them. No matter how generous you think you are being, you are giving in order to get something from them, and this is not an honest or up-front way to assert what you want, nor earn it.

            “A great way to keep you out of trouble is to ensure that you don’t give or help with an agenda. Whatever you do, do so because it reflects who you are, not because you’re trying to generate an IOU.            Ask the question: If the outcome/reward that I’m predicting didn’t materialise, would I still want to be or do whatever I’m intending?            If the answer is no or a whole load of shoulds pop up such as, ‘Well if it were me, I would show my appreciation by….’ or ‘Well, surely they couldn’t expect that I would do that without me expecting….’ or assumptions like, ‘They obviously realise that in me doing this, this means that we’re back together / they understood my position…”, halt. If you’re motivated to do what you’re intending because you hope that by doing this and being ‘pleasing’ that you will be able to control that person’s feelings and behaviour, freeze. Back up. In fact, reverse, sit yourself down and plant your mind and feet firmly in reality.” —Natalie, ‘How to know when to say no,’ Baggage Reclaim

            “If you wouldn’t give the help if you didn’t think that you would get the perceived / expected reward for it, don’t do it. Don’t.” —Natalie, ‘If you feel bad after you help it probably wasn’t helping,’ Baggage Reclaim

            Basically: give without expectation of receiving anything, even positive regard or attention. If you need these things, there are other ways to meet those needs on your own.

            Only give when you can give without expectations, when you know that the recipient could chuck your gift in the trash and you would not feel personally harmed. This is for your peace of mind as well as theirs, so that no matter what happens after you give, you won’t experience painful disappointment or personal rejection.

            Which leads to the next, extremely important element:

4. Consent: Asking & allowing ‘no’

            This is a vital thing to develop and practice throughout your life. Make peace with hearing it—and do this in your mind before you even involve someone else.

            Imagine giving something you want to give to someone, and imagine them saying no. Do you feel upset? Do you feel slighted? Do you feel they are being ungrateful, or in some way harming or depriving you by telling you no?

            ‘No’ is a valid response. If you get upset when someone tells you ‘no,’ then it isn’t really about their needs, it’s about your wants.

            Create space as early as possible in the giving process for the recipient to say ‘no.’ When you give anything—advice, feedback, a compliment, a gift, words of comfort, a story from your life—be kind and ask first. Whether or not you remember to ask, accept it if they say ‘no.’ Allow them to say ‘no’ however they need to say it. And allow them to say ‘no’ at any point in the process, even after they have said yes.

            It’s okay if you feel hurt when someone says ‘no’ to you. It is not okay to retaliate, to push or pressure them to change their ‘no,’ or tell them they have hurt you by telling you ‘no.’

            “They will tell you that it *would* be ok to say no, and that of course they’d respect it, but you said it wrong. And that you have to understand that it hurts them when you say it that way. (And that you should make it better by doing what they wanted).
            Or they will tell you that of course they don’t want to do anything that makes you uncomfortable, but you said yes before. And that this means that either it’s really ok with you, or that you don’t trust them anymore. And that you have to understand that it hurts when you withdraw trust like that (and that you should make it better by doing what they wanted.)
            Or that they have a headache. Or that they just can’t deal with it right now. That maybe when they feel better or aren’t tired or grumpy or had a better day it will be ok to say no. (And that meanwhile, you should fix things by doing what they wanted).
            Or that by saying no, you’re accusing them of being an awful person. And that they’d never do anything to hurt you, so why are you making accusations like that? (And, implicitly, that you should fix it by doing what they wanted.)
            If this kind of thing happens every time you say no, things are really wrong.
            No isn’t a theoretical construct. In mutually respectful relationships, people say no to each other often, and it’s not a big deal.” —Real Social Skills, ‘When your right to say no is entirely hypothetical’

            Differentiate between someone saying ‘no’ to something you are offering and saying ‘no’ to you. Do not take ‘no’ to what you are trying to give personally.

            If you are hurt by hearing ‘no,’ deal with that on your own. I suggest having a conversation with yourself about why it hurt, and being prepared to examine your own motivations, and why you were so attached to (or expecting) ‘yes.’

            Making peace with ‘no’ is challenging, but it can make life so much easier. It makes it easier to tolerate failure and rejection, which makes it easier to go after what you want, and easier to learn from and amend mistakes. It makes it easier to say ‘yes’ to you, and ‘yes’ to what you want, and trust that those around you are really saying ‘yes’ to the real you, as well.

5. Giving wisely

            “Charity ain’t giving people what you wants to give, it’s giving people what they need to get.” —Albert, from ‘Hogfather’ by Terry Pratchett

            Give what the other person has expressed a need or desire for and not just what you want to give or think they need. Give where it has been asked, or where you have asked.

            If you have no need of some thing anymore, many charities take in-kind donations. If you want to give it to a friend, ask first if they would like it, and accept ‘no’ as a valid response.

            When you see someone in need and want to help, ask what they need, don’t assume. This does not obligate you to give them what they ask for, but further discussion may turn up something they need that you can give them.

            Be humble and be curious, and most of all be respectful. Some people do not want help, and that is valid. No one is obligated to accept help from you or trust that your motivations are good, no matter how much work you have done to examine them for yourself.

            If you think a person is so bad off that they would/should accept any help they can get, stop. It is one thing to pity the misfortunes of another; it is another to believe you are or have the answer to their problems. It’s unlikely you know what they need or want unless you ask, or unless there is some inherent asking already there. If someone is waiting in like at a soup kitchen, and you’re passing out food, that’s a no-brainer. Also if you are writing and advice column or blog (or book), others are free to take or leave whatever they want from what you’ve given.

            If an artist shows you his work, that does not imply them asking you for anything. Don’t assume, ask what he wants. If he wants feedback, I also recommend asking what kind. Be prepared for him to tell you no after you give it, or even be angry. Having an opinion does not make you special, or right.

            If a friend tells you of a problem they are having, that does not imply they are expecting you to tell them what to do or do something to fix it without checking with them first, especially if it involves going to a third party and sharing what this friend has told you without their knowledge or consent. Ask what your friend wants—someone to just listen, validation, feedback, assistance. Be prepared for your friend to tell you ‘no’ at any point, and do not push. Your friend knows a great deal more about what’s bothering them and what they need than you do, no matter how well you know them.

            GIVE:

            Be Gentle.

            Be Interested.

            Validate the other person’s feelings.

            Use an Easy manner.

Special circumstances: feedback to protect yourself

            Unsolicited advice and feedback is criticism. You are telling someone what to do, standing in judgment over this person and their behavior.

            This is sometimes necessary for your self-protection and self-respect, in order to set and enforce boundaries—both in any kind of relationships and with invasive strangers or dangerous people. Your judgment, and your voice, are important in defending yourself and taking care of yourself. You cannot take care of someone else’s feelings when you are setting and enforcing boundaries.

            This is different than the sort of giving and feedback discussed above. When you do this it is about your needs, and needs to be so. There are times when it is necessary to give someone feedback they do not want or ask for, to take care of yourself and let others know your feelings and your needs.

            Also, don’t be shy about ‘giving’ your ‘no.’ Don’t say ‘yes’ to please others, or because you are afraid of hurting their feelings, or because they are rejecting your ‘no.’ Say ‘no’ when you want to say ‘no,’ and keep on saying it as many times as you need.

Sources and further reading:

            • ‘Reflections on the Magic of Writing,’ by Diana Wynne Jones

            • ‘If it were me, I’d…’ by Natalie of ‘Baggage Reclaim’

            • For a more detailed elaboration of ‘loan sharking’: ‘The Gift of Fear’ by Gavin de Becker

            • ‘How to know when to say no,’ by Natalie of ‘Baggage Reclaim’

            • ‘If you feel bad after you help it probably wasn’t helping,’ by Natalie of ‘Baggage Reclaim’

            • ‘When your right to say no is entirely hypothetical,’ Real Social Skills

            • ‘Hogfather’ by Terry Pratchett

            • Dialectical Behavioral Therapy Interpersonal Effectiveness Module: DEAR MAN GIVE FAST from DBT Self-Help

            • ‘When I Say No, I Feel Guilty,’ by Manuel J. Smith

Shades of Depression: Anhedonia, Anxiety, Anger, and Alienation

            Depression has been described in many ways. Through my experiences and my reading and discussions with others, I think that while there are some common experiences, the details of each person’s experience with depression are unique, and vary even among multiple experiences of depression for the same individual. I’ve felt terrible sadness, apathy, hopelessness, helplessness, and these things I thought were all normal. Yet I’ve also had other experiences less well-associated with depression, and I’m not alone.

Anhedonia

            “Anhedonia is defined as a loss of capacity to experience pleasure. This inability to enjoy pleasurable things is associated with a number of mental health problems including depression. The word anhedonia comes from ancient Greek and means without delight. The individual who is experiencing this condition will find that their life is emotionally empty.

            “…A world without pleasure is a grey place indeed. Without this emotion, life become monotonous, and there doesn’t seem to be much point in doing anything. Day to day living becomes an endurance race, and there is no motivation to try to improve things. The inability to experience pleasure means that life can feel pointless, and that is not a satisfying form of existence. It is a particularly dangerous way to feel if people are trying to recover from an addiction.

            “…Pleasure is a vital component of the internal reward system – it helps people grow and learn. If the individual is unable to experience rewards they will fail to make any progress.” —‘Anhedonia in Recovery’

            Anhedonia sucks. It sucks away your motivation to recovery, to do anything at all. “What’s the point?” you may think.

            “I know nothing. I can do nothing. I understand nothing. I know nothing. Nothing. And all this misery does not even make me particularly unhappy.” —Gerhard Richter

            I go through the motions, but get no pleasure, and soon may not have the energy or motivation to go through the motions. I wander through a twilight fog where everything has lost its color.

            In this state, anytime I feel a glimmer of feeling for anything, I grab it, fiercely, and hold on as long as I can, until that fleeting joy is gone. I feel as though I am hopping from melting ice floe to melting ice floe over a killing-cold lake, and I wonder if they will sink, or get too far apart, or run out before I reach the other side I’m hoping is there.

            “I tend to find the ecstasy hidden in ordinary joys, because I did not expect those joys to be ordinary to me.” —Andrew Solomon

Anxiety

            “If you told me that I’d have to be depressed for the next month, I would say, “As long as I know it’ll be over in November, I can do it.” But if you said to me, you have to have acute anxiety for the next month,” I would rather slit my wrist than go through it. It was the feeling all the time like that feeling you have if you’re walking and you slip or trip and the ground is rushing up at you, but instead of lasting half a second, the way that does, it lasted for six months.” —Andrew Solomon, ‘Depression, the secret we share’ TED Talk

            Living in terror or panic for a prolonged time affects your body. Your adrenal glands wear out. You’re hypervigilant. You can’t sleep, and your body doesn’t recharge. The cortisol soup your whole system is swimming in takes its toll. Your brain rewires. Your sense of the future becomes foreshortened. Anything can trigger you to fight, flight, or freeze. It can become too much to leave the house, into a world of unknown variables and overwhelming stimulation. It can feel like having no skin.

            You develop learned helplessness when nothing you can do stops the source of fear and panic. It wears you out when you feel you have to keep this vulnerability hidden, which if you are living with someone or something that is threatening to you and more powerful than you, is highly likely. You feel small, disempowered. You are liable to lash out at the smallest trigger. It is as though the gain has been turned up on everything—a whisper is a shout, a simple word is a hammer blow.

            It is hard for me to tell, having lived with terror all my life, what is a genuine assessment of a threat, what is a childhood flashback, what is either causing or a result of depression. What I do know is, regardless of cause and effect, terror is the most debilitating of all. With anhedonia, even at its worst, I still can connect to the idea that I haven’t experienced absolutely everything, and perhaps there is something out there in which I can take pleasure. Anger, even frustrated and helpless anger, urges me to action against that which is intolerable and unjust.

            Fear chases me into a corner, binds my chest with invisible iron bands so I cannot even dare breathe or make a noise, lest someone notice I am here and take more from me when I have nothing to give, or beat down someone so beaten down by life I feel paralyzed.

            “Suicide is really more of an anxiety response than a depression solution: it is not the action of a null mind but of a tortured one. The physical symptoms of anxiety are so acute that they seem to demand a physical response: not simply the mental suicide of silence and sleep, but the physical one of self-slaughter.” —Andrew Solomon, ‘The Noonday Demon’

Anger

            “First, you are faced with an experience that seems wrong or unfair. Second, you don’t feel able to calmly correct it. And yet, in order for you to feel okay, the situation must be successfully resolved because leaving it as it is does not feel like an acceptable option (the third factor). You feel a strong desire to right a situation that seems wrong, yet you also believe that, at least for now, you are unable to do so. When this set of circumstances occurs, your normal, built-in, human response is anger.”
—Marcia Cannon, ‘The Gift of Anger’

            “A lot of painful things happened to me, and I just wanted to forget. I would wake up in the mornings and just be angry that I woke up. I felt like there wasn’t any help for me, ’cause I was just on this earth wasting space. I lived to use drugs and used drugs to live, and since drugs made me even more depressed, I just wanted to be dead.” —Sheila Hernandez

             “It’s like a hurt. It’s just like they raking your heart out your body, and it won’t stop, it’s just like somebody’s taking a knife and keep stabbing you all the time.” — Danquille Stetson

            It’s been said that depression is anger turned inward. I think depression can have in it anger both turned inward and outward. In depression what I have felt is helpless anger.

            I’ve been angry at hurt I could not prevent or defend against, angry both at the source of the hurt and at myself for my impotence or weakness.

            All this anger is exhausting and demoralizing, and without effective ways to express all this anger non-abusively and feel heard, it becomes a hopeless, angry despair. Loneliness is not just the absence of people but the absence of compassionate understanding.

            “I meet people and I know that they don’t have the level of experience that I have.” —Bill Stein

            Despite a lifetime of painful interpersonal traumas, I have come to believe there are some out there who aren’t habitually, mindlessly hurtful. Yet the absence of a flaw doesn’t indicate the presence of a virtue.

            We humans are rarely comfortable with the expression of emotions like anger and fear and shame, even when we are only bystanders. It takes awareness, effort, investment, and a willingness to learn from inevitable failures to practice empathy, compassion, validation, and humility in the face of these things; with emotional boundaries that don’t trend to self-protective insensitivity. Too often we rely on comparison and pity in the face of others’ pain; or unwanted and inappropriate judgment, advice, and humor. Intellectual understanding blocks empathy.

            “Generosity and love demand great expenditure of energy and effort and will.” —Andrew Solomon, ‘The Noonday Demon’

            Prolonged anger can also have physical health consequences—heart attacks, hardening of the arteries, strokes, hypertension, high blood pressure, heart rate and metabolism changes, muscle and respiratory problems (Dr. Herbert Benson, The Relaxation Response, 1975).

Alienation and the Struggle to Overcome it

            Depression is an alienating experience. Anhedonia, acute anxiety, and anger are alienating experiences.

            “You can’t measure in objective terms how sick people are or what their symptoms are. You can only listen to what people say and accept that that’s how it feels to them.” —Deborah Christie
 

            “There is an interaction between illness and personality; some people can tolerate symptoms that would destroy others; some people can tolerate hardly anything. Some people seem to give in to their depression; others seem to battle it. Since depression is highly demotivating, it takes a certain survivor impulse to keep going through the depression, not to cave in to it.” —Andrew Solomon, ‘The Noonday Demon’

            Compassionate understanding isn’t something we’re automatically good at, nor empathy, nor non-judgment, listening skills. Capacities for these are there, unless you’re a sociopath, but it takes mindful work and perseverance, and humility, to build and practice these skills. It’s not easy, it’s not always fun, and it requires uncomfortable self-examination and self-honesty and a willingness to fail and try again.

            Becoming a brain surgeon is hard work and you would (I hope) not presume to try brain surgery without that work. Yet many people try to offer support who have underdeveloped humility, awareness, and trustworthiness necessary to be effective. We do this because we don’t know what we don’t know. We also do this because shame shuts down genuine human connection and vulnerability (see Brené Brown’s work for more on overcoming these issues).

            I’ve been there. I’ve not only bought the t-shirt but run the t-shirt stand. But having had the experiences I’ve had, I can never return to not-knowing. Sooner or later I think most everyone is touched by tragedy or trauma, and ignorance is no longer an option. The choice is, what do you do then?

            “You cannot draw a depressed person out of his misery with love (though you can sometimes distract a depressed person). You can, sometimes, manage to join someone in the place where he resides. It is not pleasant to sit still in the darkness of another person’s mind, though it is almost worse to watch the decay of the mind from the outside. You can fret from a distance or you can come close and closer and closest. Sometimes the way to be close is to be silent, or even distant. It is not up to you, from the outside, to decide; it is up to you to discern. Depression is lonely above all else, but it can breed the opposite of loneliness. …So many people have asked me what to do for depressed friends and relatives, and my answer is actually simple: blunt their isolation. Do it with cups of tea or with long talks or by sitting in a room nearby and staying silent or in whatever way suits the circumstances, but do that. And do it willingly.” —Andrew Solomon, ‘The Noonday Demon’

            “Our needs are our greatest assets. I am able to just be there with people because of the stuff I’ve needed from people. I guess I’ve learned to give all the things I need.” —Maggie Robbins

Sources and further reading:

            ‘Anhedonia in Recovery’ article

            Hyperbole and a Half: Adventures in Depression by Allie Brosh

            Hyperbole and a Half: Depression Part Two by Allie Brosh

            ‘Depression, the secret we share’ TED Talk by Andrew Solomon

            ‘The Noonday Demon’ by Andrew Solomon

            ‘The Gift of Anger’ by Marcia Cannon

            ‘Honor Your Anger’ by Beverly Engel

            ‘Healing Through the Dark Emotions:The Wisdom of Grief, Fear, and Despair’ by Marcia Greenspan

            ‘The power of vulnerability’ TED Talk by Brené Brown

            ‘Listening to shame’ TED Talk by Brené Brown

            ‘Suicide: Read This First’ on metanoia.org

            ‘What can I do to help someone who may be suicidal?’ on metanoia.org

            Emotional Intelligence information on EQI.org

            ‘EQ for Everybody: A Practical Guide to Developing and Using One’s Emotional Intelligence’ free PDF by Steve Hein