Best Comment Ever

Hugs from Cali.

I appreciate that comment too. She's kinda right. But you're great - really, really, a great person.

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brave commenter...
and some of it does ring true.
of course WE can never know all of YOUR truth - but as a group we try...

I can understand the thinking behind that comment, and I can see it was written from a viewpoint of caring and wanting to help. I also know how frustrating it is to watch someone with depression who appears to be making her own life harder for herself, and not be able to say/do anything to fix it. It is hard when no amount of encouragement, love, or hugs seem to have made a difference.

On the other hand, I know what it's like to BE that person who is stuck in those negative thought patterns and can't get out. The habitual thought pathways are so deeply gouged into the brain that some very serious emotional effort is required to redirect one's thinking - effort that an already emotionally depleted person with depression finds practically impossible to muster.

Imagine a small hill with a little canal carved down the side of it. Now imagine that someone takes a very big bucket of water and dumps it out on the top of the hill. Where does the water run down? Most of it gets channeled into the canal and runs down through it, because it's the path of least resistance. The canal can be compared to a negative train of thought in a depressed person's brain, and the water to an electrical impulse in the brain triggered by an outside event. Now imagine standing at the top of the hill, while someone dumps that bucket of water, and trying to STOP the water from going down that canal! Huge amounts of effort would be required to block off the canal so that the water would be forced to go elsewhere. It would be hard to succeed at redirecting the water. BUT... assuming you DID succeed on one occasion, that wouldn't mean your troubles were over. With the canal so deeply entrenched in the hill, you would have to stop that water many, MANY times before the redirected water would wear a new groove into the side of the hill. It would take even longer before erosion or whatever would start to fill in the original canal so that water would be less likely to channel there and the huge effort to stop it would no longer be required.

And, finally, imagine that you had no idea when the other person was going to come and dump that bucket of water. It could happen at any time of day, multiple times a day. That means you would have to be vigilant, all day, every day. You could never leave the hill unguarded, and you would need to maintain the strength required to throw yourself across that canal and block the water from flowing down it, otherwise your progress toward creating a new pathway for the water would halt.

This is the mind of a person with depression. It is a daily struggle against the water coming down that canal. Some days (most days) we are too weary to fight, and it is easier to just let the water flow down over us whenever someone or something comes and dumps a bucket. Other days, we will feel stronger, and we'll set to work with our little hand shovel, trying to dig some new pathways and block the canal. Sometimes, the water dumpings will be fewer, and we gain a little strength. But soon enough - too soon - there will be a deluge, and we will fail to stop that water... fail in a big way. Then we will feel discouraged and think we can never succeed, and we'll have to spend quite some time wallowing in that water at the bottom of the hill before we find the strength to try again.

That's why people with depression have the best chance of recovery when they utilize both medication and counseling. The medication (when you find one that works) acts like a dam for the canal, so you don't have to work so bloody hard all the time to stop that water, and the counselor helps you (since you now have more energy available) to dig those new grooves into the hillside faster and more effectively. If you have an effective medication and a great counselor, it can really be a winning combination to help get you unstuck from the nightmare existence you have grown accustomed to.

The other thing that helps is support and encouragement from friends along the way, even (and especially) when you are tired and don't feel you can make the effort required to change your ways of thinking and feeling. What DOESN'T help is to have people say (however good their intentions are) "Why do you keep throwing that water down the canal every time someone dumps a bucket?" Sure, it may jolt you out of your wallowing and make you work harder for a time to block that canal... but you are working harder from a viewpoint of despising your current way of being, rather than from a perspective of loving yourself with your flaws and all, and in a while, when the water flow is too fast or too heavy and you can't manage to stop it, you will hate yourself even worse because you have failed to meet the expectations of people who had no clue how hard or against what staggering odds you were working. The canal is gouged deeper in your brain, and you have to work harder than ever to regain the lost ground.

So, before telling someone to work harder at changing their thought patterns, please be aware that they may already be working much harder (and against much greater obstacles) than you had imagined.

Sweetie, things will work out in the end. You just have to want them to -- and take the steps necessary to get there.

We all love you.

Sometimes everyone needs a kick in the buns. Just not when the IBS is acting up. Then the kicker gets a surprise. Fun for everyone!

Hope things are looking up.

It's huge and totally awesome that you accepted that little critique... :)

Well, hi! I'm the 'best comment' ever. Who would've guessed it? I'm so glad that my comment resonated with you. The fact that it DIDN'T insult you (which, of course, wasn't the point) is just another example of how strong you are, whether you know it or not. Please know that what I wrote was intended to be in the spirit of concern, not judgment. I've been lurking here for a while, and keep thinking about you. And you're right - the blog world is so strange; we hear only small part of the story.

I suffer from depression, too. I buried it for way too long but after the birth of my 2nd child, I couldn't hide it from myself or anyone else. Its people like you who helped me face it. I love the description that Skye used.

I wish you much peace!
Sharon

I so admire you for taking that comment with an open heart. As others have said, only you know what is really going on, but to be able to look at yourself constructively is such a huge step in healing yourself.
Good for you.