Fighting Depression

Recently, Jodi Orgill Brown invited me to write a piece for her new book, Depression Fighter.  This book is a unique blend of personal experiences and clinical insights about fighting depression. The personal stories remind us that we are not alone—depression is real and affects people of all walks of life.

Jodi’s Story

Jodi Orgill Brown is a successful author, public speaker, and brain tumor survivor. For the first twenty years of her life, she didn’t understand depression.

 “Although I had witnessed depression of an immediate family member, and had occasional down days as a teenager, not only was I still a skeptic, but I also realize now, I was totally clueless. My thoughts on the topic were akin to, ‘Just get up and DO something and you won’t feel depressed.’ I didn’t understand, nor believe, that depression could debilitate someone and prevent them from functioning.”

Her eyes were opened when she experienced depression as a new mother. At 33, her fight to reclaim life while living with the effects of a brain tumor sent her into a “hard, dark, all encompassing, deep depression”. She says, “Sometimes it feels like the devil himself is dragging you down, using frustration, discouragement, loneliness, pain, and loss, as weights tied around your ankles.” Now she understood.

Training for the Next Round

For me, depression is the ghost that shadows me while I work to heal the root causes of my PTSD and other mental health struggles. Fighting depression is not one huge battle, but more of a daily fight to keep my head above water while I work to own my destiny. Healing Emotional Trauma

Some days, it feels like I have delivered the knock-out punch to my adversary, only to have its ghost-like presence revive. Some days it merely haunts me from the sidelines. And some days its presence is all-encompassing, threatening to suffocate the life out of me. But I choose not to quit.

On the suffocating days, the most I can do is keep breathing. And that’s a win. On the days of even the slightest reprieve, the best medicine is in training for the next round. Reading others’ accounts of their battles and victories is part of the training. This helps me in two ways: first, it strengthens my hope that rounds can be won; second, it reminds me that I am not the only one fighting this kind of battle.

Accepting the truth about who we are is key in facing the opponent. Greg Wells, PhD, reminds us “Depression has nothing to do with character or worth.” That truth can be lifesaving. It is a truth we MUST cling to in every round of our fight.

Squaring Up

So how do we square up and be ready for the next round? There are as many ways to prepare yourself for the battles as there are people who fight it. In Beyond the Darkness, Angie Fenimore offers these crucial steps for fighting depression:

• Control the environment you are in. Be conscious about where you are, the messages around you, what you read and listen to, and even the messages you are wearing.
• Acknowledge dark thoughts, but do not engage with them. Allow yourself a moment of, “Oh, that was an interesting thought!”, but do not wrap emotion around dark thoughts. Do not relate to them. Do not believe them. Do not allow an emotional charge to pair with a thought or belief.
• Let go of fear. Fear is one of the highest levels of darkness with which you can resonate. When you engage fear, it amplifies whatever else you are dealing with…Fear projects forward, but future events haven’t happened, they are all imaginary. So, erase them. (Imagine yourself blotting out all the what ifs, failures, and sad endings.)
• Let it go. Let go of the dark thought after you acknowledge it. You already encountered the thought, but you do not have to answer it. Dismiss it before you ruminate on it or let it take seed within you.
• Let light in. When you allow dark thoughts to pass through you, you create space for light to come in. Thought space in our brains is a vacuum; you must fill the empty space, so choose things that will elevate you and empower you. It’s impossible to not think any thoughts, so sing, recall a favorite memory, or practice a poem, but have a positive go-to thought ready to fill the void.

Staying in the Fight

Life is messy. Letting go of the illusion of that if only I do it all right, my life will be easy frees us to take control of our destiny. We cannot control how the enemy will fight, but we can choose to stand our ground. There are pauses in between rounds, and reprieve between fights. Own the moments of calm and embrace the victory that lies ahead.

Jodi invites us to embrace our life, “Take the picture-perfect painting you have for your life off the wall and turn it upside down. Remind yourself that Superman is a comic book figure and Barbie is a doll. Real beauty, and beautiful lives, comes from a willingness to experience the messiness of life.”

In her final message in Depression Fighter Jodi says:

Pressing on and staying in the fight do not promise an end to pain or sadness, but they do promise a personalized path to resilience through whatever adversity you are facing.

STAY IN THE FIGHT.

PRESS ON.

WIN.