How Depression Lies to You - Part 3

How Depression Lies to You – Part 3

I absolutely love my job! For 26 years as a counselor, I have been blessed with the honor of working with thousands of people who I found incredibly delightful – friendly, warm, sensitive, funny, smart, creative! I look forward to spending time with these amazing women and men.

But that is not how they see themselves. Oh no! They have been deceived by another of Depression’s lies: “There is something wrong with me; I’m just not lovable.”

Listen to Kendra in a therapy session after a friend’s wedding:

“I’m so depressed. I had a good time at the wedding, but as the evening wore on, I felt more and more alone. I just know I’ll never get what my friend has; I’ll never be loved like she is. There’s something wrong with me deep inside; I’m just not loveable. I’ve felt it all my life. Even as a child I felt I was a big disappointment to my parents.”

(If you read my other two blogs in this series – the links are below – I’m sure you can spot the first lie – give yourself a quarter for every absolute that is not absolutely true! You can also hear the second lie, “You’ll never feel any better.”)

There’s actually two parts to this lie. The first part is “Everything that anyone has ever taught me about who I am is correct.” The second part is “You have to be perfect to be loved/loveable.” I will cover the second part in my next blog in this series.

Depression repeats a lot of nasty messages that you have picked up over the years. If as a child you repeatedly heard “There’s nothing to be afraid of. Don’t be such a scaredy-cat. You’re just being a cry-baby.” then you will incorporate these messages into what I call your ‘Core Belief System.’

Your Core Beliefs are internalized messages from your family, friends, teachers, coaches, culture, and society, which over time eventually become your definition of who you think you are, “I’m a cry baby. I’m a scaredy-cat.”

You might wonder why this is a lie – it seems like the truth, but it isn’t. Labeling someone ‘a cry-baby’ or ‘a scaredy-cat’ is just an opinion – it is not a fact. If you don’t believe me feel the effect of this message instead, “I know you are scared, but there’s nothing to be afraid of. Take a deep breath and see if that helps you stop crying.”

The trouble is you can teach a child to believe anything. I tell my clients that’s how racists are made – babies are not born hating someone based on their appearance. If you repeatedly tell a child “All Slobbovians are dirty people” then the child will come to believe it – whether it is the truth or not.

So if you repeatedly heard as a child “No one loves a fat girl” you will believe it – whether it is true or not. I hope you can find the absolutes in that sentence, “No one! Not one! In the whole world there is not one person who would love a fat girl?!” (Give yourself another quarter.)

Your Core Beliefs may be so deep that you don’t actually “hear” them – you just feel them. And because you’ve felt them for so long, you are not actually aware of them – you just believe them to be true. But just because you’ve believed them for a long long time, does not make them true. They are still just lies that Depression tells you!

Think about all the Core Beliefs that you believe about yourself. Have you ever really studied them? Where did they come from – or more accurately, who did they come from?

Many of my clients were told they were drama queens, too loud, too flamboyant – the exact qualities that I find so delightful! I often ask them, “Who says you’re too flamboyant? What is it about that person that would make them not like flamboyance?”

So now that you’ve uncovered your Core Beliefs what do you do about them? Well just recognizing that you believe certain things about yourself is the first step. The second step is recognizing when you are repeating the belief to yourself. The next step is to question the validity of the belief – is it someone’s long ago opinion or is it a fact – a true fact, and not just another Lie from that lying liar Depression.

Get in touch with your inner Rebel and ask, “Who says?! Who says I am too loud?” Tell yourself, “”Even if I am loud, are people who are loud loveable? Yes!”

I’ll go into the other half of this Lie in my next blog article.

Namastè,

Amy

Here’s the links to the first two articles in this series:

http://awakeningcenter.blogspot.com/2012/02/how-depression-lies-to-you-part-1.html

http://awakeningcenter.blogspot.com/2012/02/how-depression-lies-to-you-part-2.html

Amy Grabowski, MA, LCPC is the director of The Awakening Center which she founded in 1994.

How Depression Lies to You - Part 2

How Depression Lies to You – Part 2

Wow! My last blog article “How Depression Lies to You – Part 1” http://awakeningcenter.blogspot.com/2012/02/how-depression-lies-to-you-part-1.html generated a lot of comments both on line and in my sessions with clients. Depression tells us so many lies!

My friend Gerald Stein who writes “Blogging about Psychotherapy from Chicago” (http://drgeraldstein.wordpress.com/) reminded me of another lie depression tells us, “You’re always going to feel this way. You’ll never feel any better.” Of course, as I pointed out in Part 1, you know those are absolutes which are not absolutely true – so go put 2 quarters in your jar. :o)

That’s how depression keeps itself going. By telling you that you are never going to feel any better, you give up and sink back down into the depression – thus proving depression’s lie.

Unfortunately there are some therapists who believe this lie as well. Way back when I was struggling with my own pit of depression, the therapist I was seeing told me, “Maybe you should just admit to yourself that you’re always going to be this way. Maybe this is just who you are. You are just a depressed person.” (At the time I didn’t know you were allowed to switch therapists if it just wasn’t working. But again I digress…)

The truth is that every emotion we have, even depression, comes and goes. An emotion is like a wave: it rises, crests and fades. If we step back and notice our emotion, without becoming attached to it, we can allow it to rise, crest and fade.

But noticing that you’re in the beginning of a depression, usually just starts up depression’s lies: “OMG, I feel down in the dumps. Today’s going to be horrible! You’re not going to feel any better. You might as well just stay in bed all day.” And you know what happens with that – you get more depressed. And when you get more depressed, depression just tells you more lies – and you get more depressed – which generates more lies – and you get more depressed.

By this time usually clients point out to me, “But don’t I have a chemical imbalance in my brain. Isn’t it a fact that my brain causes my depression?”

Well, yes and no. When I was depressed I took antidepressants because I was told that I had a chemical imbalance in my brain. I didn’t find that it was that helpful. I worked hard with various therapists over a course of years, and I found my way back to the “person I was meant to be.” Now, I feel truly different; I don’t even think of myself as a depressed person – and I don’t take medication. And if my depression was truly caused by a chemical imbalance, how could that be?

I do not want to imply that taking medication is bad or wrong. Antidepressants are much better now than they were in the 1980’s when I was struggling. Some of my clients find that medication is like a light switch – it makes a huge difference in how they feel and think.

No one really knows what causes depression. I always wonder, “Which came first: the chicken or the egg?” Do the lies that depression tells you cause the chemical imbalance or does the chemical imbalance cause the lies that depression tells you?

If you ask a friend to think of the saddest day of their life, they will feel a physical change in their mind and body: a feeling of heaviness comes over them, an ache in the chest, a pressure behind their eyes, a sapping of energy. Now if we were able to test their brain, there would be a chemical change – simply by thinking a sad thought. If we asked the same friend to now think of the happiest day of their life, they would experience different physical, mental and emotional sensations – again, simply by thinking a happy thought.

Ugh! That last sentence made me think of the movie Pollyanna: “Let’s play the glad game. Let’s be glad we don’t need the crutches!” I don’t want this blog to be, “All you have to do is just think happy thoughts and you won’t be depressed!” But we know that listening to the lies of depression fuels the depression. And the deeper we sink into the depression, the harder it is to do the things we know will help lift us out of the depression. But just because it’s hard, doesn’t mean it is impossible. And it doesn’t mean that you will always be this way, forever.

I would love to hear your questions, comments, suggestions, feedback about this – both positive and negative. I’ll write more in my next blog.

Namastè, Amy

Amy Grabowski, MA, LCPC is a psychotherapist who truly enjoys helping others find the person they were meant to be! She dedicates this blog to someone she loves who struggles with depression.

I found the image “Don’t Believe The Lies” on a blog by “Alizah Grace” – you may want to read her post: “Pants on Fire” - http://alizah-deathtolife.blogspot.com/2011/01/pants-on-fire-monday-january-17-2011.html

You can buy the “Don’t Believe The Lies” t-shirt at: http://www.redmolotov.com/catalogue/tshirts/all/dont-believe-the-lies-tshirt/blacktshirt.html

How Depression Lies to You - Part 1

How Depression Lies to You - Part 1

Depression lies to you! Let’s face it head on: Depression is a mean old lying liar! If depression was on TV it would be Tommy Flanagan, the Pathological Liar from SNL. If depression was at a party, you would avoid it like Debby Downer! If depression was a co-worker, you would not believe 98% of what it told you. Depression lies!

I know depression lies! I worked really hard to stop believing the lies depression told me years ago. And I want so badly to help you stop believing depression’s lies too.

The problem with depression is that you don’t believe it is lying to you. You believe what depression tells you. Why? Because depression lies to you about YOU! And because depression may have been lying to you about you for such a very long time, you are so used to what depression tells you that you don’t even question the truthfulness of it.

Sometimes depression lies about other people: “People don’t really care.” But that lie may lead to another lie which is about you: “You’re so unimportant that no one cares.” Or “You’re so boring that no one cares.” Or a bigger lie, “You’re so unlovable that no one cares.”

Even though I could go on and on about all the different lies that depression tells, I am going to zero in on just one lie – although I must admit I am having a hard time figuring out which lie to focus on because all of depression’s lies are so destructive. I promise that in my next blog article I will punch the living daylights out of another of depression’s lies.

One way that depression lies is by using ‘absolutes’ that are not ‘absolutely true.’ An absolute is a word like: always, never, nothing, nobody, everyone, everything… - you get the idea. It is absolutely true if I said, “I have never climbed Mount Everest.” (It’s probably absolutely true to even say, “I will never climb Mount Everest.” But then again, I may surprise myself someday.) It is not absolutely true if I said, “You’ll never get your book published.”

(Notice how different depressed Parts may use different pronouns – a young depressed Part may say, “I’ll never be good enough.” While another older more critical depressed Part may say, “You’ll never be good enough.” But I digress….)

When depression lies to you and says, “You’ll never get your book published” you feel like you are fighting an impossible battle and want to give up. When you give up, that just reinforces the lie that depression just told you. If we say a true statement – try to substitute another word for the absolute – it doesn’t have the same defeating ‘one, two punch’ of the depressed lie: “It’s been hard to find a publisher for my book. I will continue to search until I find one.”

Since depression has been lying to you for such a long time, it may be hard for you to think of a substitute word. I suggest thinking of your best friend, what would you say to him or her. If your friend said, “I’ll never get my book published” would you say, “Yeah, you better give up trying?” No. You would encourage your friend, “Hang in there. I know it’s been hard, but keep trying. It could be right around the corner. You can’t tell when it will happen for you.”

I encourage my clients to make a game out of catching the absolutes that are not absolutely true. Put a glass jar on the counter of your kitchen. Every time anyone in your household uses an absolute that is not absolutely true, put a quarter in the jar. When the jar is full, treat yourself to something fun or pampering – go to a movie, get a massage, buy a new novel.

At first you’ll notice how many absolutes that are not absolutely true you actually use – and depression may even try to lie to you about that, “You’ll never stop doing this. You’ll always be this way.” (Hey, there’s 50 cents towards your massage right there!) After a while you’ll notice that you can catch depression in the middle of a lie, “You’ll nev…. Stop, that’s not absolutely true!” Eventually you’ll get in the habit of speaking the truth to yourself.

I would love to hear from you – what lies does depression tell you? Do you have any depression fighting tools that work for you?

I want to thank Zazzle Insights for permission to use the image above. You can purchase this card and send it to a depressed friend (or buy it for yourself) at http://zazzleinsights.posterous.com/?tag=cards

Namastè,

Amy

Amy Grabowski, MA, LCPC is the Founder and Director of The Awakening Center. She has written a book: “Both Halves of Recovery from Anorexia, Bulimia, and Binge Eating.”

Does anyone know a publisher? :o)