Dear
A. B. Curtiss
I
once contacted you and you kindly responded to my email inquiry. (I don’t
remember how long ago.) But, since that time I have been off of all
antidepressant/antianxiety drugs for a couple of years. During this past
year my mom was in and out of the hospital for a month at a time and my dad
passed away suddenly and unexpectedly. I took care of my mom 24/7 for a
couple of months until we were able to find a place that was able to provide
for her needs.
During
this stressful time I felt slightly manic but managed to keep
myself “together.” Then during Daylight Savings time and the start of winter
I “crashed”…since then I have been using Light Therapy, vitamin D3 and
rereading your book, Brainswitch. I have several questions.
1)
My mom is unable to leave the assisted living facility due to her the nature of
her physical disabilities. She is quite depressed. I find that I
feel anxious/depressed as soon as I enter the facility. So I am
struggling with using brainswitching techniques while
talking/spending time with mom. (she has always had a negative outlook on
life’s events—but more so now) I have tried to talk to her about training the
brain—she just isn’t open to the ideas. In the meantime I find that I am
affected by her mood. How does one carry on a conversation with a
depressed/anxious loved one and keep from triggering those pesky neuronal
associations? Do I simply practice the techniques before and after
visits?
2)
Same question re: news. I avoid watching/listening to most news for the
same reason. I have, however, read about environmental issues for over 30
years. I keep up with these issues online too—to give support to
environmental movements and sign the petitions. But, I have to admit that even
from a neocortex point of view the news is not encouraging for the fate of life
on our planet. So is my only choice to ignore all news? Obviously
there are a lot of neuronal associations with the destruction of life forms on
our planet. It seems like it should be possible to be informed without
panic attacks but not so sure anymore.
3)
I am not religious—and so I don’t have the comfort of believing in an
afterlife. The more losses I have experienced in life the more I find
that it’s harder to distract myself from fear of loss/dying.
I
think what I am trying to figure out is how to balance my thinking more—I find
it almost impossible not to ponder the big picture but I also don’t want to
feel crippled from anxiety/depression—and the pathways in my brain.
Hope
this made sense!
S
Dear S,
Perhaps what might work for you with your mom is to reframe
in your own mind what she is really trying to communicate instead of getting
sucked into her negativity. People who are depressed all the time are very
self-focused. They have positioned themselves in such a way that they deal with
the world only through their struggle with depression and, more than that, they
force everybody around them to deal with them only through their struggle with
depression. It is a very safe cocoon where the depressed person never really
experiences the reality of the world or the reality of the people around them. It
makes for limited relationships with both.
But, no matter, the depressed person still wants what we all
want. We all want to feel loved and respected and made to feel that we matter,
that we are special to somebody, that we are a worthwhile person. In a way, deep
down we all want the impossible—to be loved unconditionally. And of course,
that’s never going to happen. So all of us are forever slightly disappointed
with life.
The best possibility for you is to accept your mom in her
cocoon without getting drawn into her cocoon. With love. Concentrate on what
small ways you can show love for her without expecting any overt positive
feedback for your efforts. Remember that if you require someone to have a particular
response to your loving outreach to them, then the outreach is not a pure gift
without strings. The string is that you require something in particular back
from them for your outreach.
I am an author and do booksignings frequently. I offer
people bookmarks as they walk by my table. “Would you like a bookmark?” If I
feel offended that they turn away and don’t take my offered book mark or don’t
even bother to say “no thanks” and just walk away then my offering them a bookmark
is not a pure offer. It comes with strings.
So concentrate on the love you are generating for your mom
rather than knocking on her closed and locked door and expecting her to open
it. Your relationship is, of course, limited. I had a very limited relationship
with my mom and I finally just kept her company by being a kind handmaiden to
her, finding small ways to make her comfortable, reminding her of something she
had accomplished over the years, or some kind thing I remembered that she did
for me when I was young and how much I appreciated it.
After all, I was a helpless baby and little girl and I
wouldn’t have survived without my mother. And my mom did not have the benefit
of my education (she never even finished high school). She was very bitter
towards my father and always felt like a victim in some way. I finally got her
to write her autobiography and got her to admit that it was much more
interesting because my father had done so many stupid things that she could now
write about. I published her book for her on iUniverse. It’s called “The Early
Days” by Bert Beman. She was so proud of that book. My mom was very beautiful
as a young woman and I kept reminding her of that.
It’s hard to be a human being. How do you get out of your
own depression? You have to keep reminding yourself that depression is not real
life and you have to leave that room whenever you realize you have wandered
into it, determinedly close the door and get outside your depression to real
life by re-engaging with real life. Do some chores. Reach out to some friend.
If you don’t have a good friend, or any friends then go out in the world and
start to look for one. Join some book club (most libraries and small town
Barnes and Nobel’s have them), some charity, some class, any kind of local
activity. Read Dale Carnegies’ How to Win Friends and Influence People for some
ideas of how to make a good impression on people. It really does help.
Stop yourself when you get into downer thinking about
anything. The economy, the environment, the street protesters, the fate of planet Earth. The problem with
downer thinking is that nothing good comes from a negative thought. So a negative
thought should never be an option. Be brave. Be a noble person. Tell yourself
that some good might come of the day ahead. Could happen. There are millions of
people dumping their depressed thoughts into the world. Don’t be one of them.
Maybe your positive thought might even help the world somehow. Could happen.
You can’t solve the problems of the world all you can do is some small positive
thing in your own sphere of influence. When you get bogged down by thoughts
about the destruction of the planet or the futility of life or fears of your own mortality, read the “Desideratea.” I find it
comforting and have committed it to memory Get a biography of somebody like Mark
Twain or Benjamin Franklin and read it. All human just like you and me. You
reached out by writing to me. I feel good being able to answer you. Win—win.
You are never really alone and alienated. We’re all in this together, hooked
together by own humanity. A. B. Curtiss
