One More for "In the Box"

I woke up with depression about 5 am and started to use the put depression "in the box" exercise. I really wasn't all that successful. The depression wouldn't go in. It was all enveloping. It was too huge. The pressure in my chest was hard and painful, the hopelessness was agony. But I kept at it. I tried a whole bunch of things, singing to myself. I tried four or five songs. I couldn't "get into" any of them. Then the clock struck 5:30.

Oh, well, I thought, " Do you want to think, or do you want to sleep?"  I can always do counting "1,2,3,4 who are we for." It's an old high school cheer.

But here's the thing. Just before I started the counting I realized that  the hopelessness was not there anymore. The physical symptoms were still there but they are not so bad once the hopelessness and despair is gone. They are much more bearable.  I did concentrate on the counting exercise and drifted off a couple of times to sleep but kept waking up. Now the physical symptoms were fading as well. I was actually feeling pretty good and enjoying lazing out in bed even though I wasn't sleeping.

So often in the morning I can't enjoy lying in bed when I wake up because I'm feeling depressed. But this time I had finished the depression before I got up. Then the clock struck 6 am and I decided it was time to get up and start my day.

For more than a half hour I wasn't successful with any particular exercise in that I couldn't concentrate on it very long. But I was concentrating on something objective. I was concentrating on ON DOING SOMETHING OTHER THAN COLLAPSING INTO MY SUFFERING . The concentration of keeping on trying one exercise after the other, and not ever giving up and, instead, concentrating on the depression, did the trick anyway. I wasn't successful with any one exercise. But I was successful in objective thinking, no matter how unorganized. After one hour I ended up 100% okay.

Sometimes I can get through depression faster than one hour because I either go back to sleep if it's really early, or if I get up and start doing my morning chores. But I'll gladly settle for an hour after the years and years of being stuck in depression for days or weeks.. 

A. B. Curtiss

More "Depression in a Box"

Dear A.B., 

I ended up taking a sick leave from work 10 days ago - I had a bad breakdown and just could no longer push myself.  I stayed in bed for about a week - slept almost continuously and felt just a relief that I didn't need to push myself in that way any longer.   I know I have to be proactive so I decided to go to a Depression treatment center - that doesn’t rely on medication for a month from Wed –

I won't have any outside contact for the whole month.  At this stage, I need some ouside help to give structure to figure out what to do when I come out, with the support of family and friends, I think and hope it's the best option for me now.    Surprisingly, I don't feel as depressed and anxious now that the work pressure is gone.  But I know life must go on, and I need to construct my proper life on my own, and of course I'll never give up no matter what.     Y________

Dear Y________

I will be thinking about you. You sound thoroughly committed to helping yourself and that is a great start. If you read my blog you might remember that someone sent me an exercise that he uses to get out of depression. He puts depression “in a box,” and he thinks “outside the box.” It’s excellent for getting in touch with your “self” and differentiating your “self” from your depression.’

I’ve been using it myself. It’s very interesting. Once you put depression “in a box” then you can think “outside the box.” and decide what to do about the depression. Mainly it gives you a more graphic picture that you are not your depression. I recommend you try it. Last time I used it I had all sorts of ideas what I was going to do with depression now that it was captured "inside the box." Just imaging all the things I could do with it caused it to completely disappear into the objective thinking of the neocortex. All the neural activity just powered down in the subcortex.

Funny thing, but the box I put depression is in always the same. It’s an oblong, unpainted, rather shallow metal box kind of like a safety deposit box but a little bigger.

I wish you Godspeed. A. B. Curtiss

I Cannot Believe How Happiness Comes After all the Struggling

Dear Curtiss

I do not know how to thank you because I cannot believe how happiness changed my life suddenly after the struggling. 

Thanks So much again.R_______

Dear R________

You are welcome. But remember, as the I Ching counsels, "there’s no plain not followed by a slope." You will always have ups and downs, highs and lows. Just anticipate that another low will come sooner or later and you won’t have to be afraid because you are prepared, you know how to get out of it.

By the way I’m intrigued with your “out of the box” exercise and have been using it sometimes for my own  depression when it hits. It is a great device for immediately accessing the neocortex and when you do that, the sense of hopelessness and futility seem to fade immediately. Probably because, since you are putting depression in a box, obviously you cannot be helpless

The physical symptoms might continue for a while but the sense of hopelessness and futility are the most painful. When they are gone, the other is more like a toothache instead the end of “life as you know it."

.

A. B. Curtiss.

What Makes Us Human?

Historian William H. McNeill says  that what makes us different from other forms of life is our capacity to invent a world of shared feelings and symbolic meanings, and then act upon them in concert

 We cannot separate ourselves out of our emotional connection with our.fellows very long and remain well-balanced and well-grounded because we need each other as part and parcel of our combined ongoing social community. This is one of the important things to remember when we are depressed. We must not take to  bed and pull the covers up over our heads.

We must not take the line of least resistance and adapt ourselves to our own depression or mania. We must adapt, instead, to the regular, ongoing, evolving, give-and-take society of our fellows.. our family, our workplace.  Adapting to the world outside our own brain always involves some fear and self-discomfort, and therefore we will need courage and persistence to move forward. We don't feel like going forward because depression robs us of our motivation, we don't feel like doing anything.

But  you should remember the importance of maintaining fellowship, even the modest ones such as the postman, the grocery clerk, the waitress, when you are suffering from depression. We can help each other. But we must get out there in the world again both to be helped and once we feel better to help someone else.

More "Out of the Box" Thinking

Yesterday I did not wake up depressed. But I was depressed when I woke up this morning so I decided to try the "out of the box" idea. It was very interesting. What it did was to involve me in a rational, back and forth, conversation with myself. I guess in a way I must converse somehow with myself anyway when I decide to do a song or counting exercise the minute I realize I'm depressed. But the conversation is so minimal that I never even realized, before, that I must have been having it. It seemed to me that I always just went directly to some dumb exercise by a quick unilateral decision. There was never any debate about it. Then I doubled down on the exercises when I got sidetracked by depression again, and continued to do that as long as the pain was bad, or until I took up my daily chores and then, in doing them, the depression always disappeared.

This time the conversation was more prolonged and obvious.

"Okay, so I'm depressed. So that means I'm ' in the box. So that means I need to think out of the box to connect to my "self."

"Okay, I'm connected. Now what?

(This was really interesting what I said to myself next.)

"So now you are thinking "out of the box" and deciding what you want to do about your depression that's "in the box."

"That's in the box, but I'm not in the box, right?"

"Right."

(I then noticed , without verbalizing it in a conversational way with myself, that the hopelessness was no longer there. The mental anguish brought about by feelings of futility seemed gone and what remained was only the physical symptoms.Pressure and squeezing in the chest area, pain in the chest area, hard to breath, tight throat."

Then  the converstion  with myself continued.

"So the hopelessness and sense of futility is gone. This means that you can get the neocortex working without doing the exercises. So you can access your rational neocortex right away even when you're depressed.

Right

But you still have the physical symptoms and if you don't want to endure them or be aware of their discomfort, you can do the mind exercises and just be aware of some dumb song. Or you could just get up and get dressed and get busy with yard work.

I got dressed, got myself some water, walked the dog, cut some roses for the house, and went out to do yard work. By the time I looked around for my hoe and shovel, the depression was totally gone.
A. B. Curtiss

Being Depressed is Being "Inside the Box"

Dear Ms Curtiss

I decided to think of the " Inside the box" when I feel that i am in depression and in order to get out I have to think "out side the box" 

This helps me a lot in identifying my self.  Regards, R

Dear R________

What a great idea. I might use that myself. It's something that we shouldn't forget, our SELF. Our SELF is never depressed, only the subcortex-driven primal mind is depressed.

More on the Blogger's Depression

To continue the post from yesterday. I went out to do the gardening for the morning, carrying with me some left over physical symptoms of the earlier depression that hadn't subsided completely, although the edge was off.. It was heavy work. I was digging trenches around my avocado trees to catch more water since rain is due Sunday and the trees are on a hill. I figure the more water I can retain from the rain, the less water I have to use to irrigate. By hard work I mean I was huffing and puffing when my hour was up and I came back in to prepare for my swim. There were no physical symptoms from the earlier depression. No pressure in the chest, no trouble with breathing. I was absolutely fine. I was absolutely happy.

It seems so strange to have depression come down and zap me into this really terrible place. And then, with absolutely nothing in my life changing, just by my getting to work and picking up my daily routine, the depression completely goes away. The rest of the day was fine, my evening was wonderful.

And I woke up around 4am and there was the black cloak thrown over me again. Despair, a black sense of futility, nothing's worth anything. It 's so painful. And yet I am able to keep a sense of awareness that this "may not be present reality," "this is just depression, remember," "I can get rid of it." All those things are true and yet the feeling is so pervasive that I can't "talk" myself out of it immediately. No matter how much I tell myself that it's just depression, it still hurts. I have to really turn my thinking completely away from it. I do the brainswitching exercises. A couple of times I had to tell myself "do you want to think or do you want to sleep." I did go back to sleep with the counting exercises and got up at 6am. The depression was still there but fainter.  I did some singing to myself as I dressed and went out to garden. Ten minutes after being outside I realized that, again, I was 100% okay. Talk about 24 hour cycles!

At night I always feel so wonderful I can't believe how bad I felt in the morning. I can remember feeling bad, but I can't "call back" the actual agonizing feeling. It's my experience that it is impossible to feel bad on purpose. Maybe I could get there, as an experiment, if I did a lot of negative thinking. But the habit is so ingrained in me to immediately stop negative thinking, thinking about things going wrong, or worrying about something. I just don't want to do that kind of experiment. Maybe it's like the Hippocratic Oath, "first, do no harm."

The pattern is always the same. I'll go to sleep and almost always wake up depressed.But the exercises always work. Even when I'm depressed I still think I'm in charge and so depression has no fear for me even though the feeling is fearful and agonizing. I can still separate out "me" from "how I feel." A. B. Curtiss