Hitting the COVID wall

Closings. Openings with strict limits. Online and virtual shows. Through it all, I’ve worked and made work. While I’ve always been good at promoting other people, companies and arts organizations, I’ve never been comfortable promoting myself. 

But I knew that had to change. So I posted. Blogged. Jumped back on Etsy and Pinterest.  Reorganized my website and blog. And even in the New Year, I keep looking to redo, redesign or refigure all my online efforts to find a way, a better way, or maybe any way to survive in this crazy covid world.

I kept my fingers crossed. I told myself it would all be over soon. 

Yeah. Right?

It started so softly, I didn’t notice at first. A restless night. Crankiness. Then came the WTF attitude that is so not the me I know. After the holidays, it’s normal to hit a slump but this was more like a slide down a muddy hill into gooey, sticky mud. 

And I didn’t even try to fight my way out of the mud. I just sat down in it. And stared at nothing. 

Covid 19 depression is real. Since the quarantines and social distancing, depression rates have gone up. Post holidays, it’s only gotten worse. New research shows Americans in 2020 are sadder than they’ve been in most years over the past decade, with more than a quarter, 27%, reporting they experienced a lot of sadness the previous day, the Gallup 2020 Global Emotions Report found.

So if you’re feeling it, like I am, know you’re not crazy and you’re not alone. 

Now What?

That’s what I asked myself as I leaned against my Mother Cedar tree. She quickly answered, “Stop fighting it and lean in.” 

How do I do that? What could I do? Well, the obvious answer is: nothing. 

What I discovered this week is that doing nothing can mean a lot of things, actually. It can mean sitting quietly and sighing. Looking out at the trees. Sipping a cool glass of water or hot tea. Letting music fill my mind instead of negative thoughts, allowing tears to flow and sitting still. 

Throwing therapy also helps. Especially when I decide it’s just that and not a production goal. So this week, I took out the last clay out of an old bag. I wedged it by slamming it against the board. I slapped it onto my wheel and leaned in. What did I expect: nothing. What did I get: two small bowls. 

Will they survive firing? I don’t know and, frankly, I don’t care.  

Because it was the act of throwing that helped me survive this, one more covid, week. 

What would help you?

Peace and Curiosity.

It's been a long week in America.  Much has changed and I am one of many reeling with feelings long held captive in my soul.  Feelings so deep, words fail to describe them as they surface in waves.  Thoughts whirlpool.  What? How? Why? 

Breathe.  

As I calm my children in their panic and fear.  As I shake my head in disbelief.  As I try to assure my children and their children and myself that somehow good will prevail. 

Breathe deeper.

There is a fog over the lake today.  It a lies thick over the water and deadens the sounds of the ducks and geese.  But just as I let the fog shroud me, too, I turn the corner and there 4 feet away, close to the edge of the lake is a great, blue heron.  Majestic and still in the cold water, waiting with patience undisturbed by my presence, the heron is focused on what is most important in this moment.  Only.  

Breathe again.

The fog hovers still over the water but up above, there is a halo forming in the sky.  The gray shroud is shimmering as the sun gently and pushes its way through.  A light.  A beacon.  Hope.

Breathe.

I wonder as I wander through the woods.  It is the trees rooted below the fallen and decaying leaves that give me strength.  Below the decay of this year's leaves is fertile soil bringing life to the roots of the tree.  I know that no matter who or how or what winds blow through these woods, my tree is safe and strong and growing.

Have you ever noticed that even on a shrouded, foggy day, there is gold?  The yellow, golden leaves that have refused to fall, shine forth.  Anyway. 

Breathe anyway.

 

 

Dealing with feelings without drugs.

A new book, “Rethinking Depression” by Eric Maisel


I was 16 when my parents moved across country a month before my junior prom. I cried and cried. My stomach got upset and my face broke out. I cried some more. The solution? The doctor prescribed phenobarbital, 3 times a day.

I didn’t feel sad or anxious or mad anymore. I didn’t feel anything. I went to school each day completely zoned out. The drugs dealt with my normal, yet unpleasant adolescent feelings at the time. Years later, I found out that drugs don’t take unpleasant feelings away, they take you away from yourself.

Now, most people would say that I was suffering from depression. That I needed an antidepressant. After what I went through with drugs as a teenager, I disagree. Taking a pill only makes you feel less. Your feelings feel good and bad, but that doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong with you or your feelings. Sadness is a feeling, not a disease.

Eric Maisel, PhD, a licensed psychotherapist and author would agree. His new book, “Rethinking Depression”, does two key things: 1) it disputes the prevailing view that depression is a disease and 2) it introduces a complete program for addressing human sadness.

According to Maisel, “There is something profoundly wrong with the way that we currently name and treat certain human phenomena. When we call something a “mental disease” or a “mental disorder” we imply a great deal about its origins, its treatment, its intractability, and its locus of control. The mental health industry has its reasons for calling life’s challenges “disorders” but we have few good reasons to collude with them. In fact, the word depression has virtually replaced unhappiness in our internal vocabularies. We feel sad but we call ourselves depressed. Having unconsciously made this linguistic switch, when we look for help we naturally turn to a “depression expert.” We look to a pill, a therapist, a social worker, or a pastoral counselor — even if we’re sad because we’re having trouble paying the bills, because our career is not taking off, or because our relationship is on the skids. That is, even if our sadness is rooted in our circumstances, social forces cause us to name that sadness “depression” and to look for “help with our depression.” People have been trained to call their sadness “depression” by the many forces acting upon them, from the mental health industry to mass culture to advertising.”

In reviewing the book, I came across alarming statistics about depression and drugs.

 1 in 10 or 11% of people in the U.S. are taking anti-depressants
 20 million Americans are diagnosed with depression each year.
 120 million people worldwide are reputed to be suffering from depression.
 From 1996 to 2005, the number of Americans taking antidepressants doubled
 Antidepressants are the most prescribed drug in the USA.

Here’s what Eric Maisel says in “Rethinking Depression” about drugs and depression.

“Chemicals have effects and they can alter a human being’s experience of life. That a chemical called an antidepressant can change your mood in no way constitutes proof that you have a mental disorder called depression. All that it proves is that chemicals can have an effect on mood. There is a fundamental difference between taking a drug because it is the appropriate treatment for a medical illness and taking a drug because it can have an effect. This core distinction is regularly obscured in the world of treating depression.”

Eric explains the need to let feelings be feelings and not an illness.

“By taking the common human experience of unhappiness out of the shadows and acknowledging its existence, we begin to reduce its power. At first it is nothing but painful to say, “I am profoundly unhappy.” The words cut to the quick. They seem to come with a life sentence and allow no room for anything sweet or hopeful. But the gloom can lift”.

Eric’s solution is to live a life with meaning. Where there’s room for feelings and a life where you decide what is meaningful for you.

“Living authentically means organizing your life around your answers to three fundamental questions. The first is, “What matters to you?” The second is, “Are your thoughts aligned with what matters to you?” The third is, “Are your behaviors aligned with what matters to you?” You accept and embrace the fact that you are the final arbiter of your life’s meaning. With this approach to life, each day is a project requiring existential engineering skills as you bridge your way from one meaningful experience to the next.”

“If we can begin to move from the “depression is a mental disorder” model to the idea that human beings must deal more effectively with the realities of human existence, including the realities of sadness, despair, and grief, we will have taken a giant step away from “medicalizing everything” and toward lives lived with renewed passion, power and purpose.”

I wish I’d known all this when I was 16. I’d have been able to see that my sadness and anger were normal feelings and crying was a normal outlet especially for a teenager. Maybe, with support and understanding for my feelings instead of masking my feelings with drugs, I would have moved across the country and through my feelings to experience confidence from making new friends in a new high school.

Here’s some more information about Eric Maisel and “Rethinking Depression”

Eric Maisel, PhD, is a licensed psychotherapist and the author of Rethinking Depression and numerous other titles including Mastering Creative Anxiety, Brainstorm, Coaching the Artist Within, and A Writer’s San Francisco. He blogs for Psychology Today and the Huffington Post and writes for Professional Artist Magazine. Visit him online at http://www.ericmaisel.com.
Excerpts from Rethinking Depression ©2012 by Eric Maisel. Printed with permission of New World Library, Novato, CA. www.newworldlibrary.com