The help that we can all use.
Since my Facebook post yesterday (here) announcing Inward Ride and how it ties in with my life-long, treatment-resistant depression, I’ve received a few private messages from friends. They expressed their gratitude for the candid way with which I wrote, and shared the hardships that they are going through, or that their family members are.
I have noticed for myself that when I'm suffering, I don't need anyone to solve my problems or to carry my load for me. This is an important distinction: Perhaps the fear of being a burden to others creates the shame and fear of opening up about what’s really happening, and asking for help. It’s no accident that in social networks we tend to see only the shining perfection of people’s lives.
Among the most common experiences of those with depression are a sense of disconnection and a feeling of not-belonging. The help that I need when I'm suffering is to be able to reconnect and feel that I belong again. (Those who fortunately don’t suffer from depression are not able to understand this deep sense of disconnection.) I don’t need solutions, or a pat in the back, but instead, the quiet availability of one's attention and loving interest. That alone makes me re-experience connection, and that I again belong to the human family.
We don’t need theory about why we’re suffering. Who truly knows the ‘why’? And we certainly don’t need uninformed interventions, either. I was recently told that what I truly needed was a 9-to-5 job, and that would help my depression.
Irvin Yalom, M.D., Professor Emeritus at Stanford University and one of my favorite authors of all time, explains that in his life-long practice as a psychotherapist, he believes that what cures is the quality of the listening.
Not advice, just kind and loving presence.
As the proverb says, “Pray to God and tie your camel”. So we do ask for help, for loving presence from those in our lives. And we do what it takes, in healthy ways, to stabilize our suffering and our behavior. Sometimes with antidepressants and therapy, mindfulness and meditation, exercise and healthy nutrition, and sometimes with more extreme measures, such as the Ketamine treatment that I am going to go through in August.
It takes courage to acknowledge, even to myself, that I am suffering, and that I need help. May we all be able to develop this courage.
Inward Ride and Ciro Coelho are supported by:
Aether Apparel website, Facebook and Instagram
Couple contemplates the view from the Lake Yellowstone Hotel, in Yellowstone Nation Park, Wyoming. September 2018. ©Ciro Coelho/InwardRide.com