CONQUERING
DEPRESSION, ENJOYING LIFE
Julian
L. Simon
As of
April, l975, I had been
severely depressed almost
every day for thirteen
years--which is quite
unusual. Then I braced
myself for one last attempt
to get rid of the
depression before giving up
the struggle against it. In
the process, I discovered
the psychological mechanism
that is the proximate cause
of sadness and depression.
That discovery enabled me
to take advantage of a
couple of insights about
myself. Within two weeks I
had banished my depression.
Since
April, l975, until now
(September, 1990) I have
been glad to be alive, and
I have taken pleasure in my
days. I have occasionally
even been ecstatic,
skipping and leaping from
joy, especially in the
early years when relief of
the pain of depression was
fresh. Though I must still
fight off depression, I
have not lost more than a
minor skirmish since then,
and I believe that--if my
family and community stay
safe from catastrophe--I
have beaten depression for
life. When I wrote the
first draft of this article
in 1978 (I then put it away
to be sure that my cure was
not just temporary) I wrote
that "Even if I am
wrong and eventually I
suffer a permanent relapse,
these three years of
happiness and freedom from
depression would leave me
grateful for my good
fortune." The good
fortune continues, and I am
more grateful than ever.
When I say
that I was depressed for
thirteen years, I mean that
except for some of the
hours when I was working or
playing sports or making
love, I was almost
continuously conscious of
being miserable, and I
almost continuously
reflected on my
worthlessness. I wished for
death, and I refused to
kill myself solely because
I believed that my children
needed me, just as all
children need a father.
Endless hours every day I
reviewed my faults and
failures, which made me
writhe in pain. To
dramatize the matter: As I
look back now, I'd rather
have a tooth pulled, and
have the operation bungled,
or have the worst possible
case of flu, in comparison
to re-living any one of
those days feeling as I did
then.
By
"depression,"
psychiatrists and
psychologists mean a state
of mind in which you are 1)
sad or "blue",
and 2) have a low regard
for yourself. This article
explains the mechanism that
makes a person sad. After
you understand it you can
alter the mechanism in a
variety of ways that can
alleviate sadness and
depression. The mechanism
does not by itself produce
or explain low self-regard.
But if you manipulate the
mechanism properly you will
not be pre-occupied and
ravaged by low self-regard.
Though this mechanism has
been noted by others, its
explanation had not been
developed systematically
and scientifically. The key
elements have now been
confirmed in experimental
studies, however. And
leading psychiatrists and
psychologists agree that
this is a sound way to deal
with depression.
This is the
mechanism that causes the
sadness in depression:
when-ever you think about
yourself in an evaluative
way--which most of us do
frequently throughout the
day-- your thought takes
the form of a comparison
between the state you think
you are in, and some other
hypothetical
"benchmark" state
of affairs. The benchmark
state may be the state you
think you ought to
be in, the state you formerly
were in, the state you expected
or hoped to be in,
or the state you aspired
to achieve. The comparison
will make you feel sad if
the state you think you are
in is less positive
than the state you compare
yourself to.
Consider this formula:
Mood = Perceived
state of oneself
Hypothetical benchmark
state
If the
numerator in the Mood Ratio
is high relative to the
denominator--if the
comparison is positive--you
feel pleasure. If
the numerator in the Mood
Ratio is low relative to
the denominator--that is,
if the comparison is
negative--you feel pain.1
And if you also feel helpless
to change the situation or
your thoughts, you will
then feel sad. A
continuation of this state
of sadness hardens into depression.
The
comparison may be with
respect to many possible
personal characteristics--
occupational success,
personal relationships,
health, and morality, for a
few examples. You may
compare yourself on several
different characteristics
from time to time. As long
as the bulk of your
self-comparison thoughts
are negative over a
sustained period of time,
and you continue to feel
helpless to change your
situation, you will be
depressed.
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