Dancing with Depression (1)

Introduction:

Dancing with Depression will be a series of articles written to let depression "out of the closet." It is estimated 350 million people world wide suffer from depression and that only two in ten people are receiving treatment. The shame and stigma associated with having depression especially among professional and family care givers often prevents us from seeking the help we need.

In Dancing with Depression I will share my experience as a consumer and a clinician who has had a life long struggle with depression, - nearly lost to suicide, received traditional treatment including medication and counseling and has discovered and developed non-traditional approaches including Qigong, meditation, somatic experiencing, visualization, Focusing and others to transform depression from a life-endangering fight into a dance.

I will describe how depression feels from the inside and share my clinical experience as a therapist working with hundreds of people who have suffered from depression. I am also writing this article for professional and family care givers. There is a close relationship between compassion fatigue and depression. Those of us who are repeatedly exposed to the suffering of people we care and provide treatment for are particularly vulnerable to depression.

The Roar of Depression

It’s sometimes the case in my life that I come to a point of understanding far removed from the place I originally expected to go. When Lean-Gaik - my wife - and I planned our trip to Maui 8  years ago I was certain this would be a joyful journey of clarity and enlightenment. Memories of the magical sojourn I made thirty years ago to the Seven Sacred Pools – at that time an enchanting and secluded place in Maui – filled me with anticipation and expectation. I was not prepared for the painful trek that was to unfold.

Our accommodations at the Sheraton resort near Lahaina were quite pleasant. We settled into a spacious room on the fifth floor overlooking the ocean. From our balcony the island of Molokini looked like a water color painting sketched on the horizon with cotton ball clouds floating across the mountain tops. The turquoise sea was alive with its continual motion, flickering white caps and soothing songs. Two large palm trees danced outside our window swaying to the rhythm of the wind.

On our first morning Lean and I drove into the town of Lahaina for breakfast and some shopping. The morning air was cool and the traffic was light. We enjoyed ourselves leisurely strolling through one shop and then another. The pace of life is so much easier in Maui. It almost seemed as though people even walked and talked slower than the more hurried pace of Portland, Oregon. At about noon we decided to drive back to the hotel to make some plans for the rest of our trip. Little did I know this would be the beginning of one of the most emotionally excruciating holidays that I can remember taking.

Lean and I had known each other for over 18 years and married for 16 of those years. We met by way of divine synchronicity next to a Mayan pyramid in Merida, Mexico. I was in the Yucatan recovering from a failed marriage, depression and burnout in my job as an emergency room mental health therapist. A Chinese citizen from Singapore, Lean was completing her Masters degree in Science and Education at the University of Iowa. We met on a tour of the ruins in Chichen Itza and fell in love Christmas Eve. She has been my lover, teacher, soul mate and on certain rare occasions, my tormenter. This was one of those occasions.

It started with a silly, senseless, even stupid argument that triggered a cascade of raw emotion drowning out sensitivity and sensibility. Before I knew it, I was out of the car walking down the side of a busy highway going absolutely nowhere. I vaguely remember asking myself; “where the hell was I going in this burning mid-day sun at least 10 miles from the hotel?” I knew I would have to return to the car and face Lean’s anger – I kept walking. After an hour my cell phone rang and it was Lean, crying, angry and scared. I had abandoned her and she was terrified.

I walked back to the car and saw her sitting frozen in the seat like I left her two hours earlier. I looked into her eyes and sensed her fear, anger and sadness. I felt sick. We drove back to the hotel without saying a word. I don’t even remember how I got there. In the room she began to sob and scream. Why did I leave? Where was I going? What was she going to do? How could I do this to her? She wanted to leave, to go home – back to Singapore, she was going to abandon me.

I suddenly felt something inside of me give way.  The very foundation that I was standing on collapsed. There was a soft roar in my ears as I felt myself free-falling, twisting and turning into the bottomless pit of agony and despair I thought I had left behind years ago with the attempt I made to end my life.  But, here it was again, the same emotional black hole that shattered my sense of self into a million little pieces that day I learned of my mother’s suicide.

Bits and pieces of fragmented memories began to flood my consciousness; walking home from junior high school where I had just started seventh grade, cutting through the neighbors lawn to see my little sister sobbing in the kitchen window, walking in through the sliding glass door to find my father sitting in a darkened living room staring coldly out the window, and the icy words that tore through my soul and etched themselves forever in my memory: “Mommy’s dead.” Nothing more; no reason, no explanation, no preparation, just; “Mommy’s dead.”

As these and other memories surfaced, emerged and then disappeared under the radar of my conscious awareness, I could feel an emotional shift at a cellular level. Rather than feeling the flow of energy and awareness freely circulating through my body and mind, I could sense the residue of traumatic memories freezing thought, energy, motion - even time. I was captured, held prisoner in the cold, timeless hell of acute depression.

Depression is not an unfamiliar experience for me. It's been an un-welcomed companion for much of my life. From seeds sown in early childhood, depression has its roots buried deep into my body and mind sprouting sharp, thorny, poisonous thistles when the ground was fertile with loss or abandonment; both real and imagined. 

It sprang up several times in my work as an emergency room mental health therapist co-experiencing the trauma of my clients. It nearly took my life as my marriage failed and career tumbled. It was my Sifu – my Qigong teacher and mentor who taught me to dance with depression rather than fight it, to make it my partner – not my opponent.

This time I was caught, blindsided by depression. I had not seen it coming. Even though I had thrown away my Prozac 15 years ago after learning Qigong, I still have episodes of sadness, decreased energy and enthusiasm. The difference is, rather than sinking into a bottomless black hole for months without end, these ferocious beasts had been transformed into tamed pets. Today my depression roared. (To be continued...)