I remember where I was when I realized something was really wrong. It was a parking lot. My mother had just picked me up.  I was 21. It was summer. I can’t remember what she said exactly, but I think she wanted to run some errands.  I burst into tears.  My legs and arms felt like they were weighed down with lead.  So much heaviness. It felt like such an effort to even walk.  Every movement required willpower. It was the first time I was really spooked by the heaviness of depression.

This wasn’t normal.  What was wrong with me?  Looking back I’m pretty sure I’d been “managing” some form of underlying depression for a number of years. But it was only now – the summer after I’d graduated from university when the pressure was ostensibly off – that I’d finally put down sugar, alcohol, my 2-pack-of-cigarettes-a-day-habit and purging (bulimia). It was the first time in ages that I got a peek at what was fueling those behaviors behind the scenes and it was pretty terrifying.

The physical sensations of depression are frequently quite debilitating and it’s easy to get spooked. 

The “this isn’t right, this can’t be normal” panic feeling is common.  And we’re usually quick to devise our own self-medicating agenda – anything from espressos to chocolate to cocaine to training for marathons.  Or we’ll go to a psychiatrist who’ll often promptly prescribe meds.

It’s not that I’m against medication – sometimes they’re really needed and helpful. Nor that I’m against an official DSM diagnosis such as “Major Depressive Disorder” – sometimes having an official “diagnosis” or “disease” removes some of the stigma or shame associated with depression.  It’s got a name.  There’s a reason why it’s hard to get out of bed.  It’s not laziness.

Nevertheless Meds Have Their Limitations

When we think about depression only though the disease-model-lens of psychiatry we can get lost.  We forget what’s actually happening in our body is a feedback loop – our body is speaking to us.  The heavy sensations are just that – heaviness.  What would happen if we didn’t immediately panic and label them “depression” and just got curious about these physical sensations of “heaviness”, “weight” or “pressure”? Could we learn to relax into them and transform them?

It took me years to learn how to do that when in fact it’s remarkably simple (more on that in a couple of weeks). What we need to appreciate about depression is that it’s not just down to faulty brain chemistry.  It’s often primarily a build up of unprocessed and undigested experiences.  It’s a blockage of sorts that needs to be felt.  Frequently it’s the result of years of not feeling like there’s a safe place to go to with difficult experiences or emotions. When that safe place isn’t there we tend to cope by cutting off feelings – we avoid them, deny them and pretend or power our way through challenging moments as best we can. It’s no surprise that at some point, years later, our old unprocessed wounds come knocking on the door demanding to be acknowledged.

It’s actually a liberating process.  But many people get so spooked by the heaviness of depression and the uncomfortable physical sensations that they run (instead of training themselves to meet what’s there).  The path isn’t for everyone, but as a  planet (and definitely as parents) I think it is a path that increasingly needs to be walked. The first step in the process is to begin to refer to the feelings with sensation words. Here’s my quick Youtube video on how to do that.