What am I supposed to do? Pin a tail with a pink ribbon on my ass and call myself Eeyore? Great plan! From now on, I’ll start dropping witticisms like:
“Good morning, if it is a good morning… which I doubt” - Eeyore
I’m not sure anyone struggling with depression is particularly craving a melodramatic performance to display what is unfortunately invisible. It’s a bit akin to the stereotypical imagery of a woman with an invisible disability parking in a handicap space, getting out of her car and walking, seemingly normally, when all of a sudden, a random douchebag yells ‘HEY LADY THERE’S NOTHING WRONG WITH YOU! YOU CAN’T PARK THERE’. Thanks for your contribution, inspector Dicknose. Your buddies over at Mealteam Six are missing you.
It can take a particularly keen eye to pick up depression in someone else. Sure, there’s days during my depressive cycles where I’ll lie down on the bare floor and think ‘here’s good’ and just stare into oblivion. Bit of a giveaway, that. The vast majority of the time, it isn’t nearly as obvious.
My depression ebbs and flows pretty regularly. I’ve picked up the habit of trying not to succumb to it. I remember for the longest time, hell, probably the majority of my twenties, I would desperately try anything I could to prevent the ebb. In my mind, if I lived a very orderly, strict, disciplined life, the ebb would never come! If every single day I: write, exercise, meditate, stretch, read and just stay on top of my shit, there was no need for the ebb cycle.
An ebb used to be considerably worse. The more actively I tried to resist it, the harder it came. Since I believed it was my duty to prevent it, how could I not see it as my personal failure every time it inevitably took control of me? The cycle would look something like: four months on, two weeks off. The amount of destruction that Nur Nadar could cause in those two weeks, should he so please, was tantamount to pandemonium. Sure, it was only two weeks, but I’d make damn sure that the damage caused would be a lasting affair.
Recently quit smoking and drinking for the past four months? Too bad. ‘Do not pass go. Do not collect $200’. Spend a considerable amount of time repairing a relationship that perhaps was soured during a different ‘down period’? For my next trick, allow me to demonstrate how to make any friendship disappear! Fitness lifestyle been on point? Exactly why I’m going to order Chinese takeout every single night for a week. It is genius incarnate. The Philosopher King made manifest.
Nowadays, an ebb is far less action packed. It is much more contained. I am just now dusting the cobwebs off and shooing the shadows away and this time around I:
distanced myself from friends and Substack.
smoked a couple cigars.
vented to a friend.
had some bourbon.
lashed out at one or two people.
watched some movies with Bear.
I’ve dubbed these smaller ebbs as ‘controlled burns’. I know what’s coming and I know any attempts in the past to delay or completely forego it have proven impossible so, I’ve learned to ride the wave.
Not only have I learned to accept these periods of my life, but I’ve also come to view them as opportunities to check in with myself. Even with daily check-in practices like journaling and meditation, I can still be so caught up in the day to day of what I’m doing that I don’t pick up on some bigger picture issues.
There’s tons that I picked up that I wanted to share with y’all but before we get there, just remember that it’s okay to take a break. I don’t mean a very specifically regimented ‘productive relaxation’ session, either.
Imagine you have a MASSIVE stack of boring old papers in front of you. Envision these papers as representing your ‘to dos’ of the day and everything you’re currently stressing about. Now, imagine grabbing that fat stack and filling yourself with childlike glee as you leap into the air, toss the papers, and let them rain down on you. Now, get the hell out of there and do whatever it is you feel like doing.
Now that we got that out of our system, let’s return to all I discovered in my lament filled sojourn in the land of Ebb.
Self-Destruction as Self-Expression
What am I supposed to do? Pin a tail with a pink ribbon on my ass and call myself Eeyore? Great plan! From now on, I’ll start dropping witticisms like:
“Good morning, if it is a good morning, which I doubt” - Eeyore
I’m particularly proud of pulling that one out of thin air when it came time to be petty in an argument. I was raised believe that anger and pride were acceptable emotions for a man to demonstrate. Everything else was outrageous to even consider. Forget about how I was raised, it’s a mainstream joke that all men should ‘shove everything down until the day they die’.
If I'm deep in an ebb and I have a glass of bourbon and a mini cigar, it’s easy to slap a label on that that says ‘self-medicating’, scream ‘next!’, and rush to move onto the next thing like an eager psych student trying to prove their chops. I definitely have fallen victim to the vicious cycles of self-medicating in the past, but I know that’s not ENTIRELY what it is now. So, perhaps it’s self-indulgence or self-destruction? Also, maybe! By definition it certainly is. If none of the above, then what, exactly, are we aiming for here?
It’s a form of self-expression. When I say I get depressed in my ebb cycle, it means the sort where simply getting out of bed becomes a Herculean feat. It isn’t fun, but I do it anyways. I still get dressed, rip my shoulders back, stand up straight and smile, but it’s done in a constant mode of pain. To be crystal clear about depression, when the metaphorical clouds enshroud me, I’m not just a little extra sleepy or generally out of energy, I’m deeply in pain.
If on the outside I look swell as can be but on internally there’s a war waging in the depths of hell, of course I’d have a deep yearning for that to be seen. Eeyore tail, emo bang, massive face tattoo that says ‘damaged’? It all seems pretty stupid. Drinking a bit more and smoking while acting erratically are absolutely not the healthiest ways to go about it, but it does ring warning bells in the minds of others. It certainly doesn’t numb the pain or make anything easier, so I don’t really consider it to be self-medicating, anymore. If anything, it gets me to access deeper layers of sadness (alcohol is called a depressant for a reason). It’s more so an attempt of waving a massive neon sign that says ‘HI I’M IN PAIN BUT I DON’T KNOW HOW TO EXPRESS IT WITHOUT FEELING LIKE A BURDEN OR OVERLY INADEQUATE! THANKS FOR READING!!’.
So, what’s to be done about this, exactly? Find healthier ways to express your inner pain to others. I place high value on joining support groups for this very reason. In support groups, we meet people who are there for the same reason as us. It is considerably easier to pick up a phone and call a new friend we met in the ‘DEPRESSED FUCKS OF AMERICA’ group and vent to about how we’re feeling than it would be to call somebody else in our life. Presumably, as we become a part of the group, people will call us for the same reason, too. It’s much easier to not feel like an inadequate burden if the people we’re calling are also calling us for the same reason.
Support groups are for everyone. There’s ‘men’s groups’, ‘women’s groups’, substance abuse groups, various identity groups, mental health groups, and so on and so forth. They’re all out there. It just takes a little looking for. If they were more acknowledged and more effort was put into coordinating such groups, they could prove as a balm for the loneliness epidemic our world is currently facing. It’s gotten so desperate that I’m starting to wonder if online trolls only lash out and hate on others just so they can have someone who actually responds to them. Anyhow, moving forward!
Our brains love lying to us
While it certainly isn’t a malicious effort, our brains love to lie to us. As an ebb becomes increasingly more robust, it begins a flailing war of attrition. Fortunately, it doesn’t escape me that the ammunition being fired is all in the form of Automatic Negative Thoughts, or ANTs. Although I was almost certainly chasing an unattainable state of being, the actual work I put in, day in and day out, tremendously strengthened my ability to be able to view my thoughts through an objective lens.
With a considerably stronger base of mindfulness, it became obvious that these thoughts were just consistently repeating themselves in my head. No input from me, whatsoever. Just a merry go around of ‘haha you suck!’. For the sake of transparency, here’s the ones I noticed the most:
You’re an inadequate piece of shit.
You’re a failure and you’re not going to get another chance.
It’s over for you.
I can’t think of anything to write about.
Substack is a waste of time. You’re only fooling yourself.
No one wants you. Everyone abandons you.
Bear would be better off with someone else.
It’s all ridiculous but I share it with the hope that perhaps if any of you get caught in such patterns, you’ll be able to recognize them as just an automatic negative thought barrage. They’re always temporary. Am I inadequate? Nah. I’m pretty happy with who I am. I know my strengths and weaknesses. Am I a piece of shit? No - I came out of the other hole.
Am I a failure who will never get another chance? Is it over for me? Nah. I’m sensing a wound birthed from consistent rejection in the face of dogged effort. As time goes on, uncertainty skyrockets and breeds all sorts of internal doubt, but that’s all that it is: internal doubt.
Am I out of writing ideas and am I only fooling myself on Substack? No, and I find it incredibly interesting that ‘I can’t think of anything to write about’ is an ANT. I always assumed it was something I felt viscerally, as it’d breed a sense of a panic in the form of ‘WHAT DO I WRITE FOR NEXT WEEK!!!’. Identifying it as an ANT helped me realize, though, that I have a laundry list of ideas. Stephen Pressfield’s ‘Resistance’ is manifesting itself as automatic negative thoughts as it burrows deeper and deeper into my psyche. I still show up to boogie, though, so I’m doing alright.
Does no one want me? Does no one like me? Would Bear be better off without me? For the first two, it doesn’t matter. It matters that I know I’ll be okay whether they do or not. Regarding Bear, I’m a fucking fantastic dog owner and that little dude is my shadow. I remember once being just gut wrenchingly depressed and thinking he’d be so much happier if he didn’t have an owner who went through these vicious ebbs. I looked into Bear’s six-month-old puppy eyes, mind you - I was on mushrooms at the time, and I just felt a profound sense of unconditional love. It was as if this young, animated teddy bear was telling me: I love you for your ebbs and your flows. It was profoundly beautiful.
I’m going to once again endorse dedicating time and effort to strengthening your ability to observe your thoughts from a detached perspective. The purpose in me laying it all out like that in the above paragraphs is to emphasize that when you catch yourself in an ANT pattern, continuously ask: What evidence do I have for this? You’ll almost certainly find that the negative rhetoric is simply biggity bullshit that’s been badly beaten into your brain overtime. That doesn’t make it true. Observe, question and address if necessary. The final step is to let it go. It will come back but as you repeatedly practice this process, the ANTs hold on you will shrink more and more each time.
Take responsibility for yourself
Our mental health is not our fault. It is, however, our responsibility to manage it. The last thing we need in that monumentally challenging state of being is to give others power over ourselves by blaming them for our circumstances.
Instead, it’s a fantastic time to reassess our targets in life. Listlessness is generally caused by a lack of purpose, and we owe it to ourselves to make sure we’re aiming at the right target. Are we wasting too much time on a goal we only think we should be accomplishing? Are we working towards a goal just because we want to prove something to someone, maybe even ourselves? Get your money, pay your bills, do your thing. We all have to do what we have to do to survive. Just make sure there’s a target you’re aiming at that fulfills you. Period.
We have a deep yearning for growth and it’s going to come out in one way or another. Let’s just make sure it comes out in a way that serves us. In a way that fulfills us, deeply.
Take nothing personally from others
“So that’s it, you’re done? You’re getting success and you just quit? You do this every FUCKING time! Keep your mouth shut and fuck off”.
That’s a response I got because I took a break from releasing a newsletter last week. It’s always when we’re feeling the worst that we seem to get these unsanctioned barrages.
It didn’t bother me. There are so many factors that determine specific interactions that it’s not even worth wondering if outside events determine our internal worth in any way.
Let’s look at this person who is charmingly having logorrhea all over my face. They have whatever is going on in their day or life that’s stressing them out. They see me in a dejected state and are disappointed by my decision to bypass a week of my newsletter in order for me to do what it is I had to do. Their disappointment now triggers everything that’s been building up inside of them, and a vicious tongue lashing begins.
They are tongue lashing the dejected state you are currently portraying. Remember, seeming is different than being. Now, however we respond is going to be targeted at their current tongue-lashing state, that resulted from their buildup of stress that was detonated by them being disappointed in an action I took for the sake of my own interest.
It’s a bizarre battle between human-seemings, not human-beings. How many degrees of separation are there before we actually reach the depth of someone attacking the spirit of who are. There’s no room for taking these things personally and on top of that, they very, VERY, rarely, are.
The flow is great, yet the ebb arrives anyway. Learning to surf the shadows of the Ebbs has tremendously helped me in weakening their grip on me. Peer support has helped me feel less ashamed, more free and healthier in how I express my depression. Mindfully evaluating my thoughts has helped me identify and castrate the automatic negative thoughts that were wreaking havoc in my brain. Reaffirming or redirecting my aims, whichever proved necessary, helped me defeat listlessness and made sure I had a target to aim for that filled me with purpose. Taking responsibility for my mental health and brushing off the opinion of others has helped me mitigate an incredible amount of potential external damage to my mental health.
It’s frustrating and can feel like being dealt a shitty hand in life. I mean who wants to feel like they have to work incredibly hard at managing something that others may not have to? If we can put away our pride and enjoy the process of getting better, we’re in for one hell of a rewarding ride.
What do you do to get yourself out of darker spaces? What strategies do you employ to help you see the sunlight again? Feel free to share in the comments!
Nur your capacity to notice your ebbs and flows so mindfully is a testament to the work you have done internally. I know that noticing does not necessarily reduce the suffering...but I know for sure it helps others. I don't think we can underestimate the value of the experience that many will have reading your work and the inner response they may have..."oh...so I am in fact not the only one who goes through this". Some struggle to go to support groups, but reading what you say meets a really important place in people I think. Thank you for what you do.
Nur your capacity to notice your ebbs and flows so mindfully is a testament to the work you have done internally. I know that noticing does not necessarily reduce the suffering...but I know for sure it helps others. I don't think we can underestimate the value of the experience that many will have reading your work and the inner response they may have..."oh...so I am in fact not the only one who goes through this". Some struggle to go to support groups, but reading what you say meets a really important place in people I think. Thank you for what you do.
'Our mental health is not our fault.'
A great point, Nur. It's very important to remind ourselves of this fact and not place even more emotional burdens on ourselves.