i believe i've shared previously that one of the reasons that i write this blog is to give people some insight into what it is like for a person to deal with a mental illness. my experience with it comes from having dealt with chronic depression most of my life.
i've likened living with depression to walking across a path that is over a river. sometimes the path is well above the river. sometimes it skims the surface. sometimes it is beneath the river and brings the water to varying degrees of height. some levels you can manage and some you can't, such as when the path is well below the surface of the water and you have to tread the water to stay afloat.
the path is life's journey. the river is the depression. and so it's important to recognize that, at least in my experience, when someone deals with chronic depression, wherever the path may take them, the river is always present. sometimes, they're above it, sometimes, they're drowning in it and everything in between.
through my work with my last therapist, i've come to realize that there's a little more to this imagery than i first recognized. it's the fact that some of us are better able to manage being in the river than others. some had good life instructors, who, early in life, gave us the skills to be able to tread water and then swim forward to find our way back to sure footing on the path. others of us were not as fortunate. we didn't get those foundational abilities, and so, when we find ourselves in the river, we are overwhelmed by the experience. we may flail about to stay above the water. we may find ourselves drowning. we may even feel that we are being pulled by the force of the current away from any semblance of a path. whatever the condition, our coping skills are not as strong, so we struggle to believe we will get back to the path and continue moving forward.
and when we do make it back to the path, some of us are made stronger by the experience. others of us are beaten up so badly by our time in the river that it makes the journey on the path a little more difficult and can make the time when we find ourselves back in the river (because we will find ourselves back in the river) even more arduous. some of us don't make it back to the path and allow the river to sweep us away to whatever is beyond the path of life.
i share this additional piece to highlight that the outcomes of a person's experience with chronic depression, their time in the river, is impacted by their ability to navigate through it and that ability comes from how we have been prepared to view life and ourselves. some have been given love and encouragement and a positive sense of their identities and a belief that life is good. people who have that experience can navigate the river better than those of us whose earliest experiences were of love that was limited or conditional, criticism for who we are and made to believe that life is only good for those who follow a prescribed way of living it - a way that is closed to us because of who we are and who we choose to love.
i encourage you to take what i've shared here to heart when you deal with people who struggle with depression. life is a challenge of varying degrees for all of us. for some of us though, because we were inadequately equipped by nature and/or nurture, it is even more so.
