Depression Doing the Thinking

It has been estimated that we have in the range of 25,000 to 50,000 thoughts a day.  If they are predominately negative, imagine how many negative thoughts you generate daily--thousands upon thousands.  That is the case with depression.

One of the features of depression is pessimistic thinking.  The negative thinking is actually the depression speaking.  It is what depression sounds like.  Depression, in fact, manifests in negative thinking before it creates negative affect.

Most depressed people are not aware that the despair and hopelessness they feel are flowing from their negative thoughts.  Thoughts are mistakenly seen as privileged, occupying a rarified territory, immune to being affected by mood and feelings, and therefore representing some immutable truth.  But feelings are not facts, they are just feelings.

Compounding the issue is that negative thinking slips into the brain under the radar of conscious awareness and becomes habitual.  People come to generate negative thoughts so automatically they are unaware that they are happening, and that most of the time it is actually a choice they are making.

One of the most powerful actions that can be taken to combat depression is to understand how critical the quality of your thinking is in maintaining, and even instensifying your depression--and that the quickest way to change how you feel is to change how you think.

Often enough you can't control how you feel, but you can almost always control how you think.  Thought-processing errors contribute so much to depressed mood.

It is possible to take action and to change patterns of thinking on your own, without necessarily turning to anti-depression medications.  Following are six action strategies that will bring results in breaking out of the negative thought patterns that maintain depression.

• Know that is possible to control the quality of your thinking.  Controlling the quality of your thoughts contributes more to how you feel than any other factor.  It is a rather widespread belief that you have to change your feelings in order to change how you think; it actually works just the opposite way.
• Keep track of how many negative thoughts you are actually having.  This is most easily accomplished by keeping a "thought journal."  You write down as many instances of negative thinking at the end of the day as you can remember. Write down names you call yourself, when you label yourself as worthless or helpless or hopeless.  Keep track of generalizations you make in which you take a singular bad event and project in onto the future.  Write down instances when you use terms like never or always, or when you think black and white thoughts.  It helps to ask a loved one or a trusted colleague to point out to you instances of negative thinking, and then record them.
• After getting an idea of the negative thinking and its frequency, identify the situations that trigger wuch thinking.  Writing them down helps you to focus and to be aware of your triggers.  Often,  certain types of events are particularly likely to set off a chain of negative thoughts, such as a perception of being ignored or not responded to, or a negative remark or an actual setback at work. 
• Practice converting negative to postive thinking.  Some people like to think of it as "flipping a switch."  Think of a light switch, and mentally switch it from the down position to the up--to the "light."
• Utilize a partnership strategy.  Tell your partner or trusted colleague that you think you are sounding too pessimistic in your thinking and that you want to be more optimistic.  Ask them to help you out be gently cueing you when you are sounding negative, and then asking you to instantly convert it to a positive statment.
• In keeping your diary of negative thinking, create a separate column for writing the corresponding positive thought.  "I'm too old" vs "I'm getting better and wiser with age."  If you do this for a few days, you will get the hang of converting negative to positive thinking.

              By Hara Estroff Marano, published on July 01, 2001, and edited, with original thoughts, by Robert E. Davis.

Doing the Uncomfortable Thing

If this makes you feel ill at ease, it does me also!  (This isn't my son.)

What would you do if you found needles for drug use in your son’s room, a son who had a history of drug use?

To further complicate matters, what would you do in that situation if you and your wife had established a rule that absolutely no alcohol or drugs were to be found or used in the home, and that the violator could no longer live in the home?

This was not theoretical; it was the awful reality for me.  It was my circumstance some five years ago with my son Robert.  I had to make a huge decision that would not only significantly impact him, but my other children, my wife, and me.

Robert had started smoking dope during junior high years.  He graduated to sniffing or huffing, to taking hallucinogens, and then to experimenting with other drugs.  At the time I discovered the needles, he was shooting up heroin.  Before he was 18, my wife and I had sent him out of state for over six months to a place for self-destructive boys.  He attended an outpatient rehab program, and then went into another inpatient rehab program for a couple of months in his mid-20s, but he was still acting out and used drugs to dull his emotional pain.  

I had found out that he had stolen my school books, precious coins and bills, and sold them, and had taken some blank checks and had written them to himself (because his name was also Robert) to get drug money.  He had caused my marriage to suffer as my wife and I wrestled with differing objectives as to how to deal with him and his drug use.  He was manipulating us to play on our fears and emotions.  His drug use had become the center of our family dynamic.

But here I was confronted with implementing a consequence for his behavior, a behavior that was clearly in violation of a rule my wife and I had agreed upon.  In that crucible moment, I had to decide whether to do the easier thing and what would have made me feel better and feel more compassionate, or whether to do the difficult, uncomfortable thing that in the end would be the best for him.

I realized the implications of following through with the consequence.  He was my son.  He even had my name.  I would not know where he would be spending that night, or other nights.  I would not know how he would survive financially.  I would be turning him out onto the mean streets of LA. 

Surely, I saw myself as kind and gentle.  Surely, I needed to protect him from those unknowns.  Surely, I needed to feel that I was a good father and taking care of my son.  Surely, I could feel good about being merciful by telling him that his behavior was unacceptable and would not be tolerated, and allow him to stay.  Surely, I didn’t want to be seen as hard-hearted.

But that would have made it more about me and what’s best for me, and not about him and what ultimately was best for him.

What would be best for him, and would make me uncomfortable, was to follow through with the consequence.  He needed to experience the consequence of his choice.  I hadn’t made a poor choice; he had.  What was best for him (and what I didn’t know at the time) was for him to experience those mean streets of LA in order to know that he definitely didn’t want to be there.  What was best for him was for me to focus on him and not on me.

So what did I finally do?  I faced my fears.  I faced the knot in my stomach.  I did what made me uncomfortable.  I did what ultimately was best for him.  Despite his protestations, I stood firm and said he had to leave and that he had to leave right then.

I will never forget how difficult it was to see him walk up those stairs and onto the street.  

I will never forget how my heart ached; how bad I felt.  

I will never forget the uncertainty of that moment.  

But I will never forget the difficult decision I made that terrible day to do what would ultimately lead him to seek help for his addiction.

My therapist at that period of time stated a truth that I embraced in that crucible event and have ultimately embraced in my life since then.  She said on multiple occasions, “If some action makes you feel comfortable, you probably ought not to do it.  And if the action makes you feel  uncomfortable, you probably ought to do it.”

As I have been delighted to document in this blog on previous occasions, Robert continues to stay clean and sober.  He will soon become a licensed Drug and Alcohol Rehabilitation Counselor.  He is on the staff of the Beacon House inpatient rehabilitation program, with full-time work and benefits.  He recently moved out of the Beacon House and into an apartment which he is furnishing largely by himself.  He possesses an emotional maturity beyond his years, understands the nature and importance of accountability, and understands what he can and can’t do in his recovery.

I wonder what would have happened if I had not done the difficult, uncomfortable, best thing for him that terrible day….  

My son Robert with his oldest sister, Rebecca, this past summer!

(This blog posting is now 7 years old.  Robert is now over 11 years clean and sober, married four years, and flourishing.  He continues to work at The Beacon House Rehab.)