Depression – Getting Out and Staying Out. Part 3

One effective way to do it would be to have the person do things that gradually shift his paradigm on what he can or can’t do. If I’m told I have to empty out a store room of 20 boxes and, I don’t feel particularly strong or motivated on that day, I could well reason that I am not able to move 20 boxes (as my mind is imagining the whole) and I might struggle with moving just one. 

But even with the belief that I can’t move 20 boxes at once, if I am told that I need to move only 5 of them, I might attempt it as much as I believe it will tire me out. Once I succeed, I might be told that “I’m sorry we’ve made a mistake… we meant for you to move 10 boxes, not 5.” Because I have evidence I moved 5 boxes I might contemplate moving the other five. In the ideal scenario on removing the second set of 5 boxes I would now have evidence that I was able to move 10 boxes. You probably see where this is going. As humans it is easier to do something if we have evidence we have done it before. Next day I might be told to please move 10 boxes and I now have a clearer expectation of how to do it, and, of my own ability to do it.

This concept of gradualism can be very effective in getting people to do what they were convinced they could not do. This thought process itself can help a person out of depression.

One client of mine whom we will call Jane, had anger management issues. She felt some self-loathing due to being overweight and being often reminded of this by her loved ones.Janeknew she would only change this by diet and exercise but she felt motivated to do neither as she was convinced that even if she did follow a strict regime… she would not have results. Sounds contradictory? Well… Jane was depressed and didn’t know it. Depression will make us think out and act out in a way that is often more irrational than if we didn’t have depression.

Jane had no basis to believe that she wouldn’t see results. But she didn’t need to have. Depression had distorted her view of a) her own abilities and b) the results she could produce from her own abilities. Fortunately for me, she loved to prove her point. Fortunately only because I happen to have a money back guarantee on my coaching program. If the client completes absolutely all tasks as required they will see results or else I return their money. So even if my tasks seemed ridiculous at first, Jane followed through. 

One of such tasks was based on positive gradualism. For Jane to experience results she had to put in the work but for her to want to put in the work, she had to see some results. So the task involved Jane driving to the gym for a few consecutive days early in the morning and going in and just watching people exercise. We scaled that up to going in and doing a maximum of 4 minutes of the stationery bike. Of course, Jane resisted as it took 8 minutes to drive to the gym. Why bother for 4 minutes of exercise? It seemed pointless. But it wasn’t. The point wasn’t for her to necessarily exercise (at that given point in the program anyway) but rather, for her to see that she could do things, she previously thought impossible. 

So the initial drive to the gym just to watch people served a similar purpose. By getting ready in gym clothing, driving to the gym, and knowing she didn’t actually have to exercise it allowed her to create a different association with the gym. So three mornings in when she’s tired and definitely unwilling to do a work out she remembers… “Ah… I don’t have to exercise… just drive there and go in!” 

It wasn’t long before Jane asked if she could please do 8 minutes of gym instead of 4. I instructed her to do 7. After 3 days in the second week of that process her “rebellious anger” started to channel into the positive slant of “My coach can’t tell me what to do!!” She hangaround exercising for 15 minutes. She felt quite a rush of excitement yet, as expected, the next day, she was too sore to exercise. 

However, by then she had discovered that her belief that she “couldn’t exercise” was a flawed one. Jane discovered that she could. And that she could choose to do so or choose not to do so Either way was fine because just returning a sense of ‘control’ to a depressed person can do a lot to take them out of the victimization thinking mode. 

This relates to the success cycle that I demonstrate to my clients which shows that the advice we were often given as children to “improve your attitude” will simply not work in many cases in helping us obtaining results. The attitude shift is actually the last and not the first step in the success cycle.

In essence… getting out of depression and staying out is possible. For it to happen a few elements need to be in place. And not necessarily in the order listed. There’s four of them.

A person has to have a desire to get out of depression. That means that despite the horrible debilitating pain and then numbness that depression can bring… despite all the negatives of being depressed, feeling de-energised, disempowered, unmotivated, chronic sadness or anguish and sometimes chronic nothing and deadness inside; despite all of these… the benefits, or at least perceived benefits that come from getting out. must be greater than the benefits of staying depressed.

Woah!! “What did you just say?!! Benefits to being depressed??” Yes. I’m not saying that a person is pursuing these benefits I am about to list. I’m saying that once they experience the involuntary benefits of being depressed, letting go of those for something unseen on the other side is incredibly reminiscent of pain. Excruciating pain. 

The benefits? If I am depressed, I can control my fear of failure. People’s expectations of me will be lower. My expectations of myself will be lower. That decreases my chances of not achieving my goals because if I have any goals, they will be so low that I will not even consider them worth achieving. How is that a benefit? Less likely to torture ourselves because we somehow failed to be what we wanted to be.

Also… despite all the stigma that depression still brings about with it, like a teenager with that unpleasant high school friend you didn’t want to be seen with, despite all the shame… there is still a general concept amongst close ones and loved ones that if you are depressed enough no one wants to be the one to push you over the edge. How is that, a benefit? That will grant a depressed soul the little shadow of power they may aspire to. An illusion that people will walk on egg-shells to avoid “damaging” her or him anymore. And that can give people a small feeling of the very control they need to be able to get out of depression.

And the last questionable benefit is that depression can remove a measure of responsibility for some of our actions. Notice I’m talking of degrees here.

Do not miss the fourth and last part of this series of articles. See you next!