I had a visit with the venerable head doctor today. We talked about how frustrating it is for me to be so dependent upon my family with this whole wrist thing… and then I told him about the book I read last week; another book about depression.

The focus of this one was CBT - no, not some S&M reference, but cognitive behavioral therapy. The case studies were interesting enough, but very little of what the author (a psychiatrist himself) said seemed realistic or effective. What it boiled down to in his anecdotes was that while medication and therapy are OK, the only way to snap out of depression (and he proposes that it is entirely curable and not necessarily chemical) is to “simply” realize that you are embarking upon these negative thought patterns yourself and that if you keep telling yourself that “it’s all in your head,” you’ll be better before you know it; that if you recognize the cognitive distortion and dissonance, you’re there! At the cusp of healing!

It just seems too neat; too easy; too much like bullshit.

The one realization I had while reading this book didn’t come directly from the book, but was the result of some thinking about what the book was saying (or not saying).

Depression… glass. Just to mix things up.
For a long time, I didn’t believe that therapy could help me. Even after I made the decision to seek help and found a doctor — who is neither condescending nor overly “squishy” and more like a sage uncle — who made me feel comfortable and like I was actually learning something from talking to him, I still refused to consider medication for 6 months. After 6 months of talking and still experiencing deeper and longer bouts of depression, despite my newfound understanding and way of looking at things, I agreed to try meds. Personally, my overall experience has been good; with one exception, I’ve responded well to the meds (4 different ones over the past 4 years, with one of them being taken for a total of 2 weeks before I started getting jittery and stopped taking it.)

So, I was telling my doctor about the realization I experienced while reading this book and reviewing my personal history: that I have been experiencing this treatment rather passively. I take my pills; I talk to the doctor and take home a few nuggets of good advice and things to think about each time. However, they only stick with me for a few days at most before the next batch of crap overtakes me and I cease to know how to function.

He agreed that if this is a concern, I need to be active and pro-active about it; that I need to build up my internal points of reference (since I’m forever comparing myself to others - if only in my own mind) and work on developing some strength of will (or whatever you would call it) that will allow me to be less critical, negatively and cynically analytical and hard on myself. I have to remind myself that my little internal mirror is warped and smudgy, so I’m not getting the best reflection.

Perhaps most importantly (and this is what I told the doctor in response to his assertions, condensed above) I have to accept the fact that I’m cerebral, analytical and cynical and not see those things as being “bad.” If reflected outward and focused on the right things (here, I imitated the Dr. Evil pronunciation) somewhat like a laser, they are very good things and provide me with my humor and enhance my intelligence. I don’t say this to toot my own horn, but to mention two things that I can actually hold dear and feel pride in.

Those are two things (humor & intelligence) I can say are wholly and unequivocally mine, unlike a friend (who may have other friends), a significant other, material possessions (because despite the pleasure they provide those things can disappear or be taken away), a job (since the work you do doesn’t always provide you with a sense of deep and complete satisfaction or accomplishment, though I am lucky to have this be the case more often than not) or any physical attributes (since age or illness or life can take those or change them).

I guess two more things I can add to the list are openness and honesty. I realize that my openness may be too much for some people or situations, and that’s something I can work to temper; honesty is always good, even if it’s not pleasant or pretty.

Can I work with those four? Humor, intelligence, honesty and openness - and build up from there, holding those truths to be self-evident? Nations have been founded on fewer adjectives.

Yes. I believe I can. It’s not an easy thing, especially after 28 years of berating myself and using self-deprecating humor to “cast the first stone” since it hurts a lot less that way (queue Smokey Robinson’s “Tears of a Clown”) and there’s a perception of having the upper hand.

OK. End monologue.

My left arm really itches, so I’ma get the coolant-free compressed air can and spray some air down into my cast.

Awwww, yeah. My boy GBS comes through with a quote that will work as a partial mantra:

The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those who have not got it.

George Bernard Shaw (1856 - 1950)

‘Tis time to settle into bed and read. These Alice Munro short stories are great; admittedly, I have not been a fan of short stories before. I like hers, though. They’re not so polished and neat as to appear contrived (”everything tied up neatly in a bow”), but they’re clearly finely crafted - I’m jealous and impressed. A good combo.