Myth and Meaning - Losses and Depression

Written by Tammie Byram Fowles, PhD, LISW-CP

LETTING GO

"It's no longer that I can't hang on. It's that I can let go" - Unknown

Judith Viorst, in her wonderful book, "Necessary Losses," addresses one of our very first lessons - life includes loss. James Hillman reflects that at some level growth always includes loss. Loss is a necessary ingredient of both love and growth. We don't experience one without becoming vulnerable to the other. Viorst gently reminds us: "And we cannot become separate people, responsible people, connected people, reflective people without some losing and leaving and letting go."

According to M. Scott Peck, depression is connected to the feeling of loss which come from giving something up that we value greatly. Because loss is an inevitable part of the process of spiritual and mental growth, Peck maintains that depression is basically a normal and healthy occurrence. It fails to be healthy and potentially productive when the giving-up process is interfered with which can result in a prolonged and debilitating depression.

"Suffer the growing pains." - Lillian Hellman

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When my husband finished graduate school, although still extremely busy, he was no longer constantly running. All of the sudden there was time to think and feel and look. What he came to see disturbed him. He had worked and sacrificed his entire adult life, and in place of the sense of accomplishment he had expected to feel - there was an emptiness inside of him. He felt hollow and drained. In spite of all that he had gained -- he felt loss. For a time he remained anchored to his disappointment and confusion and struggled to break free. When he was turned loose, he found himself cast adrift in a murky and dark sea of depression. It's frightening to be set adrift, particularly for those who've carefully charted their course, equipped with navigational map and compass. Most attempt desperately to hold on, and furiously fight the currents to regain control. Too often their panic leads them to capsize or upset their boats. We can't always control life's currents, and each of us no matter how hard we may wish otherwise, find ourselves carried away from time to time.

I remember when my husband, friends of ours, and I went white water rafting. The guide informed us that if we fell out of the raft, it was not only useless but also dangerous to attempt to swim. We were to simply keep our feet straight ahead of us, our heads together, and allow the rapids to take us along - sort of like a controlled surrender.

Matthew Fox reminds us that we all must undergo the critical process of letting go of guilt, of hurt, of pain, etc. in order to grow spiritually. He council's that, "The choice to wallow in one's pain or in one's guilt is a deliberate choice, as can be the deeper option, which is to let go and move on."

The choice to wallow in one's pain doesn't mean that we get to choose when we suffer and when we don't. We all must suffer. From my perspective, wallowing refers to when we wrap our suffering around ourselves as if it were a cloak and refuse to come out. Kierkegaard said once, "My sadness is my castle." This Danish philosopher may have found himself at home among the relics of his sadness and despair, but for most of us - the land of suffering is a place we must all visit and can even learn from, but by no means is it a place to permanently dwell.

My husband, who's always been level headed, didn't panic in his depression. He floundered, he hurt, and he attempted for a time to hold on to the familiar. And then he let go. When we're small, we need to let go of our parents' hands if we're ever going to learn to walk unsupported. We have to part with our training wheels in order to ride our bikes like the big kids. We have to leave our family home in order to establish our own. Growing up requires over and over again that we let go. Kevin let go of the old dreams that no longer served him. He let go of the guide-wires that had supported and at the same time strangled him. And it was painful letting go. But in letting go, he recognized that as unhappy as he was, he was also now free. Free to re-negotiate the currents and to move forward, away from depression, and towards a more meaningful direction.

"No one ever would have crossed the ocean if they could have gotten off the ship in the storm." Charles F. Kettering

I've often heard people wonder about how things might have been different if they had been spared their painful childhood's, or had been born into a family which offered them more support, love, or opportunities. The premise seems to be that the more good things and the fewer bad things that occur in life, the more successful a person is likely to be. Maybe that's true in general. I only know that when glancing at the lives of the 'successful', I'm struck again and again by how much loss and pain many of these "fortunate" individuals have suffered.

1) At the age of 21, he was told that he only had about two and a half years to live, and that he would gradually lose the use of his body. Eventually only his vital organs such as his heart, his lungs and his brain would function. He was informed that while his mind would work perfectly, he would be trapped inside the body of a "cabbage." He would think and feel but not be able to communicate.

Steven Hawking lived far beyond the short time predicted. Over the years though, his body (with the exception of his vital organs) has failed him. Today, it's little more than his eyes that seem to move -- the rest of him is horribly still. And yet Hawking, with his "cabbage" body, has become one of the greatest physicists of all time. In a movie produced by Erril Morris about Hawking's life entitled, "A Brief History of Time" (the same title as Hawking's book), Hawking reflects on how his illness has effected his work. Before he was diagnosed, he reported that he had been bored with his life.