CONQUERING DEPRESSION, ENJOYING LIFE

Julian L. Simon

WHY DO SOME PEOPLE HAVE A TENDENCY TO GET DEPRESSED?

Unflattering self-comparisons come into everyone's mind from time to time. And everyone occasionally feels helpless. But some people--chronic depressives--continually make negative self-comparisons. Their prevailing mood therefore is sadness, and a sense of worthlessness accompanies the sadness even if the negative self-comparison apparently has nothing to do with the person's own worth--say, the loss of a beloved mate. Other depressives suffer from intermittent bouts of negative self-comparisons, either cyclically or irregularly. Both types of depressives have a special propensity to make negative self-comparisons.

How and why do some people get into the habit of making negative self-comparisons whereas other people do not? Among the possible influences are early separation of a child from a parent, especially by the parent's death; cold, unloving, or untrustworthy parents; genetic-chemical biological inheritance; overly-ambitious professional or moral aspirations; a series of experiences of failure and rejection in childhood or adulthood; and major personal or professional shocks in adulthood. It is usually a combination of influences that make any given person a depressive.

The depression sufferer wants to know: How can I, alone or with a counselor, alter these elements or their effects so as to produce fewer negative self-comparisons and hence less sadness, and thereby pull me out of depression?

The basic causes of the depression certainly are not irrelevant. And for any particular person it may prove reasonable or necessary to go back to the basic causes as part of curing the depression--or it may not be necessary or reasonable to do so. For now, let us focus on the fact that no matter what the basic cause is, there must be negative self-comparisons and a sense of helplessness or there will be no depression. To say the same thing positively: Eliminate the negative self-comparisons and/or the sense of helplessness, and you eliminate the depression, no matter what does or does not happen with the basic causes.

This analogy may help: Your mind is like a system of minor and major streams that join up to form a river, which then passes through a narrows before it flows toward your city. Sometimes the river breaks loose and floods the city. The streams are like the basic causes of the depression. You may or may not be able to identify which stream or combination of streams constitutes the original cause. And even if you are successful in identifying the causal streams, you may or may not be to dam up or re-channel it or them. But if you turn your attention to the narrows, you know that if you dam or re-channel the river at that point you can prevent the depression from flooding you with sadness.

The self-evaluative process is like the narrows. If you choke off or re-direct your thoughts at that point, you can prevent the damaging flow of negative self-comparisons.

The key element for understanding and dealing with depression, then, is the sadness- producing negative comparisons between one's actual and benchmark hypothetical situation, together with the conditions that lead a person to make such comparisons frequently and acutely and make you feel helpless to chance the situation.

How may we manipulate the comparison-producing mechanism so that we prevent the flow of negative self-comparisons? There are several possibilities for any given person; one or another may be successful, or perhaps some combination will prove best. The possibilities include: changing the numerator; changing the denominator; changing the dimensions upon which you compare yourself; and making no comparisons at all. Let's consider them one by one.

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