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So even though you don't hold fundamentalist faith in the immorality of divorce, you could have easily picked up this idea--probably from your parents, school- teachers, stories, or movies. And the idea that you picked up, simply stated, says: "Only bad people get divorces. I got a divorce. So I must qualify as a bad person. Yes, I must acknowledge my real rottenness! Oh, what a no-good, awful, terrible person!" "Sounds dreadfully familiar," she said with a rather bitter laugh. "It certainly does," I resumed. "Some such sentences as these probably started going through your mind--other- wise you would not feel as disturbed as you do. Over and over again, you have kept repeating this stuff. And then you have probably gone on to say to yourself: "'Because I did this horrible thing of getting a divorce, I deserve damnation and punishment for my dreadful act. I deserve to feel even more miserable and unhappy than when I lived with that lousy husband of mine. She ruefully smiled, "Right again!" "So of course," I continued, "you have felt unhappy. Anyone who spends a good portion of her waking hours thinking of herself as a terrible person and how much she deserves misery because of her rottenness (notice, if you will, the circular thinking involved in all this)--any such person will almost certainly feel miserable. If I, for example, started telling myself right this minute that I had no value because I never learned to play the violin, to ice-skate, or to win at tiddly-winks--if I kept telling myself this kind of bosh, I could quickly make myself feel depressed.
"Then I could also tell myself, in this kind of sequence, how much I deserved to feel unhappy because, after all, I had my chance to learn to play the violin or championship tiddly-winks, and I had messed up these chances. And what a real worthless skunk this made me! Oh, my God, what a real skunk!" My client, by this time, seemed highly amused, as I satirically kept emphasizing my doom. "I make it sound silly," I said. "But with a purpose--to show you that you act just as foolishly when you start giving yourself the business about your divorce." "I begin to understand what you mean," she said. "I do say this kind of thing to myself. But how can I stop? Don't you see quite a difference between divorce, on the one hand, and violin-playing or tiddly-winks, on the other hand?" "Granted. But has your getting a divorce really made you any more horrible, terrible, or worthless than my not learning to play the fiddle?" "Well, you'll have to admit that I made a serious mistake when I married such an irresponsible person as my husband. And maybe if I had behaved more maturely and wisely myself, I could have helped him to grow up."
"O.K., agreed. You did make a mistake to marry him in the first place. And, quite probably, you did so because you behaved immaturely at the time of your marriage. All right, so you made a mistake, a neurotic mistake. But does this mean that you deserve punishment the rest of your life by having to live forever with your mistake?"
"No, I guess not. But how about a wife's responsibility to her husband? Don't you think that I should have stayed with him and tried to help him get over his severe problems?"
"A very lovely, and sometimes even practical, thought. But didn't you tell me that you tried to help him and he refused even to acknowledge that he had disturbances? And didn't you say that he strongly opposed your going for any kind of therapy during your marriage, let alone his going for help, too?" "Yes, he did. The mere mention of the word psychologist or marriage counselor sent him into a fit of temper. He'd never think of going of even letting me go for help."
"The main thing you could have done, then, would have involved playing psychotherapist to him, and in your state, you'd hardly have proved effective at that. Why beat yourself down? You made a mistake in marrying. You did your best to do something to rectify it after marriage. You got blocked, mainly by your husband, but partly by your own feelings of severe upset, on both counts. So you finally got out of the marriage, as almost any reasonably sane person would have done. Now what crime have you committed? Why do you insist on blaming yourself? You think, erroneously, your unhappy situation makes you miserable. But does the situation--or what you keep telling yourself about this situation?" "I begin to see your point. Although my marital situation never has felt good, you seem to say that I don't have to give myself such a hard time about it. Quite a point of view you have there!"
"Yes, I like it myself--and often use it in my own life. But now if we can only help you to make it your point of view, not because I hold it but because you figure out that it really will work better for you, not even a poor marriage and an as yet difficult divorce situation will faze you. In fact, if I can really help you to adopt this viewpoint, I can't imagine anything that will ever bother you too much." "You really mean that, don't you?" "Mean it, hell--I believe it!"
And so, to some extent, did this young divorcee, after another few months of rational-emotive therapy. Whereas she previously kept telling herself how far from ideally and how horribly she behaved for not achieving this ideal, she now began to substitute problem-solving, internalized sentences for her old self-beatings. In one of her last conferences with me, she said: "You know, I looked into the mirror yesterday morning and said to myself, 'Geraldine, you behave like a happy, fairly bright, increasingly mature, growingly efficient kid. I keep getting mighty fond of you.' And then I laughed with real joy."
"Fine," I said. "But don't lead yourself up the path of rating you, Geraldine, highly because you act so much better. For then you will have to rate yourself lowly, once again, if and when you act worse. Try to stick to: 'I like behaving so much better' rather than 'I like me for doing this good behavior!" "Yes, I see what you mean," she replied. "I feel glad you warned me about that. Rating myself I unfortunately do most easily. But I'll fight it!" This client discovered that her feelings did not derive from her unsuccessful marriage or her divorce but from her evaluations of herself in regard to these "failures." When she changed the kinds of thoughts (or internalized sentences) she fed herself, her emotions changed from depression and despair to sorrow and regret--and these appropriate negative feelings helped motivate her to change the conditions of her life. Not all clients, like Geraldine, see so quickly that they cause their own depressed feelings about divorce and decide to accept themselves. Some- times they may require months or years of therapy before they come to this decision. But persistence, on their and their therapist's part, certainly helps!"2
In summary, shifting the dimensions on which you evaluate yourself can be a potent weapon against depression. And even if it is not enough by itself, it is a valuable complement to other tactics.
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