Aside from what it’s done to me, recurring depression has inflicted the greatest hurt on my wife and children. Most people dealing with depression say the same thing - that their closest relationships are hit hard, and often don’t survive a long crisis or repeated episodes.
Many I talk to online feel that depression has been driving people away for years and that because of it they’ve never been able to hold a relationship together, or even get into one. That was true for me until my late 20s. The strategy I developed in childhood to get close to people was really a perfect way to keep them at a distance.
Instead of reaching out to anyone, I assumed that if they observed how depressed I was, they would respond sympathetically and reach out to me. That was pretty perverse. It must have started in childhood as one of many messages to Mom: “Please pay attention and love me.” It was a sort of acting in instead of acting out. It didn’t work with her or with anyone else, ever. Of course, it wasn’t a conscious strategy, just the way I was.
After I “grew up” and had some emotional awareness of how distorted my behavior and moods had become, I did have a conscious strategy. It was the same one almost everyone has. Get help, cure the depression, and then you’ll be ready to reach out and get close to people. Most of the therapies assume that too. They focus on the one with depression and try to help change and resolve inner issues before anything else. Relationships come into it, of course, but they’re next on the list.
It’s hard to imagine it could be any other way. I assume that I have to resolve the problem of depression on my own. I take my meds, go to my psychotherapy sessions, practice meditation, work at adapting my life to relieve stress, and a lot more. My symptoms should fade as I change and heal. Then I can rebuild my relationships.
The trouble with that approach is that it can take years, and in the meantime my family is taking the brunt of my worst behavior, my friends don’t know what to do and stay away, my colleagues at work can’t depend on me. If recovery ever comes - and I’ve been fortunate that it has come to me - it could be too late to rebuild any relationship.
I’ve come to believe that recovery depends as much on staying close to loved ones and learning to heal with them as it does on individual therapies. The two can’t be separated but have to go hand-in-hand.
But how can that be possible when I can’t face anyone when I’m in the depths of depression, much less talk to them? I could never relate to anyone for support when I was that lost. No one can. But depression doesn’t keep on with that intensity forever - or if it does, the person may be lost for good.
For most people, there are many degrees of depression, some days better than others. I’d often experience a complete rebound and feel perfectly fine for a limited period, only to fall flat again in a few days or weeks or months. Depression has these ups and downs.
