Depression

tl/dr: I offer my reflections on a column rich with helpful ways to contend with the depression of a loved one. Then I offer thoughts on how to face the depression epidemic from the perspective of culture and community. I include thoughts on the promise of psychedelics.

I’ve experienced the heartbreak of long grief. The kind that changes you forever.

I have my ups and downs. 

I’m prone to addiction as a form of avoidance. And I need the ongoing support of others in order to work with that part of me. 

I’ve only recently come to accept that I have to contend with anxiety. I did not even want to see it as a part of me.

But what I don’t experience is the illness called depression.

We are in the midst of an epidemic. Our young are the most vulnerable, but it is tearing through every age group.

Depression has been around me all my life—it is part of my family line. I have seen it impact each of our generations. 

It is devastating. And it is definitely on a spectrum. I have seen people heal. I have seen people learn to manage. And I have seen people succumb.

There is a kind of depression that is the direct product of trauma. And there is a kind of depression that is clinical. There are too many people who are afflicted with both.

Some of you are wrestling with depression as you read these words. ALL of you know too many people struggling with depression right now.  

Whatever I say next, know this: We do NOT have a surefire solution. The depression epidemic remains a mystery to us. And, it is also true that there are hopeful avenues for healing. We are bringing our attention to the problem. And we are learning a lot.

I was moved to write this note after reading the New York Times Opinion Piece by David Brooks: How Do You Serve a Friend in Despair? (As always, apologies for linking you to anything behind a paywall). He lost a childhood friend to depression and suicide. A friend he had stayed in touch with all his life. A successful friend who had experienced meaning in his work and was in the midst of raising a family.

Brooks learned that: 

“Those of us lucky enough never to have experienced serious depression cannot understand what it is like just by extrapolating from our own periods of sadness. [...] It is not just sorrow; it is a state of consciousness that distorts perceptions of time, space and self.

It is an unimagined abyss.” 

Offering advice is a mistake. It is not helpful to a person who is depressed. “When you give a depressed person advice on how to get better, there’s a good chance all you are doing is telling the person that you just don’t get it.” 

I just made this mistake a few months ago. And I was reminded of a very important lesson: never try to help someone in order to ease my own pain. It hurts to see a  loved one endure the depths of psychological suffering. But our job is to stay present with them and what they need. We can seek help for ourselves somewhere else. 

“A  friend’s job in these circumstances is not to cheer the person up. It’s to acknowledge the reality of the situation; it’s to hear, respect and love the person; it’s to show that you haven’t given up on [them], that you haven’t walked away.”

Brooks speaks of a sermon by Mike Gerson, where Gerson defined depression as a “‘malfunction of the instrument we use to determine reality.’ Then he talked about the lying voices that had taken up residence in his mind, spewing out their vicious clichés: You are a burden to your friends, you have no future, no one would miss you.”

This I know to be true. A depressed person cannot make a clear assessment of reality. The voice in their head tells lies that are self-evident to anyone else who is watching.

It can be so difficult to see your loved one fall for an evident lie. It leaves you with a sense of impotence.

As Brooks grieves the loss of one of his closest, he says: 

I wish I had bombarded Pete with more small touches. Just small emails to let him know how much he was on my mind. Writing about his own depression in The Atlantic last year, Jeffrey Ruoff mentioned that his brother sent him over 700 postcards over the years, from all 50 states, Central America, Canada and Asia. Those kinds of touches say: I’m with you. No response necessary.

That is something to keep in mind. Small, consistent touches. 

The experts say if you know someone who is depressed, it’s OK to ask explicitly about suicide. The experts emphasize that you’re not going to be putting the thought into the person’s head. Very often it’s already on her or his mind. And if it is, the person should be getting professional help.

…

I strongly believe that he erroneously convinced himself that he was doing this to help his family and ease the hardship his illness had caused them. Living now in the wreckage, I can tell you that if you ever find yourself having that thought, it is completely wrong.

Brooks’ friend lost the battle. His friend’s family lost him. Brooks lost him. Brooks affirms that we don’t know enough, and he finds it ridiculous that we do not. He still learned a few things, which is why I’m sharing this with you.

• You don’t have to try to coax somebody out of depression. It’s enough to show that you are trying to understand what this troubled soul is enduring. It’s enough to create an atmosphere in which the sufferer can share [their] experience. It’s enough to offer [them] the comfort of being seen.

• Do whatever it is you do to give the [partners] and children a break — an hour or two when they don’t have to worry that the worst will happen (and pray that it doesn’t happen on your watch, because that isn’t a given). 

• Do whatever it is you do so you can look at yourself in the mirror. True friendship offers deep satisfactions, but it also imposes vulnerabilities and obligations, and to pretend it doesn’t is to devalue friendship.”

I want to leave you with a few of my thoughts. As someone who does healing work. And as someone who does not experience the illness of depression but has had my whole life shaped by it. 

It is imperative to remember that every case of depression is unique and that depression is experienced on a spectrum. DO NOT jump to the conclusion that yours must be a hopeless case. Even if your mind is telling you so.

I think that we in the West too often make the mistake of looking at our problems through the lens of the individual. I am convinced that the epidemic scale of loneliness, anxiety, and depression is produced by our culture. And it must therefore be addressed by culture itself.

Growing wise is an essential part of being human. Some might say that to become wise is to become more fully human.We don’t know enough about the paths to wisdom. And yet, we are here to get wise.

We are living in a society that lacks meaning, connection, and belonging. Instead of learning wisdom, we are taught how to consume. Instead of learning how to be and become more fully ourselves, what we are learning is how to perform images of ourselves.

There must be things we can do instead.

Yes. Individually. Each one of us must commit ourselves to a path of wisdom, and get really clear on how wisdom is different from “knowledge.” 

We must commit to something greater than ourselves. Tell ourselves a shared story that precedes us and will go on after us. We must find our way to contend and commune with the Great Mystery. That which I have come to see as the Divine and the Sacred.

As soon as we make this commitment to ourselves we realize that we cannot do it alone. And so we start to build community.

Community is an act of resistance. Our economy is organized against it. It is organized against friendship. It wants us atomized. Nuclear. Too busy for friendship, for its supreme blessings, for its inevitable challenges, and for its life-shaping demands.

But whatever depression is, I guarantee you that we will see less of it when each of us is less alone. More people will get through it when we re-learn what it means to be together.

It is also true that Psychedelic Medicine offers some of the most promising pathways out of the despair of depression. But it is coming to us through a therapeutic lens that is too individualized and cannot fully engage the sacred.

Let me absolutely clear here:

• I believe psychedelics can help. I have seen them work.

• You do need to pair them with therapy, somatic work, spiritual practice, and the basics of good health.

• True integration of the psychedelic experience can set you on the path to wisdom, but psychedelics will not get you there by themselves. A path is a daily practice.

• Psychedelics are best seen as an episodic sacrament that exists in the context of community. A community that regularly gathers without psychedelics. People and families who come together regularly to celebrate, contend with, and bow before the mystery of life and its terms.

• Also. You don’t need psychedelics. But you need community.

If you or someone you know are struggling with depression, it is still a good idea to look into psychedelics. Even when we don’t yet have community in place. Just understand that you will need others with you on the path. And know that the healing happens not just during the experience, but mainly after. Integration is everything.

Depression is a scary thing. It takes the innocent lives of people we love and leaves devastation in its wake.

There is a reason why so many of our great artists struggle with depression. There is a direct link between the highest truths and the abyss. This is also why so many great artists get wise.

There is a portal to the sacred here. A portal to what is human and true.

What if we could hold these sensitive souls as they take deep dives into themselves, returning with boons for us all? What if we could create more context for it all. More togetherness through it all?

Stay on the path. Or get on the path.

Let’s remember what it means and what it takes to become human together.

Saludos,

Gibrán

PS Last chance to register for our free program Six Weeks of Meditation