Coping with Depression Phase 4

How Accepting Loss Releases Healing

We’re back to toilet paper hoarding, a shopping spree no one really understands but one that spreads like a virus. A few stuffed carts trigger the fear of missing out on a life-necessity and soon there are swarms of people anxiously grabbing supplies. But there’s another kind of hoarding that is quiet and unseen. I hear about a Costco Pharmacy employee saying she’s shocked at the high number of anti-depressants she is currently processing. How do we cope with this quiet epidemic of depression?

This post focuses on how naming and accepting loss helps us work through depression. My series on conquering disrupters is a progression up an acceptance scale from condemning our circumstances to enduring the awful feeling of fear to tolerating the disrupter for the long haul. We move from “Make it go away!” to “What if I looked at my fear?” to “I’m actually handling my worst-case scenario!” It’s like turning a transportation barge around: stop, rev the engines, and set the course upstream against the pulling currents. Accepting our losses helps us travel to new destination. What does this mean?

Identifying loss moves me toward acceptance. Loss has many faces that complicate this process. Concrete, abstract, and anticipatory are three categories I find useful. Concrete loss like a job, home, loved one, marriage, or bodily function is more tangible. Concrete loss often intersects with abstract loss. For example, a burglary is more than the loss of property; it’s a violation of safety and trust. Divorce triggers a loss of hope that a marriage can improve with effort and skill. It’s the loss of a dream of family cohesion, support, security, and belonging. Abstract loss chips away our bedrock like self-esteem, identity, and value. Since it’s subterranean, it eludes our awareness. This is especially true if the loss is symbolic, like the loss of freedom, belonging, or independence. Anticipatory loss is sure-to-come loss in the near or distant future. Take the examples of hair loss from chemotherapy or a loved one with a terminal illness. The ultimate anticipatory loss is death, a specter each of us faces throughout our lives. Some live with its presence daily. Sorting through these types of losses helps me drill down to what’s bothering me.

Naming a loss leads me to an awareness of my attachment to it—a crucial step in not short-circuiting the process of healing. I learn this from my husband, Rick, a Clinical Psychologist with a reservoir of knowledge on loss and depression, and my resident shrink.

The psychology of depression is that it is a function of loss. The 10 symptoms associated with depression are:

1.  Depressed mood

2.  Problems experiencing pleasure

3.  Low energy

4.  Disrupted sleep

5.  Diminished/increased appetite

6.  Mental/physical agitation or slowing

7.  Feelings of worthlessness, guilt, negativity

8.  Difficulty concentrating

9.   Thoughts of escape – mild to severe

10.  Isolation

When therapists think about depression, they add up 6-8 of these symptoms to constitute an episode, and a very depressed person usually has all 10.

Picture a green line going straight to represent a person’s life. A loss event (or a series of losses) is a U-shaped curve that goes down, bottoms out, then climbs back up to the line and then extends out. When we lose something of value, we are built to have an experience like the U in order to recover and get on with life.

The depth and length of the U are functions of attachment. The more attached we are to a loss, the steeper and deeper the U is. For example, when a parent loses a child to death the length and depth of the depression U seem to go on indefinitely. This is arguably the toughest kind of loss. It might be the kind of loss you don’t fully recover from, even if you work at it. With other kinds of losses, we can influence the shape of the U curve.

Counselors often talk about grief work, which includes verbally and emotionally exploring the dimensions of loss. Actively grieving pays dividends in terms of recovery and the shape of the line in the U. Ignoring or suppressing the loss—what Rick calls short-circuiting the grief process—is like a red line running through the U. Instead of going to the bottom of the U and then back up again, short-circuiting cuts off the process and the healing. This short-circuiting actually extends the duration of the recovery.  

When Rick first starts doing therapy, he thinks his job is to get people to leave the session happier than when they arrived. He soon learns that if someone is in his office because of significant loss then his job is to help that person frame the experience as such and face the loss with courage, openness, and integrity. Allowing the feeling of pain puts the symptoms in the context of loss. The work is talking about the attachment to the person, job, reputation, wealth, hope, dream, etc. that is lost. This normalizes depression. By actively letting ourselves grieve, we get to the bottom of the U, start climbing out of the pit, and then put the loss in the larger context of our life. Tennyson’s quote “‘tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all” turns out to be exactly right!

When disrupters first strike, we may not realize the importance of naming and feeling our loss. It seems like a pity party from which it’s hard to emerge. It interferes with a positive attitude desperately needed to keep fighting. But processing loss is crucial to flourishing. It enables letting go and living contentedly without what is lost. Shortcuts simply prolong and complicate the process of healing.

Naming loss leads to owning it. Owning it opens up a new possibility. A new possibility grants acceptance. Acceptance leads to a thankfulness. We catch a glimpse of the sparkling gain, the way our hearts are enlarged and how a new purpose beckons. Our stories matter. These are deep stories, stories of loss and survival, stories of sorrow and cheer, stories with U shapes and straight lines. They belong to us and are ours to tell.

So, “Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don’t matter and those who matter don’t mind.” (Dr. Seuss)