The Root of Depression is Suppression

I live in the PNW, and the PNW, while it is so beautiful, can be devastatingly dark in the winter months. It is extremely cloudy and rainy ALL DAY LONG for months and can exacerbate pre-existing depressive symptoms for a lot of us that are living here.

This is my take on depression—take it with a grain of salt.

Growing up, my parents didn’t tell me to “stop crying” or to not feel certain feelings, instead, they didn’t respond at all if I was crying. It was universally understood, in our household, that if you were sad or upset or feeling any other way other than happiness, you were to be left alone and nothing would be said or done. No consoling, no comforting or soothing, no conversations. You were left to be alone with your feelings.  

As innocent as this parenting approach sounds, it has devastating impacts. The implicit message I grew up hearing was:

1)        Your feelings don’t matter

2)        Your feelings are too burdensome for others

3)        You can’t expect anyone to be with you if you are feeling big feelings. You need to work it out on your own

What happened as a result?

I learned to numb my feelings, disconnect, distract in an attempt to not have any feelings other than happiness. I folded into the experience of EXTINCTION.

Or so I thought.

I still felt feelings, but I learned to just push them down. Down into a pit of darkness, where I’d hope that they wouldn’t ever be found again. 

But this isn’t really possible when it comes to feelings. It isn’t possible to stuff down your feelings indefinitely and hope that they don’t resurface. This was a really good survival technique. I became great at subconsciously shutting down my emotions. Depressing and suppressing my emotions. I AM A REALLY NICE PERSON. Everyone who meets me says that I am super nice. It’s not a coincidence that I was raised to suppress my feelings and that I’m really nice.

I grew up being conditioned to shut myself out of my own feelings, so much so that I trained myself to not experience anger. Anger is an indication that there’s a boundary violation. My parents shut down my anger so much that I didn’t even recognize that boundary violations were malignant. I thought they were NORMAL and OKAY. In fact, I subconsciously believed that if people didn’t violate my boundaries, I experienced great discomfort.

Fast forward 30+ years later….. I find myself with depressive symptoms. Alongside other symptoms:

•            People pleasing tendencies- strong drive to prioritize other people needs above their own

•            Emotional suppression- difficulty expressing or recognizing one’s own emotions, leading to internal distress

•            Over responsibility and overextending- adopting other people’s problems as their own leading to burnout

•            Perfectionism- need to achieve high and harsh expectations due to a fear of failure or rejection

•            Avoidance of conflict- avoiding hard conversations, ignoring and not addressing ruptures in trust

•            Duty bound- having a refusal to ask for help

My biggest struggle, even to this day, is working with recognizing, acknowledging, and supporting access to my angry feelings in a way that metabolizes it and releases it so it doesn’t stay in my body.

This, by far, has been my biggest anti-dote to depression to date.

How am I doing that? 

1)        I see depression as one of my defense mechanisms. It is protective and brings temporary safety and numbness so I don’t feel my grief or rage from unresolved wounds

2)        I see depression as arising from parts of me that had big feelings of grief, rage and pain that was unaddressed and suppressed from childhood that really want our attention now. They say things like:

a.         “this is all so hopeless”

b.        “I am useless”

c.        “no one is going to miss me if I die”

d.        “to die is better than to live”

e.        “no one cares about me”

f.           “There’s nothing anyone can do to make me feel better”

3)        I’m quieting my mind and pausing to look within. I am listening to those parts and trying to practice curiosity.

4)        I’m dialoging with my feelings and parts of me. I believe that there are no bad parts inside of me, even the parts that see that death is a better option than to live, I see those parts as having good protective intentions as well, even if they are gravely misguided. I can see that during my most depressive episodes, my different voices inside of me were teaming up and yelling loudly all at the same time.

5)        Take some space from the loudness- I’m learning to be the leader of all the parts that are yelling loudly, but first, I need to separate from the noise and gain some perspective.

a.        This is where my relationship with psychadelics has been enormously helpful and healing. I have seen how psychadelics can help me get the space I need in order to recognize that my depression is a part that wants my attention and is really just a part of me, but NOT ME.

6)        Getting in touch with my childhood- I am working, with a practitioner to get to the root of my pain that is through my personal pain as well as through intergenerational pain (pain that was passed down to me through my family). These pains are also called burdens. Burdens are painful messages and beliefs that our vulnerable parts carry and are invited to release, through the elements of earth, fire, water, air, or whatever is helpful.

7)        Discovering the light inside of me- When I am no longer overwhelmed with the loudness of my inner voices, my true self emerges. Self is the nurturing parent you never had, the friend that you’ve always longed for and the leader that your system didn’t know it needed.

Book a call with me here if you want to do this work for yourself.

If you found this blog/email from a friend and would like to subscribe to future email posts, please click this link​