When the depression was at its worst, I found that I was immobile, well beyond my capacity to receive the care of well-meaning people. His care was still important. I still needed it. And I would inevitably pick myself up a bit in a place where his empathy really helped.
Therefore, I have found that depression is a fluid state, where some days it is possible to move forward, while other days it is useless. And the best thing is that everyone (those who help and those who are helped) accept this reality, which for people with depression cannot be changed. Just as it is also better that everyone understands that advancement and empowerment in a few days is not only possible, it is necessary. The difficult thing is to discern which day is which.
Perhaps this is why the wisdom of The Serenity Prayer is so compelling:
God, help me to accept the days that I cannot change. Help me to be bold on the days when I can move and improve. And give me wisdom to discern the difference between these days.
Can you see the tensions in the previous point?
In depression there is movement back and forth. Some days there is hope. Other days, pure despair. You cannot change any type of day. It’s better to accept it, it’s not that caring doesn’t help. Sometimes, as an adult, it’s good to be alone and face ‘how to get through this’, but there is a limit to that thinking. We need the interaction to overcome the thought sinkhole into which we can fall.
Balancing tensions is about appreciating the overall dynamics that are present in your case of depression.
Like most things in life, it is a lie to suggest that there is a single global truth at stake in complex intrapersonal or interpersonal dynamics. There are always more aspects of your truth than that. That can be a difficult thing for you to understand and accept, let alone someone else.
For example, a victim of abuse, a traumatized subject, must be given unequivocal empathy: they must be believed, and it is incredibly important to their future hope and prosperity to do this. But he must not be left there. Not all healing is contained in empathy, even if it is a powerful start. The victim, and now let’s call her (trauma) survivor, must have more than her unspoken belief and encouragement. They also need to be gently challenged on their recovery journey, which suggests and believes in restoration, and at times this feels difficult.
There is danger for every trauma survivor. They can start and continue to be sucked into the vortex of victimhood. We have to take care of our language. Don’t curse. But how do we dwell on discouraging statements about ourselves that sound like we’re still the victim? We have to work towards a goal beyond that.
When we keep saying, “[They or the situation] did this to me!” or “[They or the situation] won’t change!” or “How dare you [they or the situation]!” Especially if we’re still angry, we can’t fully recover. Don’t get me wrong. Anger and disbelief are justified. But vindication comes when we stop feeling like a victim and tap into our agency (which means action or intervention that produces a certain [empowering] effect). It takes personal power to fully recover, and we must find a way to harness it, to access it.
But the agency cannot come until the empathy is received and remains. However, if we were to leave it at empathy, agency may never be fully realized. We need both.
While you suffer, can you keep the tensions in these seemingly opposite truths?
You are believed; it happened, it was horrible, and it is horrendous. But you can also be more than what you have experienced.
Balancing tensions is not that one is better than the other or that one is right and the other is wrong. Balancing the tensions in mental health restoration is about receiving empathy that validates what was and is and a challenge that propels us into the agency of what can be.
Victims MUST be believed, AND they MUST believe they can recover.
*** This article assumes, for victims of abuse, that you are OUT of your toxic situation. Recovery cannot take place in a situation that re-traumatizes us.