REALITY CHECK

Do you ever have those days where you think everything’s going great and then suddenly your brain switches gear without warning? You could have been having a fantastic couple of weeks when BAMM, that little demon is perched on your shoulder again whispering unsweet depressing lies in your ear. You know that sort of stuff that goes something like ‘You’re a loser; you are hopeless in more ways than one! Everyone else can manage to get it together, so why can’t YOU? What’s wrong with you or should I be asking WHAT’S RIGHT WITH YOU?!’.

When those moments occasionally pop up in my life I like to do a reality check, yet sometimes I just can’t shake the emotion that tends to ooze throughout every pore of my being when my brain does switch gears. It doesn’t matter how many people say to me what a good person I am or even the fact I thought so myself just the day before, that nasty little creature resembling depression has its claws sunk so deep the pain is almost unbearable. The lies can feel so believable.

Personally, I like to think of depression as ‘a dream state’ (although more like a nightmare sometimes). Consider how you dream whilst you are asleep; much of the time you don’t realise you’re actually dreaming – it just feels so incredibly real. Whilst you’re fast asleep, you’re most likely unable to acknowledge how your brain is tricking you regarding what is believable. The trickery is so incredible it can affect your entire being, forcing you to wake in a sweat, with your heart racing as you attempt to desperately ground yourself back into the world of reality. Once you finally come to, you can reassure yourself that it was all just a figment of your imagination (the quirky way in which your brain works). Basically, a depressed brain is a tricky quirky brain, for when you ‘wake up’ life is a whole different mental, physical and even spiritual experience, believe me.

I regard myself as extremely fortunate at this point in my life for the down times are occasional and typically hormone related in all honesty. They last for a few days at a time and then I ‘wake up’. During my fifteen or so years of constant nightmare state, in my twenties and thirties, I was convinced I’d never wake up yet here I am living a reality I am most grateful for. I like to regard my occasional down states as my reminders. They are brief yet intense brutal reminders of the emotion suffered by those who are still trying to wake up from their own nightmare. It is easy, once having risen from depression, to forget what the suffering or helpless feeling was truly like. One may think they can accurately recall the battle, although memory plays its own kind of tricks.

‘At the end of the day, what is actually REAL?’ some may ask. Personally, I believe our reality is comprised of many, many things. Our reality relates to our perception, fuelled in part by our brain’s chemistry and a plethora of mental programs instilled throughout our life so far. Reality is how our brain interacts with our senses and our experiences or memories. Our reality also bases itself on our degree of knowledge, what we are taught until we grow through learning more or through having our mind changed thanks to alternative ways of thinking. In summary, reality is never in a fixed state for it is constantly being re-worked via internal or external means.

So, how do we change the dark version of reality known depression? Like with any nightmare, we must first come to understand the cause; we must come to know WHY our brain is producing such distortion or darkness. Second, it cannot hurt to try tethering yourself to the reality you most desperately want, so when the down times hit hard you know it’s your brain tricking you in some way (you’re in a dream state). Personally, my most reliable tethering strategy involves letter writing. When I am in good frame of mind I will write a letter to myself, to be read when I’m on a downer, explaining how I am living the illusion and how I must hold on and maintain faith in myself and my ability to rise out of it. I figure if my brain wants to trick me, I shall remain one step ahead of it wherever possible.

As mentioned, it doesn’t matter how many people tell us how great we are, whilst we’re smack bang in the middle of our nightmare, our perception dictates our reality at the time. Knowing how our brain works, with all its trickery included, takes us one step closer to rising up from out of the darkness.