Depression Treatment and Understanding Our Switches

Depression Treatment

There are two dynamics involved causing severe Depression and Anxiety. The first is the experience of neglect, abuse or medical need.

This creates emotional trauma in the form of unprocessed hurt, need, and anger. Oftentimes the sufferer has no way to express this.

The second dynamic is the switching of our mind to a more distant perspective through which to view all life, where we can be safe from further hurt. The second event occurs because of the first. Both need to be addressed separately for our healing to be complete.

Depression Treatment Viewpoint and Denial

There is a difference between ‘withdrawal,’ which is denial of events, or their significance, and ‘switching,’ which is a reversion into indifference, and refusal to emotionally connect with other persons and with their feelings and boundaries.

There seems to be two distinct levels we may switch to. They are viewpoints or vantage points. They are activated when we reach a ‘This is Chaos, fall back!’ moment. Most of us here have experienced times in our life when we thought this!

Depression Treatment and Withdrawal into Mammal Defensiveness or Reptile Indifference

When certain thresholds of emotional suffering are experienced, we will, by psychological design, withdraw from that source of pain, need and suffering, even when it is life itself.

We will withdraw our finger from touching a hot pan on a stove, and we will naturally withdraw our caring, loving, needing emotional view of life when that life holds too much pain to reasonably endure.

That is our evolutionary migration backwards towards a lower state of being, where we feel more instinct and less emotion. If the human feeling level is too painful to understand or live in, we will return to a lower mammal level, or in the worst cases of abuse and emotional pain, reptile, like sex and violent offenders.

Depression Treatment and Healthy Modulation

Normally we all relate to our environment on a human level, an animal level, and below that on a reptilian level almost daily. Healthy humans have that capability as needed.

Whether or not we believe we evolved from a lower order mammal, or we were created distinctly human that looked like Barbie and Ken dolls in the sunny Garden of Eden does not matter, we all can vary viewpoints. We need all levels to interact and survive:

Soldiers need the reptilian level in combat, married lovers need the animal level to have kids, and researchers and leaders need the human level to explore, create and teach.

The more emotional pain or psychological need in our past, the less fluid the switching and the more permanent the switch to a lower order perspective.

Depression Treatment Relaxation and Reliving our Past Critical Points

We can go back and switch our perspectives back to the trusting, loving, and emotionally available viewpoint with which we were born. Self Relaxation and Hypnosis are the best tools for this.

We can do this ourselves or with a therapist. We need to be comfortable and concentrate on the physical members of our body and tell them to relax one by one.

Physical relaxation is deeply connected to emotional relaxation. We need to reassure ourselves that we are traveling back in our past and that nothing can hurt us now, because we are adults and we survived the original event, so therefore we are okay.

Like in normal therapy, just as we remember all the bad things that happened to us, and tell our therapist or friend, we need to do that again, only this time for a different purpose.

Instead of focusing on the pain and hurt, we are looking for a dilemma, a message and what that traumatic event taught us about life or our self.

Depression Treatment Reviewing the Original Dilemma

There was a powerful message we learned from each tragic event, and we need to put that into words. We are not talking about God's wisdom or some hidden truth; we are looking for just the opposite, the ‘Tragedy Message,' which is a lie, untruth, or an incorrect assumption.

We need to state it if we are to dispute it. That would create our, 'This is Chaos, fall back!' moment or turning point.

Depression Treatment State the Dilemma and What it Taught Us Originally

Once we have relived each significant tragic moment, and made our list of Tragedy Messages we learned from those moments, we can proceed.

We will have undoubtedly come up with some very strong lessons about the cruelty of life, other people, the indifference of God and perhaps our own unworthiness.

Do not be ashamed of these tragedy messages, do not water them down, because that is what we feel in our hearts and that makes them true for us.

Depression Treatment Evidence That Our Damaging View Still Exists

We may not think we see life through those tragedy messages, but we still do! If someone hurts us or a certain bad thing happens, what will we respond with?

We will say, 'Aha, I knew it, I knew they would let me down and betray me!' or, 'I knew that was going to happen, because nothing good ever stays with me for very long!' That tells us that we still see through an emotionally defensive position to protect ourselves.

That is the very view that is getting in the way of our healing. We still view life the way we see the worst, and not the best. That is the mammal or reptile viewpoint we are talking about.

Depression Treatment Putting That Viewpoint Into Words and Stating It

Once we have isolated a negative view, we need say it out loud. The same way our expectation of hardship and betrayal is distancing us from emotional pain before it happens is the same distancing that holds us from others who are there to comfort us and love us.

That cynical mistrust is the barrier that stops emotional connection we need. That connection is a bridge for thoughts and words to be shared which will help us emote, heal and move on. That bridge will lead us to the Garden of Eden of Enthusiasm which God wants us to find.

Depression Treatment Returning to Your Original Viewpoint of Trust of Life

What has happened in our past is the betrayal of our trust of Life, Others, and God. The hurt of that betrayal has caused us to mistrust and withdraw.

The things that happened to hurt you with betrayal will have taken a million different forms, and no two acts of abuse, neglect or need will be the same for any of us.

But all carry the same message. You were not wrong, naive or immature to have trusted originally. That trust is what you must switch back to as a perspective if you are to grow and advance as One of God's Children.

When you choose to be strong and put on your eyes of Trust, you will again be able to see your Garden of Eden of Enthusiasm. It is a real place waiting nearby, but you will not ever find it if you stay in the black fog perspective and viewpoint of mistrust.

Depression Treatment Quote to Remember:

Do you know that the more you choose to trust Life, God and Others, the more clear your vision will become to see those who are worthy of your trust?

Try it!

Leave Depression Treatment and Return to Depression Page

Return to Home Page Clinical Depression