Healing in 3rd Person

Narrative Therapy Coping Skills

Hello, Dear Readers!

Sorry for the long hiatus, and thanks for coming back.  In this post I'm going to share a coping skill that I've been working on in a Depression support group, and I normally wouldn't foist this on you all, but I think it's a really interesting way to use one's skill at narrative as a tool for healing.

This exercise happens in three parts:

1. The exercise is to take your perceptions of yourself and to write that as a description of a character under a different name.  
2. Write a healthy version of that character (the trick here is to be realistic about expectations.  Healthy you is not necessarily super(wo)man).  
3. Set aside some time to role-play that healthy version of your character.  

So for example, here's a version of my exercise, describing myself under the name Isaiah.  

1) Perception of Self under fictitious name: 

Isaiah is a mediocre cook, a lazy guy.  He plays games all day and dreams about being a writer without doing any of the hard work.  He hates himself, because he knows what he's doing wrong in his life, but he can't quite seem to stop himself from failing preemptively.  Isaiah does his best to at least help make life comfortable and nice for his partner, even though he feels like dying much of the time. Keeping his partner well-fed and making sure she doesn't have t o do too much of the housework at least lets Isaiah believe that he isn't a complete waste of space , even if he isn't spending his life earning a real living or even on pursuing his own goals.  When he's around other people he's considered droll – even witty – or smart, but alone his thoughts shatter on inspection, cutting shards that burrow into his mind.  Some shards become seeds and grow and probe out roots, threatening to break open his mind like saplings near a cliff face – strong enough to crumble stone, but too weak to bear the weight once the rock is cleft.  He's been depressed for so long that he can't tell what's him (the real him) and what's the illness.  Is illness all there is to Isaiah, or is there something beneath the tangle of roots and debris?  

2) Healthy Version of Self under same fictitious name:

With the roots and stumps hacked away and yanked out, Isaiah discovered that beneath the fractured face, lay a bedrock of self.  He writes more but still feels like it's not enough, but he forgives himself.  Daily tasks don't paralyze him, and he feels like life is worth living for himself, for his own worth.  He dedicates time to helping his partner and to helping others.  He takes rejections from editors in stride, because it means that he's getting his work out there, and he's actively learning his trade.  There are still hard days, and he's maybe not happy, but he's not so, so sad.  Pleasure exists again in the small things and in the large.  He's present during sex – engaged, not anxiety-ridden.  On most days he is thoroughly convinced that life is worth living.  

3) Role-play Healthy You

So this is where the work you've done really hits the road.  For me that means writing even on the bad days, that means celebrating small writing victories and reminding myself that even in my darkest days, I've taken time out to help other people – whether it was loaning them a few dollars or talking them down from crisis-mode.  

Celebrate your Healthy you, and reward yourself for Role-playing the healthy you, and keep playing like you're that healthy person until you are.  It's a great way to pull in other coping skills and to get the most out of your therapy.  Also, it's a way to literally bring your Narrative skills to life.  

Thanks for reading.  

P.S. For Concerned Readers: While that first example may seem extreme or melodramatic (or dangerously desperate), much of what I expressed is experienced by the hundreds of millions of people worldwide who suffer major depression.  If you have a friend or family member who talks to you about wanting to kill themselves, LISTEN.  Even (ESPECIALLY) if they've talked about it a lot before.  The average person remains actively suicidal for only a period of a few minutes, so even delaying someone with 10 to 15 minutes of pleasantries can be enough to save a life.  Try to get that person to a therapist or ask them to consider hospitalization – if they don't want to dial the suicide prevention Lifeline, offer to dial for them 1 (800) 273-TALK (8255).  If you or someone you know has struggled with depression, educate yourself through a Mental Health First Aid course or any of a number of wonderful works on the subject, including Andrew Solomon's The Noonday Demon: An Atlas of Depression or even Allie Brosh's "Adventures in Depression".  

P.P.S. Thanks for being awesome, impressive people.  

Depression Quest – A Review

Welcome back, readers!

Lately there's been a lot of discussion about #GamerGate and their espoused views on women developers and characters.  Gawker actually has a pretty solid article on it, focused around the current GG focal point of Depression Quest by Zoe Quinn.

Given that many of the criticisms I encountered were couched in "but it was a crappy game" language, I decided to play the game myself.  By the way, Depression Quest is free on Steam, if you'd be so inclined to play it yourself.  It's a pretty short game on a per-playthrough basis which is a blessing, because as a person who has struggled with depression for pretty much my entire life, I can say that even a few hours in the head of a seriously depressed individual is utterly exhausting, but before I give you my full take on the game, allow me to enumerate the main complaints against it (which you can see in the Gawker article and also on the Steam Community comments).

1) "This isn't even a game"
2) "Depression isn't like this."
3) "Woman developer – ack outrage"

Let's be contrarian together and tackle that list in reverse order.  "Woman developer - ack outrage"... This is ridiculous as an argument against the game – or any game for that matter.  Does the game have failings? Yes.  But those failings have to do with expectations versus what was delivered, and absolutely nothing to the gender/sex of the writer.

Tackling the 2nd comment is a bit more difficult, because parts of the cohort that argues this are actually sufferers from depression themselves.  The fact is that, yes, depression really is like this – where options are cut off to you, where you spiral out of control in negative feedback loops, where you can't get out of bed somedays, where you are literally stuck with only a few options and sometimes those options really suck.  But not everyone's experience with depression is the same, so part of that complaint that Depression isn't as shown, is true.  The HEART of depression which is shown openly and viciously and painfully in this game is actually honest and very useful.  If you or someone you know suffers from depression or knows someone who does, I have 2 bits of advice for you: 1) Therapy.  Seriously.  Therapy is the single best tool you can arm yourself with in order to survive depression.  2) Get yourself and those around you resources in order to understand depression.  Depression Quest is a great, interactive tool.  Andrew Solomon's TED Talk is brilliant and helpful.  Dr. David Burns's Feeling Good: The New Mood Therapy is a great book on Cognitive Behavioral Therapy.

That brings us to the 1st complaint, that Depression Quest isn't a game.  This argument is understandable, because the vehicle for the game is so much different than most other games.  There's not a lot of interaction, there is a lot of reading, and there's very definite lack of images.  So, yeah, that is different.  The writing is exceptional, the options that are crossed out are every bit as important as the options you do have access to, and like actual depression, the game doesn't really "end" in the traditional sense.  There's no triumphal march, no victory trumpets, just a general feeling that you've made the best decisions you could given what you felt, and that you've survived.

In my opinion, it's a game worth playing.  There were a lot of risks taken in the minimalism of the game, and not all of them paid off, but that the designers took risks is great.  The writing is solid.  The story is super depressing, and that will frustrate people, but it's still a worthwhile playthrough.

As always, thanks for reading.

About Depression

This is apt to be a bit of a longer post, but I ask you to bear with me.  If you want to skip right to the fun part of this post, just light on over to hyperbole and a half.  For those intrepid souls who want to venture into the wilderness of this post: "Fare forward, travellers [sic]."

"Art doesn't come from happiness; it comes from pain," or at least that's what a friend told me in high school (and who didn't suffer enough pain during those formative years to create a masterpiece?).  Numerous studies have shown a strong correlation between depression, bipolar disorder, and creativity.  Kay Redfield Jamison wrote an extraordinary book about this phenomenon called Touched with Fire.

Even with the numerous resources available to discuss depression, even with 10% of the US population reporting depression, even with the ever-lessening stigma on seeking psychotherapy, it is still incredibly difficult to explain depression to someone who has not been depressed.  There's a two part exploration of what it means to be depressed over at hyperbole and a half which is poignant and humorous.  Likely you will laugh and then feel awkward about having done so.  But it's less bad than laughing at a funeral (and less public, so bonus).  

Really the only thing that isn't covered in Brosh's description of the "depression experience" is the spiral of guilt that comes from looking around and seeing all the things you "should have" done.  Basically, this chemical imbalance is self-fueling after a certain point, because obviously, feeling bad (and not having anything "real" to show for feeling bad) is no excuse to not get work done, so you're just lazy, etc.  (Not true, but then we humans are all to able to believe lies - especially about ourselves).

The initial part of being treated isn't much better than the full blown depression, either.  There's the fear that we'll be somehow less without our disorder, but that's just a form of codependency (like in an abusive relationship).  The first two or so weeks of treatment are the hardest, because all of a sudden one feels the same bleakness of spirit, but one has energy.  It ought to come as no surprise then, that the tendency towards actually committing suicide during this time is a more common occurrence.

As Brosh mentions in the second half of her depression exploration, the first emotion to come back will likely be anger, and you'll be angry at everything, because it just feels good to feel something, anything again.  Don't worry, it gets better from there.

Now, as a writer, what can you do with that soul-crushing period of blackness?  Well, that's where stories and poems can come from.  Everyone's depression is different, so write about it, write about your struggle and eventual triumph, write about what color the depression felt (mine was grey, endlessly grey), write about the hero you created within yourself to battle the depression beast.  Most importantly, as a writer, write.  As long as you write, you aren't defeated.