Getting on with it

 I promised I would tell you about getting on with it.

I have fought depression and suicidal ideation, for over 50 years.  I first became aware of depression when I was in university.  I realized that I had been fighting it for some time prior to that.  However, being in university gave me an opportunity to study various aspects of depression.  I've definitely experienced it over 50 years.  I've had counseling sessions with a number of counselors, of different types, all of whom have eventually, basically, given up.  I have had at least three rounds of medication with different types of antidepressant drugs.  They don't seem to do anything for me. 

There isn't any reason for depression.  At least, no reason that's apparent to anyone else.  There probably is some factor involved in brain chemistry that triggers depression, but this is not apparent to anyone on the outside.  And it's not particularly apparent to you as a depressed person or as a person in depression.  Brain chemistry is hard to measure.  It's not something that you, yourself, can assess.  You just know you're depressed.  I probably don't need to go into all the details of depression, the lethargy, the brain fog, the inability to form new ideas, the sleep interruptions and disturbance, everything that goes into making up depression.  You can read about those elsewhere.

One of the factors of depression that I studied, while I was in university and had the opportunity, was the theory of learned helplessness.  This seems to have started with research by Martin Seligman.  It's an interesting theory, based on experimentation, primarily with animals, but extending into all kinds of additional research with people.  The basic theory is that when a subject learns that they cannot succeed in a situation, they learn helplessness.  Learned helplessness seems to be pretty much identical to depression.  One person who objected to Seligman's work and theories stated that learned helplessness was a false theory because the brain chemistry of subjects in learn helplessness and in depression were in fact identical.  Well, I suppose that would be exactly the point of the theory of learned helplessness. 

In any case, once subjects had learned helplessness, the next step was to figure out how to *unlearn* helplessness.  And, therefore, cure depression, as it were.  The only way to do this seemed to be to force the subjects to succeed.  In the case of animal studies, this might involve taking an animal subject and physically moving them from an area where they shouldn't be, to where they should be.  Or forcing them to do whatever it was that you wanted them to learn to either avoid a punishment or obtain a reward.  In the case of human subjects it tends to translate, in "talking cures," to rephrasing or reformulating the information that the subject gives you, in order to demonstrate to them that they are succeeding.  For example, if the subject says that they are still depressed because they only got out once this week, you can congratulate them on the fact that they have improved, because the previous week they didn't get out at all.

This has become my way of dealing with depression.  Just get on with it.  Now, that is an easy thing to say, and it's not particularly useful to tell people who are depressed.  I've got 50 years of practice in doing it.  Telling people who haven't got 50 years of practice to get on with it, may not assist them in getting on with it.  You may have to start small.  You may have to start with minor successes.  Going for a walk and just putting one foot in front of the other.  Just getting up in the morning.  Climbing a set of stairs and just putting one foot in front of the other.

When I took my masters degree, I had just been fired.  So I wasn't in a great state of mind.  And I was faced with a huge task of taking multiple courses, more than the normal Masters degree level load, and I didn't know where to start.  I didn't have prerequisites for any of these fields except for education.  So, what I did, as soon as I got the textbooks for the courses I had signed up for, was simply open one and start reading.  This has become part of "getting on with it."  When faced with an enormous task, just start.  Start with anything.  Do anything, as long as you are doing something.  That's starting.  That's getting on with it. 

In another situation of life I was undertaking an exercise regime.  (Don't laugh.  I can exercise when it's absolutely necessary.)  I was doing a lot of climbing of stairs.  However I was also entering a depression at the time and I can well remember, at one point, finding all of this just too futile to carry on with.  I sat down on the stairs and wondered how long it would take to starve to death.  Eventually, of course, I got up, and took one more step up the stairs.  And then another.  And then another.  Just get on with it.  Just keep doing it.  (We'll come back to that.)

One of the aspects of depression is that the whole mess in front of you is just too big to deal with.  Of course, in reality the whole mess in front of you is probably smaller than you think.  But in the midst of depression it looks insurmountable.  Again, it tends to be multiple parts: many tasks that are in front of you that seem to be just too big to deal with.  So, pick one.  Do one.  It doesn't matter which one, just start anything.  Having done something, you have forced yourself to succeed.  That makes it (possibly only very slightly) easier to start the next task.

Getting on with it doesn't necessarily mean getting on with an important task that you are facing.  Sometimes it's getting on with *anything*.  It doesn't matter if what you succeed at is the most important thing in your life right now.  Succeeding at getting out of bed helps you with more important tasks.  Succeeding at going for a walk can help clear your head, help with your physical activity level, possibly give you more energy, and maybe help face something more important.  You don't have to choose the biggest insurmountable challenge facing you.  You can pick anything and just do it.  Get on with it.  Keep doing it.

Don't necessarily take on an enormous task all at once.  Try to break it down.  Small tasks allow you successes.  I am currently losing weight.  (I'll tell you about the intermittent binging diet some other time.)  It doesn't help to note that I am down over 100 lb from my highest weight.  That's not particularly motivating when I'm hungry for a meal *right now*.  It's not even helpful to note that I am down seventy pounds from shortly before Gloria's death, when I look at the fact that I still have another sixty pounds left to lose.  So, I break it down into smaller chunks.  When I am lighter than I have been in this diet, then I allow myself to eat.  It's a success.  It's a reward for a success.

If you feel that you can take on the biggest and most important task facing you right now, then certainly do so.  Just ensure that you feel you really *can* take it on because you don't need yet another failure right now.

A motto, phrase, or mantra may help. One of mine comes from the book "Are You My Mother."  Every time the baby bird fails to find his mother, we are told, "and the baby bird went on."  I sort of modified that for my own purposes (noting my status as a beard [techie] rather than a suit [executive or marketing]), and saying, "and the tubby beard went on."

There's always the old standby, "When You're going through Hell keep going."

Then there was our three-year-old neighbor, who coined the phrase "keep doing it, Wob!"  (This was mostly when I was doing something she found amusing, and wanted it to continue, but we sort of modified it for our own purposes, and, hey, a catchphrase is a catchphrase.)