I thought I would write about my dance with depression. It all came to a bit of a head last year and I am well on the recovery road. Over the years I have talked and helped many people recover from depression. They have taught me many things and last year I trusted what I had learnt and put it into practice.
So here are my top ten learning’s. Not in any great order of importance, they are all significant and all need to be danced with.
The body you live in is fragile. It’s not perfect, it’s prone to illness and change. Ever since Eden it’s been prone to illness.
Put the brain under enough prolonged pressure and it too may well crack.
Changes in brain chemistry can lead to wackiness in your thinking processes. But there is heaps of hope.
You thought the brain stayed the same didn’t you. I always did. I thought the brain was hardwired to think and behave in a certain way, forever. I was happy to discover I was wrong.
It’s plastic, malleable and can change, alter, and learn new ways of thinking and acting.
Check out Norman Doidge for more. Putting it simply, THE BRAIN IS INCREDBLE. You might also like to check out Learning, Ouch! and related video clip.
3. Faulty foolish thinking.
Ever since I was born, and even before whilst in the womb I have been thinking. Some would question this at times about me, but yes it’s true. I have been thinking and I have developed some thinking and acting strategies to get what I needed.
I discovered that when I cried I got fed or held. I carried this wonderful strategy, along with others, over into adult years, but discovered that it didn’t always work.
Often these thinking and acting strategies have been not been the way God wanted to me think or behave. But hey, I got what I needed!
Paul, in Romans 12:2 says this
Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.
We need to keep on reflecting with Daddy, Jesus and Spirit on the thinking and behaving strategies that we utilise. Perhaps they actually keep us in a vicious cycle of stinky thinky and bad behaviour!
That’s enough from me. The rest of my learning’s will be shared over the next few weeks.
What do you think? Don’t be a stranger, pass a comment below and join in the conversation.
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6 thoughts on “Pt.1 My Dance with Depression and What I have Learnt.”
Do you find that ‘stinky thinky’ comes and goes? I go for weeks, even months without ‘stinky thinky’ then WHAM it’s back…..most of the time I don’t know what’s triggered it. I wish that the brain wasn’t so plastic, then maybe I’d stay in positive land all the time.
I struggled with being extremely negative, when I was unwell, for a very long time. A family member stuck this verse on the door – Philippians 4:8 (NIV), “Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.” It took positively ages for it to sink in – I suppose a new pathway in the brain having to be burnt in – a positive one, maybe one of hope.
Good comments people, keep them coming! Our thought patterns can be not just ‘little ruts’ we fall into but giant ‘grand canyons’ of ruts that take some concerted efforts to ply ourselves from. Having a plan is crucial for those times.
I had my first experience with a bully registered nurse on placement today,I had to fight the overwhelming urge to throw something large and heavey at her head. And While I came through it being professional and totally courteous to this evil witch, I got home and totally fell apart.
I went down that whole “you are such worthless person, you’ll never make it as a nurse’ rabbit hole. Over time I have learnt to be able to stop that rabbit hole in its track, and sort of put it on the shelf which is something I could never have done five years ago.
I like the idea of plastic brain, and think people need encouragement, in not only being able to learn new things, also being able to honour those achievements because especially when the negative things crowd in, it can be really easy to forget those things we have learned and achieved
Megan
I like what Ange said in response to the plastic brain – Often incredibly negative thoughts come along; the world seems doomed, I’m a useless failure, everyone’s out to get me. The ability to stop, shelve that thought/emotion/feeling – go and do something else and them come back to it often yields the most amazingly different perspective. Thankyou for the plastic brain idea.
Right on Megan! Catch those stinky thinky thoughts!