The "Who" Thinking when Treating Our Depression

When we are becoming more confident in our ability to release our anger, we can comfortably use it to empower ourselves. This is because we are less afraid of our own anger and have learned to trust ourselves fully when we feel angry. We can use this new-found confidence to restore faith in ourselves that we are not mad, out of control or bad for having these feelings. We can begin to say to ourselves, 'Yes, I do have rights and I will exercise them to help myself feel better about what I am doing and feeling.'

As our honesty grows, we can feel our alliance between our Child and Adult selves growing stronger and more able to deal with situations that previously rendered us helpless and depressed. Our victim stance will diminish as we think about what depresses us and find new ways of undertaking difficult issues. We will find a congruency between how we are inside and how we present ourselves on the outside.

WRITE IT OUT (AN ACTION PLAN)

Enough is enough. We have sat with our depression for long enough that we have worked through the main reasons for feeling so depressed. We have an understanding of how we got here and we have a picture of what we need to do to move ourselves on to reclaim our lives.

If you feel that you are not yet at this point, then don't continue until you do.

For those of us who feel bored with the previous exercise, we are ready to tackle the practicalities of our life in order to shake out what we no longer require. Like panning for gold, we wash away the unnecessary debris from our life. We start by writing an action plan for change.

Look back to your initial responses when you wrote about your depression. This will give you the key to your action plan.

At this point you are simply writing out the action plan and not undertaking it. This will give you the freedom to write the perfect plan without fear or favor. Write out the perfect scenario, the ideal result and the faultless way it is carried out. Assume you are 100% right and let your imagination flow and liberate itself.

THE WHO

The Who is a plan to take up any issues with others who need to be confronted. Who do we confront? We need to confront anyone who we think is behaving in a way that is holding us back from beating depression. We need to be cautious when we establish this list because we must take into account how much of the 'exploitation' we feel is down to us remaining as the 'victim' and how much really is because the other person is exploiting us. We need to do all we can to purge ourselves of the victim culture until we can do no more, and then assess who needs to be confronted.

Write out the following:

Who needs to be confronted?

This can be as simple as asking the neighbor if they can park a little to the left to help you get out of the drive more easily. It can be as big as facing your parents and explaining that as a child you were sexually abused by a relative and you feel hugely let down and angry that they kept sending you to the relative's house in spite of your protestations. It can be as tricky as having an immediate boss who you think might try to fire you if you apply for a promotion within your company. How do they need to be confronted?

We must choose our method carefully because we want to get the right result so that we can beat our depression. We must be aware of what doesn't work for us. Stand-up rows often leave everyone exhausted. Calm discussion can be the best way. Sometimes having another person there helps. On occasions, mediation is the best way. When are they to be confronted?

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Choose your timing with care. We want to get the best from ourselves and the other person. We need to be clear of our rights and sure of what our limits are - this is when we confront them.

What result do you want from confronting them?

Envisage the perfect result before you start. Write it down if necessary. Plan it in your head. If you want to hurt someone, that will not help you beat depression. Instead it will leave you with a guilty conscience once the initial euphoria has gone. Imagine the outcome as an adult, not a child. Think about how a great diplomat would approach the issue. The perfect result is leaving the table with our heads held high, a skip in our walk and the satisfaction that we have taken care of ourselves.

Sometimes we need to confront someone without actually 'taking the problem to them. We do it this way because it's not always good for us to directly face someone we want to confront if it denies us our integrity. For instance, confronting an abusive person and receiving a verbal backlash is not always in our best interest, especially if we are depressed. We may not have enough clarity to respond in a way that protects us.

The four questions of the action plan are simply a guide to help us home in on the main cause of our pain and frustration. Not dealing with a chronic situation renders us depressed, so the questions will help us to get to the bottom of the 'cause and effect' scenario.

When we are depressed, we need to be clear and firm to ourselves who we want to confront and why. We must decide if we need to confront another or identify the historic anger and hurt. The more we can go inside ourselves and repair past damage, the clearer and stronger we feel about confronting others.

By confront, we don't mean shout and bawl our heads off. Confront means to face facts, to tackle or deal with. It means to come out from behind the sofa and sort out something we have been trying to avoid. Avoidance leads to depression. If we aren't ready to confront, then we must go back and look at why we are depressed and find our anger.

We must confront ourselves

When we try to establish who is to blame for our depression, we find that the bottom line usually sits with us. No matter how much we want to blame another person for the way we feel, we can't, except for cases of serious abuse, because we have reduced our own choices.

Lola is depressed because James 'holds her back' by not allowing her to continue with her career. Justin is depressed because his mother is still criticizing him even though he is in his mid-3os. Rachael is depressed because David won't stop drinking. We have to confront ourselves by asking what it is that we are frightened to lose if we tackle these problems. Lola is afraid of losing James's financial support; Justin is afraid of losing his mother's approval; Rachael is frightened of being on her own.

We compromise ourselves for a so-called easy life. If we do this through choice then we are living with integrity. If we do this as a victim, we are blackmailing ourselves. If we are depressed, we have usually allowed another to get away with behavior that we shouldn't tolerate. But it is our responsibility to change it by taking control of a situation or removing ourselves from it. This is our choice, our freedom and our path to reclaiming our life.



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