Author: David Thurston

This essay originally appeared on David’s personal website, Bypo Revolution.

Anxiety is pervasive. Most of us experience a bit of it on a daily basis. Anxiety is anchored in fear, as well as an inability to accept uncertainty. We can’t accept that we don’t know how a situation will resolve, so we go into internal panic loops or cycles of overthinking.

For many people, anxiety is a much bigger challenge than the occasional stab of uncertainty and fear. Anxiety can be overwhelming and crippling. It can spawn physical ailments in our gut, heart, or muscular system. When anxiety is this intense, getting support from a licensed psychotherapist and a thoughtful open-minded psychiatrist is often advisable.

Anxiety is an apex emotion. It’s an emotion that shuts down other circuits of feeling. The moment anxiety strikes, it’s hard to think about anything other than the current object of your fear. But anxiety is often underpinned by other feelings. If we can get the anxious part of us to relax, other emotions rise to the service. Usually this wave of emotion is much more useful at giving us direction than the vortex of intense anxiety.

The roots of anxiety are often in trauma. We relive past trauma in the present when situations or emotions bring the older memory into awareness. Working with trauma requires intentional care with a therapist or coach who can help you unpack trauma at a pace that is manageable. Prominent therapy modalities are Eye Movement Desensitization Therapy (EMDR) and a newer technique called brainspotting. There are somatic coaches who can help you heal from trauma through rooting yourself in the body and feeling out where the trauma is lodged.

There are many mental health conditions that are often accompanied by anxiety. Depression for example is often aligned with anxious fear about the present and future. People living on the manic depressive spectrum often experience intense anxiety during the hypomanic and manic phases of the condition.

There are medications for anxiety. Some work quite well and are very fast acting, like benzodiazepines. Unfortunately, benzos can also by quite habit forming and can be dangerous if they are abused. For more long-term treatment of anxiety, psychiatrists often prescribe one of any number of antidepressants. These tend to work on the serotonin or norepinephrine neurotransmitter cycles and may offer some relief. 

The fastest acting anti-anxiety drugs may be alcohol and nicotine–and both of these can end up killing you. Nicotine relieves anxiety initially for many people, but research demonstrates that over time it increases levels of cortisol, our brain’s stress hormone. This exacerbates anxiety over the long term.

Whether or not you use medication, it’s helpful to have some practical tools to turn to when anxiety strikes. Regulating our breathing is powerful. Some people respond well to slow steady breathing. Some people like box breathing: in for four, hold for four, out for four, hold for four. 

For me, the most powerful tool is what I call polyvagal breathing–breathing out twice as long as you breathe in. So if you take a four count breathing in, you do an eight count breathing out. This activates the parasympathetic part of the polyvagal nervous system. This is sometimes called a state of “rest and digest.” You send a message to your brain that you are safe in the moment, that you can relax and ground. The vagus nerve is at the base of the human brainstem and helps regulate most of the body.

And our brains and our bodies are intricately interwoven. Grounding exercises can be powerful. Sitting in a chair or on a cushion you can imagine extending roots into the earth while exerting downward pressure on your thighs. A slow body scan can be helpful. In a body scan you usually lie comfortably and draw focused attention slowly from your toes through your whole body to your head. Stretching and yoga are also excellent physical tools for dealing with anxiety.

Another way to activate the parasympathetic nervous system and engage the body are half circles from one shoulder through your chest to the other shoulder. You breathe in at each shoulder and exhale for 7 counts as you move your head to the opposite shoulder. This is helpful, in part, because many of us carry our anxiety physiologically in the muscles that surround the spince

It is critical to recognize that pain shared is pain lessened. This is valuable when dealing with both anxiety and depression. One tool that can be beneficial is identifying what exactly is making you anxious, and exploring the issue or trigger with a therapist or trusted friend. Receiving positive reassurance from another person may lessen anxiety. Keeping a thought record and journaling about recurrent thoughts can also help us recognize patterns in your thinking and help address anxiety in the future. 

We call this essay unmasking anxiety, because we believe that letting the deeper emotions to the surface is critical. Anxiety is often a manifestation of a part of ourselves that was traumatized, insulted or hurt. Our anxiety is still acting as if those threats are in our presence. If we can let the anxious part rest, other parts of our being come into alignment.

We often hear people say that what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. This is often profoundly true for people with mental health challenges. When we reach out for support and learn tools grounded in mindfulness and somatics we gain skills that neurotypical people rarely need to acquire. We can transform our mental health struggles into superpowers that arm us to lead rich and full lives.

This essay was originally published on David’s personal website, Bypo Revolution.

Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) is among the most stigmatized mental health conditions. People living with it are often written off as hopelessly psychotic and difficult to be around. In my experience though, it can be managed, and the loving core of people living with BPD can emerge in amazing ways. If you know someone who you know has the diagnosis, but especially if you are romantically engaged, knowing a bit about the condition will help you set healthy boundaries and give you the best chance of developing a relationship that is safe for both of you.

Some would argue that BPD shouldn’t even be a diagnosis, because so many of its symptoms can be seen as rooted in trauma. The diagnosis of Complex PTSD is used in much of the world, but has not yet penetrated the US psychiatric establishment’s bible, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM). The persistent emotional, physical, and often sexual trauma endured by people with BPD makes it feel somewhat cruel to describe what they are left to live with as a ‘disorder.’ Isn’t the real disorder all of the trauma they had to endure?

That said, the DSM diagnosis has utility. Historically it referred to the ‘borderline’ between psychosis and neurosis. Though the word neurosis is rarely used anymore, the name has stuck. I like to see the essence of unmanaged BPD as embodied in the statement ‘I hate you, don’t leave me.’ People with BPD have a very hard time trusting people or being vulnerable. If they do start to trust and get vulnerable, they often become deeply enmeshed, losing their clarity about where their own feelings end, and where the other person begins. If a romantic relationship becomes tumultuous, someone with BPD may even threaten suicide or self harm to keep the partner from leaving.

Another lens on BPD is through attachment theory. Attachment theory emerged in the 1950s and explored the dynamics of infant attachment to caregivers. Originally researchers studied young babies and their reactions to their mother’s leaving a room full of toys, and then returning after some time. Over time, the language has evolved and has been applied to romantic relationships, platonic friendships, and more.

Attachment theory describes secure attachment as describing a situation in which someone has a healthy trust in a close person in their life that is durable with clear boundaries. Anxious Attachment is when someone is always afraid that people who care about them will leave. Avoidant Attachment is when people keep their guard up and avoid connecting or do not communicate expected levels of affection for people in their lives.

The fourth big attachment category is called Disorganized Attachment. With Disorganized Attachment people are often both anxious and avoidant at the same time. The psychological literature has moved towards viewing Disorganized Attachment as a keystone of BPD.

In my experience though, what’s amazing and quite hopeful is that a person with BPD developing even one solid, stable, healthy relationship can help them heal in other arenas. This can be described as “Earned Secure Attachment.’ With this, someone with either an anxious, avoidant, or disorganized profile, learns how to be vulnerable without becoming unmeshed in at least one significant relationship. 

Over time, it is amazing how many other relationships will heal. It’s also remarkable that the growth of Earned Secure Attachment makes it much easier to meet new people and make deep connections without trauma dumping, over-sharing, or acting like a  secretive black box–all of which are frequently traits associated with BPD.

There is hope, but it lies with ongoing therapy or coaching, sometimes medication, and a willingness to be emotionally vulnerable while clarifying and respecting health boundaries.

There is also an ongoing discussion about “Quiet BPD” as another form of BPD. Individuals who do not exhibit the stereotypical reactions to conflict within relationships may still be diagnosed with BPD by meeting 5 of the 9 criteria for a BPD diagnosis (as outlined in the DSM). To differentiate what BPD vs quiet BPD might look like, it is helpful to understand the 4 Fs of trauma responses – Fight, Flight, Freeze, and Fawn.

The “stereotypical” BPD case is often thought of as utilizing primarily the fight and fawn response, becoming verbally, physically, or emotionally abusive during conflict followed by excessive apologizing, love bombing, etc. In Quiet BPD, individuals turn the anger they experience in conflict and broken trust inward, lashing out at themselves. They do not typically go to Fight for fear of damaging the relationship, instead using other Fs to cope with their dysregulation. The concept of quiet BPD further complicates the conversation of BPD vs. Complex PTSD.

Individuals with BPD often experience intense, seemingly childlike emotions to stimuli as a result of having their childhood development disrupted by trauma. These emotions are incredibly hard to regulate, but it is possible to do so and for the intensity of these emotions to decrease over time with quality therapy, coping skills, support network, and symptom management. Another common experience is chronic feelings of emptiness and loneliness without a solid understanding of a core self. You may hear the term “splitting” which refers to when a person with BPD, PTSD, or other trauma becomes triggered and the brain starts to shut down, essentially reliving past trauma and abandonment.

In these situations, BPD individuals suffer from Black and White thinking, often seeing things as entirely true or false, one way or another way, with little room for complexity in between. This is what happens when for example, a partner of a BPD person abruptly hangs up a phone call and the person with BPD may spiral and truly feel like their partner does not love them. This is just an example and not true for every case. Moving forward, it is both great for the partner to provide reassurance that the person with BPD is valued, but ALSO that the person with BPD learn to be able to validate and regulate themselves, lest they become entirely dependent on their partner’s reassurance to feel safe and supported.

This essay originally appeared on David’s personal website, Bypo Revolution.

Earlier this week an unusual line of analysis came through me. I started to wonder if addiction might be a useful lens for understanding depression. Depression is a profoundly painful experience. But could it be addictive? Could this lens help people move through depression and heal?

I am influenced by a book called ‘Existential Kink.’ Carolyn Elliot explores how the subconscious mind actually enjoys patterns we perceive as undesirable. If we are often broke close to the next payday, do parts of us enjoy it? Why do we shuttle between serial toxic relationships? Elliot explores how examining this kink for emotional or material pain can help us release.

So back to depression. It goes beyond sadness, grief, or the sequelae of trauma. In depression, we grow numb. Our feelings are muted.

But is the pain subconsciously comforting? Do we prefer wallowing in self-effacement to risking trying for more and possible failing? Lying in bed all day or numbing out to video games of binging on television become deeply rooted patterns. We may know we should put boundaries on numbing behavior. But that would force us to confront emotions we fear.

Guilt and shame are a big part of depression. But any strong feeling has the potential to be addictive. We can become attached to overthinking and ruminating on what horrible and incompetent people we are. We can protect ourselves from risking emotional rejection or pain but surrounding ourselves in fortified walls of shame.

This is a very speculative essay, and I invite comment, critique, and firm disagreement. I’m not saying that depression is a character flaw or that people can just reach for their emotional bootstraps. 

I am saying that exploring the addictive energy of depression may be a useful lens. Maybe exercise can replace a numbing behavior. Maybe writing a poem about your depression can be healing. These are just thoughts. I hope that they are coherent and thought provoking.

This essay originally appeared on David’s personal website, Bypo Revolution.

Navigating the manic depressive spectrum is profoundly challenging. Much has been written about this condition, dating back to ancient civilization. Many who live with its tumultuous vagaries have written memoirs and monographs. These stories have humanized our experience and offered shared language for understanding this path.

Yet the overwhelming paradigm in writing on this spectrum is one of pathology. The range of possibilities that manifest are described as ‘disorders’ that reify limits on life’s possibilities. The psychotic extremes of the condition are seen as utterly terrifying and unmanageable, tolerable subject only to aggressive psychotropic intervention.

This essay is written to offer tools for capturing and amplifying the creativity and cognitive strengths that often flow within the manic depressive spectrum. I will describe exercises grounded in somatics and mindfulness offering strategies for channeling manic energy in relative safety.

A range of theoretical modalities inform this argument. I am a poet and artist living on the manic depressive spectrum, but also a practicing psychotherapist. I am an addict in recovery who serves as a sponsor, has a sponsor myself, works steps, goes to meetings, and stays in service. I have a long history in social justice organizing to advance collective liberation. I am a casual student of tantra, attuned to the overlap between the nondual spirituality of classic tantra, and the more contemporary erotic focus of neo-tantra. All of these facets of identity and experience inform this work.

I do not counterpose Western medicine’s psychiatric paradigm with the tools I describe. In my experience, optimal functioning on this spectrum of neurodivergence requires both psychotropic interventions and an evolving array of physical, spiritual, and mindful techniques.

I must stress that there are times when it is imperative to get urgent intervention and seek a psychiatric ward. This avenue of capitalist medicine leaves much to be desired. Yet often a psych ward offers a safety net for someone in psychosis that is otherwise unavailable. I urge anyone experiencing acute mania to strongly consider immediate professional help.

The literature on manic depressive illness illuminates the fact that there is a long history of artists, organizers, and leaders who have shared this diagnosis. Some have posited a link between high creativity and imagination, and the genetic code that may trigger this ‘disorder.’

I go further. I believe that the vast majority of people with bipolar diagnoses can learn to hone the skills adjacent to this condition’s psychotic extremes. We can use episodes of mania and hypomania to deepen insight, conjure visions, and sink rots into the soil of connection and liberation.

Neurodiversity is a term that often refers to the autism spectrum specifically. I advocate a broader imagining of the term. As we amplify neurodiversity we can explore rich rivers of creative potential. The idiosyncrasies of our minds are tools to expand collective consciousness. They help us open portals to new worlds.

We must also take stock of the diverse global epistemologies of psychic extremes. Many would argue that what western science labels as psychosis would be seen by a multitude of indigenous societies as a sign of prophetic spiritual potential. Shamanic practices flow between divergent indigenous people’s revealing universal wisdom in our communal memory. There is much work to be done illuminating the best of the shamanic path and integrating these insights into our society’s approach to psychic variance.

PUMP THE BREAKS

The first step in dealing with a wave of mania is to restrain the desire to accentuate the high. I venture to guess that most people on the manic depressive spectrum get a taste of mania or hypomania and just want more. We suppress the need for sleep, stop eating adequately and use intoxicating substances to heighten the experience.

We need to trust that we can have powerful experiences without pushing them to extremes. Controlling the high is a much more effective long-term strategy than always pushing a high to extremes. When we artificially accentuate highs, we are likely to crash into paralyzing depressions afterward, or to lurch into ‘mixed states’ where elements of depression and mania combine. These are the circumstances in which successful suicide attempts are most likely.

Trust that you are going to get exactly what the universe knows you can handle. Do your best to use some selection of the tools in this essay to reign the mania in and to focus its intensity on amplifying introspection. Remember that other people are amazing, brilliant beings on intellectual, emotional, and spiritual levels. Attune to other people and try to relate and connect. 

Attend to the physical basics. Do your best to sleep and drink copious amounts of water. Invariably your appetite will be suppressed, but try to push yourself to eat. If your body and mind don’t get natural fuel, they react by overproducing neurotransmitters and hormones like dopamine and adrenaline. This will amplify the eruption of uncontrolled mania.

MANIC ZEN

One powerful tool when channeling manic energy is mindfulness. One expression of mindfulness is to dilate the present moment–to try to remain open to sensory information in flow. Another frame is to see mindfulness as integrating physical intelligence, emotional intelligence, and logic. When these three balance and coalesce, magic transpires.

Flooded with psychic electricity, our first impulse is to launch into a frenzy of activity. Yet there is another path. We can channel that energy into introspection and grounded presence. I call this state manic zen.

Meditation can be pivotal. Use music or candles if these move you. Take slow and steady breaths focusing energy inward. Imagine roots growing down from your body. Imagine bestowing the earth with your potent energy. Keep slowing the breath. Try breathing out for significantly longer than you breathe in. This activates the parasympathetic nervous system. This system tells us that we can slow down. It signals that we are not under threat or activated by urgency.

Cultivating this introspection will manifest in divergent ways. Focusing on moving energy through the seven primary chakras is powerful. Many modalities advise moving from the root chakra upwards. Some will want to explore the microcosmic orbit, moving erotic energy through the back of the spine and then down the front of the body. Many believe that touching the roof of the mouth with the tongue allows the energetic circuit to move fluidly.

Possibilities abound. You can close your eyes and move your attention through your body. You can clench and release muscles from a tantric perspective. You can try to find the smallest motion or muscle contraction that you can enjoy. This attention to physical, emotional, and rational detail can slow the race of thought, allowing insight to land with presence.

WORKING WITH TIME

Our default mainstream culture identifies four identifiable dimensions: length, width, depth, and time. Time–the fourth dimension–is viewed as relative in advanced mathematics and physics. I believe that there is immense potential to explore the relativity of time while in a manic or hypomanic state. In the flow of mania you can choose to either accelerate your perception of time or to slow it down. Slowing the perception of time is powerful. You can sync your blinking to music or to someone with whom you are sharing meditative space. By sinking into time we amplify the resonance of consciousness. Ideas will flow. Keep a journal handy and write down what comes. It will need to be sifted and edited once time slows down.

ATTENTION TO DETAIL

It can be both productive and grounding to focus manic energy on detail oriented tasks like deep cleaning and organizing space. These can be great times to deep clean your bathroom or to get on your hands and knees and scrub the kitchen floor. If there is some big mass of stuff or documents waiting to be sifted through and organized, now might be your time. Our capacity to hyperfocus on detail can also be directed into sorting through financial records or sifting through old lists of personal and business contacts. If attention to detail is required, consider the task–you might get a lot done while simultaneously grounding your energy.

EYE WORK

Our eyes are one of our most important portals to consciousness. While manic, many of us see things that are not visible to other people. Whether to call these spiritual visions or hallucinations is a matter of perspective. We can do powerful work with our eyes while manic. Slowing down to take in every visual aspect of reality can be illuminating. Fractals arise in many aspects of the natural world. These are shapes where contours of the smallest part mirror the whole. Tree roots and branches, shell formations, clouds, and much else can often exhibit these characteristics.

It can be helpful to cultivate your ability to see double. Attempt to dilate your eyes and let three-dimensional perception relax enough to see two of each image in your mind. Move through this breathing slowly, but allow yourself to use more activating breath wrok if this feels right. Seeing in parallax allows us to center the mutability of our own perspective. It can stimulate the fusion of new neural pathways. It can help us realign ourselves and the flow of time.

Blinking is another tool. It can be valuable to explore the extremes of minimizing blinking and blinking rapidly. When in public, doing this with sunglasses limits the risk of alarming other people. You can imagine that each blink creates a new moment. Flow with it and see what happens. I recommend slow deep breathing throughout as a means of keeping the manic energy grounded.

SINUOUS STRETCHING

Slow semicircles of the neck can be invaluable. I recommend a quick inhale on each side followed by exhaling as you move your head to the other shoulder. This can be done to music. I recommend at least a six count between single counts of breathing at each shoulder. More time circling  is even better. One strength of this stretch is that it activates the parasympathetic system. Another is that your neck’s weight will stretch your upper back. Many of us store stress and anxiety in this area. It is an area that can become taut and over-activated during mania.

Another excellent technique is to stretch your back while lying on the floor. Sit with your knees up, then rotate your lower body to stretch your back as each vertebrae contacts the floor. You can stretch all the way up, working both your abdominal muscles and your lower back. This exercise can integrate your three bodies–physical, emotional, and rational. It can activate insight and forge new psychic pathways.

Releasing and contacting the abdominal region unleashes kundalini energy in the spine. Try sitting in any rooted position. Stretch your arms sideways from the shoulders. Allow a contraction to begin in your lower abdominals. As it moves through your spine, bring the arms in to flow with the contraction. When you release, extend the arms again. This is an excellent way of moving energy and attention. It activates chakras and amplifies mind-muscle awareness.

Another variation on this is to combine the contraction and release flow with extending intense energy from the hands. Place your hands directly forward and imagine that you are projecting electricity through your fingertips–like the Emperor in Star Wars. As you project this energy, deepen the projection when you contract. Come back to neutral when you release, and then expand the intensity with the next contraction. If you maintain a slow pace of breathing with this exercise, you will find that deep introspection and mind-muscle awareness is still in your grasp.

STRENUOUS EXERCISE

One powerful way to channel manic energy is exercise. This is a great time to hit the gym, take things slowly, and discover capacity you may not have known you had. Lots of cardio is great for tiring your system and opening up some space for sleep. Get out in nature with a long run or bike ride through your city. Dance classes or clubbing can be great outlets. There are many varieties of yoga that can also channel the physical drive while also offering spiritual grounding.

Be careful not to overdo it though. If you push beyond natural physical limits, you may injure yourself or trigger your brain into mass producing even more adrenaline. This might feel good in the moment, but it risks rewiring you for an even more protracted mania.

INTENTIONAL LISTENING

One of the first things that flies with the wind in mania is the capacity to listen. When hypomanic or manic, we tend to start thinking of the perfect reply or rebuttal to a person we are talking to, without even hearing what this person is saying. We are not powerless over this urge. Slow down and listen with intention. An increasing capacity to listen indicates the stabilization of mania. The process of intentional listening alters brain chemistry, functioning like an organic mood stabilizer. 

It is good practice to tell people who are close to us that we are moving manic energy. Ask others to tell you if you are listening well. Ask them if you seem grounded. Attuning to people around us is key to stabilizing. When people react with alarm, fear, or suspicion we are being told to regulate our systems more rigorously. We are not powerless. We can restrain alarming instincts and synchronize with other humans and with nature.

ARTICULATING AND SLOWING SPEECH

A hallmark of mania is ‘pressured speech.’ Our words emerge with such speed and force that other people will want to duck. If someone shares that they missed what you say, try articulating intentionally and slowing the pace of your words. You may need to slow down to a point that feels absurd to you. But if those you talk to seem to follow you, this means that you are acclimating to collectively shared reality. It means that you are attuning to other humans who can help ground you.

Like intentional listening, this intentional communication strategy can alter brain chemistry with mood stabilizing power. It feels good to actually be understood. It helps you get insight into whether your wild ideas could be grounded in shared reality. Speaking with intentionality and care is a powerful skill while navigating manic energy.

THE FLOOD OF IDEAS

When I am hypomanic or manic, my mind moves at light speed. A new idea, project, or possible conversation strikes me every other second. The art is in the editing. I suggest finding a little committee to help you think straight. For me that’s my parents, my brother, and my sister by marriage. I make a commitment not to make any significant decision without running it by at least one of them. If they say it’s a bad idea, I commit to following their lead. Not everyone is blessed with a family they can trust and open up to. So maybe this is a couple of friends and a significant other for you.

I recommend taking note of all of your new ideas and setting an intention of saving them for later. It can be helpful to have a notebook to keep track. There will be gems in there. But there will be much that is grandiose, impractical, and even potentially catastrophic. Classically, this is called the flight of ideas. I call it a flood, because like the flood of the Nile, this mental space can give water to brilliant ideas and projects. The art of editing is essential.

FIRE MAGIC

Over time, I have found that fire can play a vital role in stabilizing and in cultivating the powers embedded in mania. Fire can captivate parts of your mind that crave overstimulation, allowing other parts to slow down and ground. A simple array of candles is an excellent way to start. Consider creating an altar with a layer of sand filled with crystals or other meaningful stones, and then candles.

The more adventurous among us might explore fire vessels. A fire vessel contains both intensely flammable elements and fire retardant elements. I build these with three layers. In the inner circle wax is combined with a fuel like kerosene with cotton fabric to act as a wick. The outer layer should contain water and perhaps soap, which is very fire retardant. Burning fuel may move from the inner layer into the middle circle. Latex paint and oil combined with water are good materials for the middle circle. 

You can suppress the fire by churning the outer layer, using those elements to squelch flames that seem dangerous. You should always have a flame resistant vessel to smother the fire. No fire burns without oxygen, and smothering is your best means of extinguishing an intense fire in the inner circle.

With your fire vessel activated you can try many of these other tools. Music is powerful. Music interacts with fire both as waves of moving air, and as an energetic force. I find that music in my headphones still affects the fire. Ideas will emerge. Insights will arise. Keep your journal at hand and save these nuggets of wisdom to digest once the waters of mania still.

COLLECTIVE LIBERATION

The portal of mania can help us give voice to collective yearning for systemic change. This can be a great time to write about the world you want to see–to dream big and dream boldly. With mania we can have visions that need to be deciphered. We can feel our connection to all of lived experience and to our higher power–however we conceptualize the power of source energy. 

We are rebels born and bred. Wired to reimagine the matrix of ideology and indoctrination within which we are embedded. Empower your inner spirit dreaming of collective liberation. Let empathy and compassion flow through you. Take time to treat everyone with whom you have a meaningful interaction with respect and love. When we model compassion and connection, we become fractals for systemic change–little ripples that form big currents that demolish walls of systemic injustice.

A MANUAL FOR MANIA

When I had my first hypomanic episodes, I had no words to describe them. My first florid mania landed me in a hospital diagnosed as a crack addict, pumped through with Haldol, and ejected after a one-stay. I lost years to paralyzing depression contrasted with years of reckless substance abuse. I chased the visions and energetic highs that came with mania, but struggled to harness any sustainable power from these episodes.

I have been through these fires and emerged as a phoenix. I write this to offer an evolving roadmap  to actualizing the power and potential gestating within the manic depressive spectrum. I hope these tools help you. I hope you redesign them for yourself, and invent your own arsenal of skills and strategies. We have a world to win, and nothing to lose but toxic psychic chains.

This essay was originally published on David’s personal site, Bypo Revolution

Depression can be a demon. Andrew Solomon famously described it as the “Noonday Demon”—a beast that can leave you miserable even though you are held in positive relationships, or surrounded by an idyllic environment.

Depression can be toxic, but it is also a pervasive fact of life. There is no clear dividing line between depression that is brought about by challenging or traumatic circumstances and depression that is neurochemical or biological in origin. This essay will explore tools for working through depression and also ask what we can gain from the process.

I wrote this zine after drafting a prior piece on dealing with mania and hypomania while living on the manic-depressive spectrum. I wanted this piece to stand alone because depression is a far more prevalent phenomenon than mania or hypomania. Millions experience depression without countervailing highs.

In that piece, I stress the positive energy, creativity, intuition, insight, and growth that can come from handling the highs of the manic-depressive spectrum. I am challenging myself to apply a similar approach to depression. This is hard for me because my own bouts with depression have been eviscerating and sometimes nearly deadly. In the midst of a protracted five-year depression, I jumped off a bridge into a frozen river and somehow survived.

There is a growing literature arguing that depression is a natural part of the human emotional spectrum and that it can train us to act more carefully and to adapt. Depression can draw our attention to aspects of our lives that we may want to change.

My first therapist offered me an axiom for dealing with depression. She says, “mood follows action, action doesn’t follow mood.” This suggests that if one waits to feel uplifted to do the things one feels most called to do, one may end up staying in misery for quite some time. Instead, we should act “as if,” making choices and doing things we think we would do if we weren’t depressed. Over time, our mood has a way of catching up with our choices.

That said, we often have very good objective reasons for our depression. Setbacks and losses can be the proximate cause of a depressed mood. It is critical to take an inventory of your own depression and figure out what the organic causes might be. If there is anything you can do to deal with root causes, you should.

When we identify a root cause, we may actually be able to thank our depression for showing us what we are called to change or let go of. One of the valuable roles of depression is to draw our attention to dynamics or relationships in our lives that need to be changed. Sometimes, we need a dose of emotional pain to teach us to redirect our energy.

But often, the forces sending us plunging into bleak moods are beyond our control. In these situations, we need to remember the wisdom of the serenity prayer, asking for the grace to make peace with what is beyond our control while taking the initiative where we can.

Also, there is a bit of a Venn diagram between grief and depression. It can help to identify what you are grieving, be that a relationship, a job, or some social injustice. Moving through grief as such allows you to tap into an understanding of its stages that may help break the monolith of depression into manageable packages.

Conventional wisdom on grief suggests that there are five usual stages: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. This process is not linear, as you can move between these poles unpredictably. Some thinkers use the term phases, emphasizing the flow between one way of coping and what follows.

We have to permit ourselves to feel the full range of our emotions. Personally, I struggle to access the cathartic power of crying. The ‘boys don’t cry’ axiom somehow rooted itself in by psyche. I have found that music that hits those emotional chords can free me up to let out the tears. On the flip side, it can be essential to feel good about the underlying cause of our pain. For example, we may need to acknowledge that a relationship ending is hard because of what we loved about that person. Appreciating our capacity to love can be critical, while accepting that circumstances have changed.

There are many ways to approach the concept of taking actions to which your mood will adapt. Expressing and appreciating creativity are both natural antidepressants. I have found myself struggling with depression for months, then finding that the mood lifts after I write a poem about the experience and share it. Without depression and emotional turmoil, our emotional and creative output might be diminished starkly. Getting to art shows or galleries or absorbing emotionally compelling films, television, or theater can be healing. They also can put us in social situations where we reconnect with other people.

Exercise is always an important part of physical and mental health. It is particularly critical to managing depression. Exercise generates endorphins, our brains’ organic antidepressants, and elevating neurotransmitters like dopamine. Whatever you can convince yourself to do is better than nothing. If an aggressive session at the gym feels beyond your capacity, take a longer walk than usual. But if you can really work out seriously, I recommend doing so.

It is said in recovery that the opposite of addiction isn’t abstinence; it is connection. This is also a salient feature of depression. At our existential core, humans are deeply social animals. We need one another. When we are weighed down by depression, we may feel like charlatans in social situations. We may think that our pain is too much to share. We may also feel shame if we see the roots of our depression as factors we should be able to deal with on our own.

So, connect however you can. Turn to those you trust most, and be as open and honest as possible. Perform acts of service. Altruism and emotional generosity are great healers. Sometimes a volunteering or organizing commitment can help pull your mood positively.

Try to listen to your depression, letting it guide you into new ways of being. Fighting a feeling generally sinks its roots deeper into our psyche. Accepting a feeling and letting yourself move through is a critical emotional skill. Let cognizance of your emotional darkness become a fire lighting your way into recovery and resilience. I like to tell my clients to resist depression, while we listen to it.

These are suggestions for making choices that can alleviate depression. Medication can support this for many people. The process of figuring out what antidepressant or medication cocktail will work is usually more of an art than a science. There are antidepressant medications that target different neurological networks. Sometimes, pairing medications that hit different brain chemicals can be helpful. When medications are inadequate, there are other interventions–including electroconvulsive treatments and transcranial magnetic stimulation.

Yet whatever we choose from the medical model, we must understand where we have choice and agency. We may feel eviscerated and humiliated by our depression, but we are not powerless. We can “act as if.” We can remember that mood follows action.

Depression can be a cancer of the psyche. However, it can also be a teacher who helps us grow stronger over the long term. We have the power to choose how we process these painful feelings. We have the power to build community and resist.

RELEVANT POETRY:

Becoming Phoenix

Contending with Grey

Reflections on Lost Time

An Intrusion of Grey