My take on depression.....

Twice in three days have I been asked about my take on depression. What I think it is and where it comes from - that sort of thing. So I thought I might take a cue from the universe and put this one out there.....

I'm not trained in the ways of the mind in any way - but you'll probably guess that anyway - meh! lol. I know people who are trained but they often seem more screwed up than me so I haven't gone there because I don't know that it helps to do anything much more than avoid what's getting under your own skin.

So anyway...my take....

Everybody has priority circles of importance and they are governed by whatever 'coping' mechanisms we have put in place in our early years. Nobody - and I mean NOBODY - can humanly keep all those souls that matter to them (no matter how much they matter to them) in the number one priority circle all the time. Sometimes circumstance will shift things and the choices left are pretty much the devil and the deep blue sea.

At some point in our childhood, we experienced one of those shifts and we came to know that we weren't in our parents number one priority circle. 'Came to know' - not 'came to understand'. It might have been something simple and innocent like.....'Daddy has to go to work - when the two year old desperately wants them to stay'. Or for the more unfortunate, it could have been something terrible like.....abandonment or a death of a parent or a betrayal. We deal with these moments with whatever tools we have at the time and if you're very young (which you always are) you cannot hope to understand what's going on. That's why many of the coping mechanisms or behaviour patterns that deal with similar situations that remind us of that moment (regardless of whether or not we actually remember it) seem immature and inadequate.

Every time we are reminded thereafter, that we are not in the number one priority circle of those we hold most dearly, it cuts a little deeper because we are still viewing it through our child-mind's eyes - still dealing with it the same way.

If you are unfortunate and it continues to happen to you repeatedly throughout your childhood - it will leave you with a self-worth issue. Eventually you can come to believe that you have little worth. Depression happens when you are reminded of that belief. What we have to do then - is remember that it was never true. That what other people say or do does not have to define us. That we matter - more than we know in many cases. That we can choose to pay attention to the beautiful things in life or the crap. I know what I'd much rather pay attention to.

Understand that everything that lives and breathes is unique to the universe. Everything that lives and breathes has an important place at the very centre of its own personal spiritual universe, regardless of the vessel. And everything that lives and breathes was chosen by the Divine to share all that they have learnt with everything else forever more.

There is no exception to that rule. And nothing ever changes it. No matter what anybody does to you - no matter what is said to you - nothing changes it. It's more constant than taxes.