Summary

The article suggests that depression can be simplified and overcome by not labeling it as complicated and by recognizing the mind's negative thoughts as transient and powerless without our engagement.

Abstract

The author, who has personal experience with depression and suicide, argues that the way mental health professionals discuss depression can be contradictory, often emphasizing its complexity which may hinder recovery. Drawing a parallel to a physical injury like a broken bone, the author posits that depression should be treated with a similar straightforward approach. The article proposes viewing the mind's negativity as a separate entity, akin to a whining child, which can be ignored rather than engaged with. By doing so, individuals can disempower the negative thoughts that fuel depression, leading to a simpler and more effective path to recovery. The author encourages readers to allow negative thoughts to surface without resistance, thereby realizing that these thoughts cannot harm them, which can lead to a state of peace akin to ignoring a disruptive child.

Opinions

Mental health professionals may inadvertently complicate depression by overemphasizing its complexity, which can be counterproductive to recovery.
Depression can be conceptualized in a simplified manner, similar to how a physical ailment is treated without needing extensive personal history.
The mind's negativity is compared to a child's tantrum, which gains power through engagement and can be effectively managed by being ignored.
Labeling challenges as 'complicated' or 'hard' can induce self-doubt and a sense of helplessness, which the mind exploits to maintain control.
The author believes that giving negative thoughts permission to come and go can reduce their power over an individual's mental state.
Resistance to negative thoughts can be exhausting and ineffective; a better strategy is to disengage from them, allowing for peace of mind.
The process of ignoring the mind's negativity may initially be challenging, but with persistence, it can become as natural as dismissing an unfounded alarm.

Does Labeling Depression As Complicated Prevent Our Recovery?

Here’s how you turn depression into something simple, so you can overcome it.

As someone who has conquered depression and suicide, I like to stay up to date with what mental health professionals are saying about recovery. I hear so many of them expressing how great it would be if we talked about depression the same way we talk about breaking a bone in our body. But then they say how complicated depression and suicide are, contradicting their previous statement.

Imagine if you broke your arm, and the doctor said bone fractures were complicated. Then, in order to fix it, she needed to know your gender, age, orientations, financial and social status, genetic predisposition to bone fractures, and the amount of trauma you had put on your arm over the years either through sports, exercise, poor maintenance, and maybe even diet. If all that information was necessary, fixing a broken arm would be terribly complicated.

Fortunately, a doctor can fix a bone without knowing anything about your past or who you are today. The doctor already knows that an external force applied pressure onto the bone with too great an intensity, or for too long a duration, or both. That’s it. This doesn’t mean that the trauma isn’t valid, painful, or a tragedy, but it isn’t complicated.

Similarly, if you came to me and told me you were depressed, I wouldn’t need to know the details about your past or who you are today to know that the negativity of your mind has overpowered you with too great an intensity, or for too long a duration, or both.

So, for just a few minutes, let’s turn the abstractness of the mind into something solid — a voice in our head that we listen to all day. If we can do this, let’s try simplifying the negativity of our minds further by comparing it to a whining child. We’ve all been there or seen it happen — a child starts crying in the middle of the store exactly when most people are around because it wants to force its mom to buy candy. The child knows this trick works and that the more they squeal, the more likely they are to win.

Now, what about the negativity of our minds? Is our mind any more reasonable, rational, consistent, or reliable? Does it wait for convenient times to make us suffer, or does it throw mental attacks about anything it wants, whenever it wants? Can we see that the mind loves to make us suffer in all the most inconvenient places and times because it knows exactly when it’s best to force us into submission? Sitting right here, right now, perfectly comfortable, is not a vulnerable situation. So, it will wait. It can wait all day until exactly when we don’t want it to come — like right before bed, or first thing in the morning, or when we have something important to do.

If there’s nothing close by to get upset over, it will even make us suffer about things that aren’t real — like a memory that it transforms into a “what if” scenario where everyone hates us, or some far-off future where our life is in ruins. It loves making this stuff up. How many times has it cried wolf and told you, “you’re never going to make it,” “you’re a failure,” “the end is near!”? And how many of those times did you actually not make it? You’re still here, aren’t you? Believe it or not, you’ve made it through 100% of the obstacles life has thrown at you despite all the doubt your mind likes to say about it.

Doubt in ourselves comes from when our mind labels something as hard because we automatically contrast ourselves as weak in comparison. The mind knows that when we label something as complicated, we automatically put ourselves at a disadvantage and doubt we’re smart enough to understand it. Just like the tactics an abusive partner uses to maintain control, these labels are one of the many tricks the mind uses to gaslight us into believing we are too helpless to escape its perceived dominance over us.

How exhausting is it to battle these self-defeating thoughts all day? How much of your power is drained when you try to force it to quiet down? Does fighting your mind work at all? More importantly, would you burden yourself with getting in a heated philosophical argument with a child? Wouldn’t engaging with it only give it more power? Wouldn’t you automatically use a different strategy — a strategy like ignoring it, for example? If so, why not ignore the mind?

Immediately your mind might try to gaslight you by saying, “Ignore the mind? How ridiculous. Thomas’ depression must have only been 1-star depression. You have 5-star depression, and that’s way too complicated just to ignore. Don’t listen to Thomas. He’s just mansplaining.” If this sounds familiar, it’s because the negativity of your mind is trying to convince you to give it another get-out-of-jail-free card for hurting you. It loves to take advantage of all the privilege you give it and knows your fighting style is useless.

So, instead of fighting the mind, let’s try something that’s going to seem ridiculous. Just for a few moments, let all the worst thoughts in the world present themselves. Sit where you are and just let it happen. Say to the mind, “throw your best punch!” If you’re brave enough to give this a try, can you see that you are aware of the fact that you are thinking about a thought? Read that again if you need to, take your time, and go slow. Can any thought you think actually touch you? Take a minute to look at all the thoughts flying around in your head. Is any one of them any more or less than just a thought? When you give permission for thoughts to come and go as they please, do they still have power over you? Or, somehow, does their power vanish into thin air?

Once we recognize who the real culprit to all our suffering is, it becomes so simple. It’s just the mind. That’s it. Even though all the things a child can whine over may be vast, the principles are simple — the more we fight a child in the heat of its tantrum, the more we empower it. However, if we ignore it, it might cry a bit more, maybe even a lot more, but eventually, it will give up.

When you first begin to practice ignoring the mind’s childishness, it will seem impossible. The mind will kick, scream, tell you to give up, try to convince you it can’t be done, and fight back harder than ever before. Don’t worry. These are all signs that your new strategy is working. Hold strong and don’t engage. Before you know it, peace of mind will be as effortless as ignoring a homeless person yelling “the end is near!” The hard part is believing you can do it. Once that’s done, the rest is as simple as mending a broken arm.