I was thinking about leaving

Dear Bloggers,

As I read through the web for conversations, questions, ideas about depression, I am struck by how many people who write to forums and blogs are desperately asking for help not for their own depression but for that of their spouses, partners, loved ones. So often, they report bewilderment. They feel stunned to find anger and rejection in place of love. How can it be that the person I have known so well is suddenly different, alien, hostile and wants to break out of the relationship that is so precious? 
 

What is this longing to leave that so many depressed people feel? I have no simple answer to that, but I can describe my own tortured experience with an almost irresistible drive to break out and start a new life.
I spent many years feeling deeply unsettled and unhappy in ways I could not understand. Flaring up in anger at my wife and two great young girls became a common occurrence. I’d carry around resentments about being held back and unsatisfied with my life, fantasizing about other places, other women, other lives I could and should be leading. 
 

My usual mode was to bottle up my deepest feelings, making it all the more likely that when they surfaced it would be in weird and destructive ways. I’d seethe with barely suppressed anger, lash out in rage and, of course, deny angrily that anything was wrong when confronted by my wife.

I was often living on the edge, but there were two threads of awareness I could hold onto that restrained me invisibly. One was the inner sense that until I faced and dealt with whatever was boiling inside me, I would only transplant that misery to a new place, a new life and a new lover. However exciting I might imagine it would be to walk into that new world, I knew in my heart that it would only be a matter of time before the same problems re-emerged.
The other was a question I kept asking myself : “What is it that I am leaving for? ” What was this great future and life that I would be stepping into? Could I even see it clearly? More often than not, the fantasy portrayed a level of excitement I was missing. Crazy thoughts or a very lively fantasy I would call it now.

Some buried part of me knew that a life based on getting high on non-stop brain-blowing excitement wasn’t a life at all. Maybe it wasn’t alcohol or drugs that lured me, but it was surely the promise of intense and thrilling experiences, the opening scene of an adventure film without the need to wait for the complicated plot to unravel. There was no real alternative woman out there waiting for me, only a series of fantasies with easy gratification, never the hard part of dealing with a complicated human being in a sustained relationship. And inwardly I knew, I would still face the fears, depression and paralysis of will that had plagued me for so long.

That bit of consciousness kept me from breaking everything up and leaving the wonderful family that I’m blessed with.

So just imagine what my wife was going through. She had to face the rejection of my anger at the deepest levels. At the worst of it, she had to hear me telling her she wasn’t enough for me, that I needed more than she could give. And the tension and pain between us, the frequent rage that I felt, spilled into the lives of my children in ways that slowly and painfully were to emerge over time. 

That is the hardest part of talking about this now, to grasp how my closest loved ones disappeared from awareness into the haze of my own self-hatred, my own feeling of emptiness that I was desperately trying to fill. I had no idea how my behavior spread in its impact, like widening circles in water, to touch so many around me I’ll continue with this theme and try to get at what can be done or said to someone possessed of a longing to leave.

The longing to leave one’s intimate partner brings out something that isn’t much discussed in descriptions of depression. It is the active face of the illness. We often focus on the passive symptoms, the inactivity, the isolation, sense of worthlessness, disruption of focused thought, lack of will to do anything. But paradoxically the inner loss and need can drive depressed people to frenzied action to fill the great emptiness in the center of their lives. They may long to replace that inadequate self with an imagined new one that makes up for every loss. 
 

My experience with this phase of illness occurred when I had only limited awareness of the hold depression had on me. That may be a key to understanding the dynamic and how to respond to someone in the grip of this drive to turn life upside down. Unhappy without knowing why, I had to find an explanation, and the easiest way to do that was to look outward. I could only see my present life, my wife, my work as holding me back, frustrating my deepest desires. In effect, I was blaming everyone but me for my misery. In that state, I could only focus on the promise of leaving, finding a new mate, new work, new everything.

Every suggestion my wife might make that there was something wrong with me only brought the angriest denial. Every time she said how much she loved me only felt like a demand that I stay stuck in this unfulfilling life and do what she wanted me to do. I knew so clearly that I was not the problem, certainly not sick but for the first time on the verge of escaping into the exciting life I should have been living all along.

There is something very close to the power of addiction in the fantasy of escape. I found it almost impossible to see through the dreams of a new life. It meant so much – my survival as a person seemed to be at stake. Unaware of the full effect of depression, blocking out what my wife and others were trying to tell me, I inflicted a lot of pain on my family, thinking that I had to be brutally honest in order to save myself. Fortunately, as I noted in the last post on this subject, I had been through enough work in therapy to have glimmers of the truth, and that helped me step back from the brink.

I’m big on offering advice, but the potentially devastating impacts of depressed people on those closest to them leads me to go a bit beyond just reflecting on what I’ve been through. I see it different now my wife is stuck in a similar situation that has caused a burn out due to her boss.

If you’re trying to deal with the sudden transformation of an intimate partner, get help, starting with friends and family. You’ve likely felt such a deep assault and wound that it would be easy to get lost in the sheer humiliation, hurt and anger of the experience, searching for what you’ve done wrong, what you could do or say to set things right. That’s a trap set for you by the voice of depression. That voice tries to persuade you, just as it has persuaded your loved one, that it’s your fault. Not true. It’s your partner’s illness that’s at the root of it. 

Those closest to you and your partner have doubtless noticed something strange and may have been hurt as well by new behavior. That will remind you that you’re not alone in this. And remember that you can’t cure someone else with your words and love. They only backfire. At most, you can help your partner gradually gain awareness. It will take the combined influence of you and many others to get a depressed person to start seeing a different explanation for what’s wrong. Only your partner can do the heavy lifting. Only your partner can experience the inner change of thought and feeling that comes with the recognition that there is an illness to be dealt with.

I realize how different everyone’s experience is about the impact of depression on their marriage, and how desperately hard everyone works to reach what is for them the right answer about staying married or not. For me, though, it was a fantasy born of depression. I often wonder how it is, given where I began in my struggle to build a loving relationship with another human being, that my wife and I have stayed married for so long. “Marriage is survival,” I once heard someone say at a wedding, and the uncomfortable laughter in his large audience confirmed the truth of it. Despite all our struggles, we’ve managed to survive the worst of times.

For so many years, though, and long beyond adolescent dreams, I was searching obsessively not for the real work of two people always learning about each other. Depressed and full of shame at who I was, I searched desperately for someone who would make up what was missing, gifting me the worth I felt I lacked, so that I could feel like a whole person at last. I simply imagined I was falling in love. 

It would start with an attraction that soon became obsessive for a woman whose spirit and warmth I reached for instinctively to take in as my own. This was falling in love in a strangely one-sided way. I needed the responsiveness of the other person, to be sure, but only to a certain point. I can try to explain with a story, really a moment when something began to get through to my isolated mind.

I had, or imagined I had, an intense bond with K for nearly a year in my late teens. Her loving me meant everything. She was beautiful, talented and lively, and deep down I felt not just proud that she was part of my life, I felt alive and justified because of her presence. More than that, I projected into the minds of everyone I met the love of my live because such a woman loved me. That was the reality of what I needed from her, the sense of self-worth that I lacked on my own. I ignored what was clearly happening so desperate was I to believe that we would be together forever. After all, I was nothing without her. Our relationship came to end and I have been sick for days. My life was over. I promised myself not to start a relation again but to enjoy life

I was home, and we were up early, getting dressed and ready to get up for breakfast. I was avoiding deep talk. The windows were open to a fine Dutch winter morning. I was dousing my face with cold water in the bathroom as I had great hangover when suddenly I was startled by a beautiful singing voice floating in coming from the bedroom. It was a woman’s voice pouring a haunting melody into the air. It seemed to surround me, and the feeling and the sheer beauty of the tone put everything else out of my mind. I relaxed into its flow for a few still moments, and then I started to move. I had to find out where my future would start again. It seemed that I was ready for life again and I opened my heart and started a relationship again with the woman that I now call my wife. When I snapped out of my memories, I walked back to the bedroom and found my wife quietly sweeping a brush through her long blond hair.

“Did you hear that?” I asked.
“Hear what?”
“That incredible singing – it was the most beautiful thing. Where could it have come from?”
“Oh,” she laughed, “that was just the alarm clock.”
“Just now? Just right now? I mean, it stopped a few seconds ago.”
She nodded slowly, still brushing.
“I mean … I never heard that song before.”
She smiled into the mirror. “Well… now you have.”
She finished brushing her hair. We got our clothes on and left the room. 
 

To say I crashed when she left is putting it mildly. What could happen when my sense of who I was and what I was worth in the world walked away? Gone! There was nothing left! I would start drinking heavily, fall into complete depression, couldn’t sleep, couldn’t work, crying a lot, burned with the obsession of having to get her back. For the second time in my life, I don't think I will survive and end up at a psychiatrist. To heal enough so that I could function. Then I’d be able to resume my obsessive quest for a woman to make me feel whole again!

And so the pattern continues for years. When I met my wife and we got married, things seemed so different. But as soon as we got past the intense early years into the time when the relationship gets real or gets broken, I picked up again the habit of obsessing over that shortcut to fulfillment. I could dream of other women, other places, other careers that would end the inner fear, emptiness and pain. It was the sort of dreaming that would always keep me from hearing the song close by. The dreams gave me a way out instead of opening up and talking to the woman who loved me about the real crisis I was in. There was always a fantasy person elsewhere who wouldn’t need all that talking and honesty!

It took me many years, but finally the escape artist in me called it quits. Those fantasies came in such abundance that I just couldn’t take them seriously anymore. Only then could I get on with the work of recovery and the work of marriage.

I understand now when my wife says to me: “Are you still in love with me and if you don't than you should leave.” I guess that she is having a hard time now.



The Old Sailor,

When you are old and grey

Dear Bloggers,

I came to these thoughts when my nearly 80 year old dad got hospitalized. And after a couple of days he was worried sick about how he could manage at home in this condition. He got a place for the coming weeks in a pensioners home to recover and possibly he might stay here. But that is up to him of course. As my mum past away nearly eleven years ago he is living on his own. Although he is not that mobile as before he does his best to mix and mingle, his health is becoming a bigger and more often an issue. So the question is what is wise and how will my future be. So here is my conclusion that there are very big differences between married, widowers and single persons.

I’m married…and totally bored with articles complaining about the questions couples are asked by concerned friends and family as I worked outside the country as well. For several decades, the supposedly offending questions have not changed: Why did you get married? Are you afraid of being alone? Are you unhappy? Will this relation last? How will you take care of yourself when you are old and grey and your partner is not there anymore?

Of course, no one likes having to defend her or his personal situation; I wouldn’t like defending mine (although to be honest with you, no one ever seems to be that interested in asking me about my relationship status).

But, whether you like being asked or not, the last question is a good one if you are single, married or a happy gay couple or whatsoever with no intention to think about what is coming on your path, then what exactly is the long term plan? I don’t just mean in terms of who is going to take care of you when you can no longer take care of yourself, but how are you planning to afford old age?

A woman who is thirty years old today has a 29% chance of living beyond her 90^th birthday and 12% chance of living beyond the age of 95. A man of the same age has an 18% chance of living beyond the age of 90 and a 5% chance of seeing his 95^th birthday. Yes we are getting older and older.

These predictions do not take into consideration the possibility that major medical advances will radically extend life expectancy, which given the time frame is likely; most of today’s nonagenarians never expected to live this long.

Every one of us, regardless of our martial status, needs to plan for the possibility that we will live for many decades after we have stopped working. But the need to plan for widows and singles is much greater; not only are they more likely to find themselves buying the services (like housing) but they are likely to be buying those services on a much lower income.

Being married does not provide you with a guarantee that you will have someone to care for you when you are old (although, you have to admit the odds are much better than when you remain single), but being married makes it much easier to accumulate wealth over your lifetime.

Research has shown that the wealth level of married couples at the age of retirement is significantly higher than that of both single men and women, with single women heading into their sunset years with the lowest level of wealth it is less than one third the wealth level of married couples.

And because married couples are able to accumulate more wealth, their income in retirement is also much higher. In fact, one study found that at the age of retirement single women could anticipate living on an average income of only €9.000,- per year and single men on an income of €12.950,- per year, compared with an annual average income of €29.000.- for married couples.

Part of this discrepancy in wealth and income can be explained by differences in the earnings of married men and single men (married men earn more) and the gender wage gap. That strange enough is still existing

The big difference, however, is that it is simply cheaper to live as a married couple than it is to live alone and that lower cost easily translates into higher savings for married couples. And, of course, it is also cheaper to live as a married couple post retirement, which means that married and unmarried seniors experience large differences in standard of living.

A couple of weeks ago I was reading an interview with some well known economists and financial experts to share their biggest financial mistake. I told them that my opinion was just staying single. Don’t get me wrong, there are benefits to not being married, but those benefits come at a high cost in terms of long-run financial well being. As even the tax is still different between married and unmarried couples. That is weird and old fashioned.

Unless you already have a concrete plan, if you are single and someone asks how you will take care of yourself when you are old and grey the answer really should be this: “I have no idea, I worry about that myself.” Live life as you want it but I think that a lot of things in the world need to be changed to a more fair way of making a living.

The Old Sailor,

My way of dealing with a burn out

Dear Bloggers,

My wife is suffering from a burn out and we are working slowly on her recovery. Let me tell you it is a long way but here I have some tips to make your life a bit easier. Whenever in doubt, humans all across this huge, people-filled planet resort to bending out of shape instead of empowering ourselves to get up and pick ourselves up! Although it is not very healthy for you, it's just what we do! Men and women all alike do this, too, so you have nothing to be ashamed of. Now, you have the power to conquer emotions and inner negativity! This guide will suggest ways in which you gain control of your life again. I got my life back in order, and you can get yours back too.

Steps

Get rid of the negativity in your life. Put family and friends which bring too much negativity toward you on freeze for now. Don't start any trouble with them, but be less reliant on them. Also, cut back on negativity yourself! Whenever you think something negative, say to yourself, "That's negative and unnecessary." Keep saying that to yourself until your brain stops completely.

Cut back on unnecessary activities to free up time. Any activity that does not produce a tangible result or lead you to success you can put on freeze. For example, cutting back on a movie or going on the computer to go on aim half as often would suffice. But be careful about choosing which things in your life are important to you and which are not. To avoid common errors, first make a list of things (on paper!) that you normally do on a daily and/or weekly basis and put how much time you spend on each activity. Then, take the items on that list and lightly cross off the things that are useless in your life and you spend too much time on. For example, if you watch TV for 5 hours a day, you're definitely wasting some time in your life. If it has something to do with another person, specifically family, do not cross it off as doing this could affect the other person badly. Next, look at all of the things you crossed off and then at the things you still have on your other list. Does this seem reasonable? Could you live without the things you crossed out? Our main goal is to get you to stop spending too much time on useless things.

Create a weekly goal list using three colors.

·      A black priority would be something that has to be done at a certain date and time, without any exceptions.

·      A red priority would be something that has to be done by the end of the day.

·      An orange priority would be something that has to be done within less than one-seven hours. Don't look past 7 days until the priorities are met.

Buy a few hundred index cards, or 2-3 packs. Keep at least a half of a pack with you at all times. They are valuable in social events and allow you to capture ideas onto paper, so you will never forget anything. Knowing that all of your problems are in your pocket will take away stress because you can stop thinking about them and start thinking about other important things.

Organize most of your computer files into 5-15 folders to make sure you have your digital priorities straight. Example folders: Work, School, Research/Reading, Personal Writings, Weekly Goals, Music, Photos, Reminders. Also important to get your mailbox in order there are a lot of unnecessary items in your inbox

Write down 10 strengths you have and how you can use them to your advantage. Write down 10 weaknesses you have and how you can improve them. Try to improve yourself a little bit everyday but at the same time keep this quote in mind: "Complete perfection is bliss, but when perfection is met with humanity, it's useless." Never use the word "perfect." Use "improved" instead. The process of improvement is slow, but if you try to improve yourself everyday, in 6 months, the next list you write will be very different.

Build self-esteem. Don't compare yourself to other people and do not limit yourself to the standards of the consensus. To a certain extent, forget judgmental strangers and give yourself enough room to grow.

Real Self Confidence and Esteem is based in emotion, not a self-image
to build self-confidence and overcome low self-esteem is to change how we feel emotionally about ourselves. To change our emotion requires changing two different core beliefs about self-image. The first core belief is obvious. It is the belief that we are not good enough. It may have a more specific association to how we look, how smart we are, money, or lack of confidence sexually. The second core belief to change is the image of success that we feel we should be. Changing this belief is contrary to logic, but is a must if we are to overcome insecurity and raise our self-esteem.  

False Self Image of Perfection Cause of Low Self Esteem and Lack of Confidence
When your mind has an image of success that you "should be" it associates happy emotions with that picture. I call that the image of perfection in our mind. The mind does a comparison between the image of perfection and how you see your self-image currently. The comparison results in judgment and self-rejection for not meeting the image of perfection. The self-rejection results in feeling unworthy and of low self esteem

While the image of perfection appears to be a way for us to feel good about ourselves, it is actually causing us to reject ourselves which creates feelings of "not being good enough." If you were to dissolve the belief that you should fit into the image of perfection you would eliminate the self-rejection and feelings of unworthiness that result.

Finding and breaking my own “I’m not good enough story.”

Feelings of confidence and security mean no self-rejection.
The approach of dissolving our image of perfection sounds contrary to our sense of logic about building confidence and esteem. This is because we have the belief that achieving the image of perfection will result in positive happy emotions and feeling confident with our success. Our mind has actually been programmed to have these emotional associations. We desire to feel these feelings and chase the image of perfection we have attached to them.

What we may not be aware of is that achieving our image of success doesn’t effectively change our emotional state. It doesn't do anything to permanently change the way the voice in our head speaks to us or what we believe about ourselves. Many times people have achieved their goals only to find themselves still unfulfilled. Your emotional state may briefly change in the euphoria if the immediate success. But the core belief of not being good enough and your long term habit of self-rejection in the mind hasn’t been altered. The critical voice in our head is more likely to put a higher goal in front of us to achieve. It’s okay to have high goals, but you don’t have to make your love and self-acceptance dependent on them.

Change What You Believe and You Change How You Feel Emotionally
The second belief to dissolve is that we are inadequate and somehow not good enough. These are the beliefs that create emotions of insecurity and fear. The emotions are not the problem they are just the resulting symptom of negative core beliefs. The "not good enough" image is a construct of our imagination. It is a belief about ourselves created by the mind concluding that we are "not good enough to meet the image of perfection." A step to changing this belief is to recognize that we the one observing the "self" image. We cannot be the “self” image we are looking at. We are the one doing the looking. This means the “self-image we create is really a “non self” image. With awareness we can decide to believe in the “non self” image or not believe in the “non self” image. Having this awareness helps shift our point of view and is a beginning step that will help us change a belief.

Changing the “not good enough” image is much easier once you have broken your belief in the image of perfection. Without the image of perfection you no longer have the comparison reinforcing the unworthy "self” image.

Make physical changes to remind yourself that you are a new person. A haircut and new clothing would suffice. Also, cleanse yourself spiritually and mentally to begin a lasting new lifestyle. Meditation is a good way to do this.

Breaking down The Elements: Setting Your Head Right

There are some general points to consider to set your expectations of change correctly.

1.                  I can get better at this.

2.                  The journey, not the destination.

3.                  Don’t pretend you have a different life.

4.                  Start now.

5.                  Expect disruption.

6.                  Expect failure.

7.                  Remove guilt.

8.                  Be patient.

9.                  Live through the seasons.

10.              You are Superman/ woman.

I can get better at this.

This is the fundamental belief you need to start changing. It’s not the same as thinking – “I can change” – which might actually work against you. It’s the mindset that whatever you’re going for, the goal is progress, not perfection.

The journey, not the destination.

When people think about change, they think about intervention.

You’ll eat less, lose 15 kilos, then that’s the end of it.

But it doesn’t happen like that, because change is a constant process. You’re always going to be changing something. And when you get done with changing one thing, there’s going to be something else that emerges, some other change that you’ll need to work on. Expecting this up front saves a lot of disappointment down the track.

Don’t pretend you have a different life.

This ties in to the earlier point – whatever you’re struggling with today – making a decision to change it doesn’t remove any of the elements in your life that make that thing a struggle today. You are always going to revert to the mean when it comes to motivation or optimism and you can’t expect that to change.

Picture yourself making changes in the course of normal life, not in some idealized world in which you have more time, energy and motivation. That place doesn’t exist.

As I would say: “Your future self doesn’t exist. As long as there is no future you. All that exists is a series of present selves, all shirking responsibility and assuming versions of themselves that don’t exist will solve their problems. “Start now.

Equally, the best time to start the process was yesterday. The next best time is now. It won’t be easier after your vacation, or when you move to the new house, or when you get the new job… it will be just as hard and you will have less time to make the change.

So start now, no matter how inconvenient the circumstances might be.

Expect disruption.

Every month, you should expect that 1 in every 4 days will be impacted by sickness, injury, travel for work, personal travel, or an intervening event like a hangover, a soccer championship, a wedding or a hen’s night.

The most under-rated change skill you can develop is the ability to plan in and around those constraints.

Expect failure.

You have to be ready to fail multiple times as you try to make something stick. Failing isn’t a sign to stop; it’s a sign to try again. This time with more information about what works and what doesn’t.

That’s not how it works when it comes to change. In changing, you will encounter so much ‘do not’ that the only thing that matters is ‘try’.

Remove guilt.

Remove the guilt from change. If you fail, start again. Guilt and shame are HUGE wastes of energy. Remove all your negative emotions around change, forget all past failures and just try again. Every other approach is inefficient.

Be patient.

You will grossly overestimate your ability to change. Really. You want to underestimate and then over deliver. Not the reverse.

That’s a really good proxy for how most change happens. It takes much longer than we want to admit.

Live through the seasons.

Your changes will come in seasons. It’s rare they’ll last for more than 3 months without starting to feel stale… So you’ll want to keep this in mind you’re not changing forever, just for a short time and then you will get focused on something else.

Note, this isn’t the case for the ones that are fully breaking down and who are too stubborn to change they will fall back into bad habits and old addictions like smoking and drinking.

\You are Superman or woman.

You are Superman. You have endless lives. You get reborn every time you decide to try again. So don’t be afraid to try and fail.

 The Old Sailor,