Ridding Happiness Contaminants 3: Self-Damning Depression

Those of you who have ever experienced depression know what a scourge it can be. You feel down most all of every day, experience little if any fun or pleasure, lose your motivation to do just about anything, find that your sense of humor and your libido has disappeared, and see little hope for the future. It’s downright miserable, isn’t it?

Fortunately, we’ve studied depression more than any other debilitating emotional problem. Literally thousand of research studies show us what causes it and, more important, how to rid it. In this blog, I want to help you, first understand the cause of one variety of depression, Self-Damning Depression, and then what to do to eliminate it from your life. In my next blog, I’ll address the seemed variety of depression, Catastrophizing Depression.

Self-Damning Depression

It is important to understand that, except in rare chemically caused cases, such as post-partum depression or a bi-polar disorder, all depressions are caused by negative, irrational thinking. That is, it is not the bad things that happen in your life – the setbacks, the losses, or the failures – that cause you to be depressed. Rather it is the meaning you make of it in your mind.

In the world of Rational-Emotive Behavior Therapy (REBT), the kind of psychotherapy I eradicate, we can communicate this in a simple ABC model. A stands for the Activating Event, or the thing that goes wrong; B stands for your Beliefs, or the meaning that you assign to the A; and the C refers to the emotional and/or behavioral Consequence, or the depressive reaction you experience. In other words, it is the B that causes your C, not the A.

This ABC model communicates both good and bad news. The bad news is that you cause your own depression with your negative thinking. The good news is the same – you, yourself, cause your depression by your negative thinking. This is good news because, since you cause your depression by your irrational thinking, you can get rid of it by changing your negative thinking, even if you cannot eliminate the negative event itself.

And that's exactly what I do with my depressed patients in my office. Once I teach them the ABC model, I then help them track down their depression-causing thoughts and beliefs, work them through the process of shedding their irrational beliefs, and then coach them on adopting more valid, efficacious beliefs that do not lead to depression.

Now, what exactly is Self-Damning Depression? As its title states, it is the type of depression that results when a person comes to think of oneself in some damning ways: I'm a complete failure! I'm worthless! I'm just a loser!

I think of Diane S, a 37-year-old woman depressed about her obesity (her A). Her self-damning belief: “I am such an incredibly weak and worthless person for letting myself get so fat. I hate myself.”

Then there was Mike G, a 46-year-old orthopedic surgeon who became depressed after discovering that his wife’s affair (his A). His self-damning belief: “I wasn't man enough to make her happy.”

Or how about 44-year-old Silvia B who developed an agoraphobic condition at age 44 when repressed memories of two rape incidents from years back slipped through her repressive defenses (her A). Once she remembered these abuses, she became so frightened that she stayed homebound for two years. Her self-damning belief: “I'm just a failure for being so weak as to shut myself off in my house for so long.”

These three people illuminate quite clearly the process of developing Self-Damning Depression, as follows.

1. First, they each came face-to-face with some significant negative event (an A). In Diane's case, it was her own obesity. For Mike, it was his failing marriage. And Silvia’s Activating Event was her crippling anxiety disorder of agoraphobia that rendered her housebound.

2. Second, true to what we've learned about all depressions, it was not the front of these unfortunate events in these peoples’ lives that caused their depression. Rather, it was the way they framed the events. They each thought along the following lines:

• Perfectionistic Demanding: I must be perfect at everything and never error or be found wanting in any way – Diane with her weight, Mike regarding his wife's infidelity and Silvia with her anxiety disorder.

• Catastrophizing: It was awful, horrible and terrible of me to cause or let this happen.

• Self Damning: Since I shouldn't have failed or done this horrible thing, I'm a worthless person (Diane), an inadequate man (Mike), and a weak failure (Silvia).

3. Then, third comes the depression, which resulted from the self-damning trifecta, above. How could these three people not experience depression after they so thoroughly concluded how totally and thoroughly rotten they were? The answer is that they couldn't. To think so badly of yourself would lead anybody to the path of deep depression.

Before reading on, you're might pause and think about your own thinking, particularly if you experience depression. Do you recognize these thinking patterns? When you experience your depression, do you think along the lines noted above? Do you self-damn, with the “I should have…” or the “I shouldn't have….” the “It was horrible of me to…” and especially the “I'm such a loser, failure, or bad person.”

If you find yourself thinking along these lines, don't despair. You're one step away from rehabbing your thinking and ridding your Self-Damning Depression.

Ridding Self-Damning Depression

I want to start this section by asserting two things. One, if you suffer from Self-Damning Depression, you absolutely can recover from it; all you have to do is break your habit of thinking self-damningly and then habituate more rational, self-accepting ways of thinking. Two, it will take hard work on your part; but, if you put in the work, you will experience the rewards.

There are two primary strategies to fix your self-damning thinking and thus lifting your depression. If you devote, say, the next 100 days to doing them, I am confident you will feel the results.

Debunking the Killer B’s. This strategy involves holding your self-damning beliefs up as a hypothesis, not as an absolute truth, and critically questioning them so as to clearly see their absurdity. The more you do this, the more you will both understand and accept their absurdity. Then, slowly but surely, they will lessen their grip on you. Listen to what Diane did with her disputation.

Question #1: Is it really true that I shouldn't have let myself gain so much weight and that I am a totally weak, worthless person, now and forever, for doing so?

Answer #1: No, it's not true. While it may have been foolish of me to let myself get so heavy, it didn't doesn't follow that I shouldn't have. Why? Because I'm not supposed to be perfect. Nobody is. Like everybody else, I'm a fallible human being, destined to error, act stupid, and have weaknesses and faults. Furthermore, while I can, if I want, damn my weight, I am made up of so much more than just my body. So to damn all of me for this one mistake is a gross over generalization. It's like throwing a whole basket of fruit away just because one of them is rotten. The bottom line: I’m a human being, fallible like everyone else, comprised of many, many qualities, my weight being only one. I can damn the weight, which is a good idea, as it might motivate me to change, but I need not damn my whole self is a totally weak, worthless person. That's ridiculous.

Question #2: Does thinking this self-damning way help me or harm me?

Answer #2: It definitely harms me. How so? Well, to begin with, it causes me to feel depressed so that I now have two problems for the price of one – the fatness and the depression. Furthermore, when depressed, I tend to eat more, not less, thereby porking on more weight. Also, being depressed, I feel hopeless and helpless, thereby losing my motivation to lose the weight. It would be so much better if I just damned the weight, but not myself, and, in a better mood, worked hard to lose it.

Notice how thoroughly she showed herself both the absurdity and self-defeating nature of her Self-Damning Beliefs. She did this repeatedly over the course of several months.

I am happy to report that Diane worked hard every day on her disputation. I'll never forget the morning she walked into my office with a big smile across your face and had this interchange with me.

Dr. G: Well, Diane, you look happy today.

Diane: I am. I haven’t felt depressed all week. I think I've got it.

Dr. G: That’s great. Tell me about it.

Diane: I finally realized that I'm so much bigger than my body.

Dr. G: Wow! I think I know what you mean. But, please explain, to make sure.

Diane: My body is only one part of who I am. I have lots of other qualities besides my body, many of them good. I still don't like my weight, but I like me, even with this body.

Dr. G: All right! You do get it. And you feel so much better, don't you?

Diane: I sure do. Now, if you're willing to help, how about we get to work on my losing weight.

The Six and The Five. Disputation is designed to critically think through your irrational beliefs about yourself so as to expose their absurdity. The Six and The Five has the purpose of ingraining and strengthening rational, self-accepting beliefs.

To do this, I recommend that, for five minutes, six times a day (breakfast, mid-morning, lunch, mid-afternoon, supper, and mid-evening), you do the following imagery exercise.

(1) Picture the A – for example, Diane would picture herself looking at her body in the mirror.

(2) At B, forcefully, even out loud, state rational, self-accepting thoughts. Diane might tell herself: “While I sure don't like the way I look, my body is merely one part of me, just one fruit in my whole crate of fruits. I have my body, but I'm so much more and bigger than this one apple. I like me, though I don't like it. And, I can even fix the part of me I don’t like if I want.”

(3) Then, at C, picture yourself feeling self-accepting, peaceful, and empowered to do something to fix the A if you so desire (the weight, in Diane's case).

Again, by practicing these two strategies, you can slowly but surely re-indoctrinate yourself to think in more positive, self-accepting ways. It will take many repetitions, intent thought, and some patience, but, as you continue the work, you will gradually see the results, feeling better and better as you go. I promise you.

Going Forward

If you suffer from Self-Damning Depression, please realize that you are not alone. A large percentage of the population does also, plus most of the rest of us do on occasion. That's absolutely true.

Also, please realize that it is your self-damning thinking that causes your Self-Damning Depression. Since this thinking has been learned, it can be unlearned. I guarantee it.

Lastly, please accept that you do have to work at re-indoctrinating yourself. Disputation and The Six and The Five are two powerful tools that can help you with this relearning process. I've worked them to successfully help myself on occasion, as well as thousands of my patients over the years. If I and all my patients can help ourselves, so can you. Get to work!

As with all my other blogs, I hope this one on Self-Damning Depression has been of use to you. Next month I will tell you about the second type of depression – Catastrophizing Depression. Till next month, then, live with healthy, happy, and with passion.

Russell Grieger, Ph.D. is a licensed clinical psychologist in private practice in Charlottesville, Virginia. The author of several self-help books, all designed to empower people to create a life they love to live, he invites you to check out his new relationship happiness book, The Couples Therapy Companion; A Cognitive Behavior Workbook. You may contact Dr. Grieger for questions or for more information at grieger@cstone.net.