[00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:16.180]   We're recording answers to prompts for episode two, the war between wanting help and pushing
[00:00:16.180 --> 00:00:19.600]   it away.
[00:00:19.600 --> 00:00:29.040]   So first question, what goes through your mind when someone tries to help you?
[00:00:29.040 --> 00:00:42.540]   I actually have a few answers for this, mainly because I have had depression for over forty
[00:00:42.540 --> 00:00:52.160]   years and consider myself a functional depressive, meaning my seasons of depression can come
[00:00:52.160 --> 00:00:59.900]   and go, however, this is the longest period I've ever experienced in my forty years.
[00:00:59.900 --> 00:01:15.260]   That being said, I, with forty years of experience, when somebody tries to help me, my first assumption
[00:01:15.260 --> 00:01:24.720]   is they have no idea what they're talking about because I've been doing this a long time.
[00:01:24.720 --> 00:01:33.700]   And how the hell could they know anything compared to what I know experientially, right?
[00:01:33.700 --> 00:01:44.660]   That being said, I do easily open up to therapists and professionals within the mental health
[00:01:44.660 --> 00:01:57.980]   industry now, after I've lived with this long enough, I can speak their language to a certain
[00:01:57.980 --> 00:02:04.940]   degree, but I am definitely no therapist.
[00:02:04.940 --> 00:02:11.780]   So yeah, when somebody tries to help me, I naturally assume they don't know what they're
[00:02:11.780 --> 00:02:19.340]   talking about, however, I am very curious to know what their level of understanding is
[00:02:19.340 --> 00:02:22.740]   because it helps me then relate to them.
[00:02:22.740 --> 00:02:30.700]   Maybe adjust if I'm masking, I'll adjust my mask, that kind of thing.
[00:02:30.700 --> 00:02:42.460]   And when I, when people try to help me early on, it was denial.
[00:02:42.460 --> 00:02:47.780]   I acted from a place of denial and I masked and I was like, no, nothing's wrong with
[00:02:47.780 --> 00:02:48.780]   me.
[00:02:48.780 --> 00:02:55.420]   Everything's cool, you know, and just sort of pushed it away or pushed it down, stuffed
[00:02:55.420 --> 00:02:59.500]   it away.
[00:02:59.500 --> 00:03:03.500]   Next question, why do you sometimes resist help even when you want it?
[00:03:03.500 --> 00:03:09.020]   Okay, this is a very interesting question.
[00:03:09.020 --> 00:03:20.940]   Personally, I resist help even when I want it because there is a part of me of by depressed
[00:03:20.940 --> 00:03:29.100]   self that wants me to suffer badly, badly, it wants me to continue to suffer.
[00:03:29.100 --> 00:03:41.580]   So it will encourage and promote the idea of resisting help, even though there's another
[00:03:41.580 --> 00:03:48.540]   part of me that just wants it to end and would take that help.
[00:03:48.540 --> 00:03:57.980]   Yeah, and then the other thing is resisting help when you want it is you may not feel
[00:03:57.980 --> 00:04:04.060]   comfortable opening up to the person who's offering you that help.
[00:04:04.060 --> 00:04:11.060]   You may not trust them, you may not know them from, you know, anybody on the street.
[00:04:11.060 --> 00:04:17.740]   So that would be a good reason you would not or rather you would resist help even though
[00:04:17.740 --> 00:04:19.340]   you want it.
[00:04:19.340 --> 00:04:31.020]   It takes a lot for somebody who feels depression to open up to others as is duly noted in history
[00:04:31.020 --> 00:04:38.540]   where people closest to them would have no idea when somebody would suddenly commit suicide.
[00:04:38.540 --> 00:04:44.780]   They'd say I had no idea they were suffering that way.
[00:04:44.780 --> 00:04:51.340]   So you sometimes resist help even when you want it because you may have a part of you
[00:04:51.340 --> 00:04:53.820]   that wants you to suffer.
[00:04:53.820 --> 00:04:57.420]   It may be because you don't know the person who's offering the suffering.
[00:04:57.420 --> 00:05:00.780]   So it's an issue of trust.
[00:05:00.780 --> 00:05:12.180]   And this also, this question also reinforces the thing I've shared before, which is depression
[00:05:12.180 --> 00:05:18.060]   has a wide variety of ways that manifests in people.
[00:05:18.060 --> 00:05:23.820]   So symptoms of one person and how intense they are and what combination they are could
[00:05:23.820 --> 00:05:31.900]   be entirely different from someone else's version of depression.
[00:05:31.900 --> 00:05:35.460]   You know, the ingredients of the recipe can be different.
[00:05:35.460 --> 00:05:46.140]   However, the resulting mental health space you're in is depression and just feeling incredibly
[00:05:46.140 --> 00:05:48.540]   awful about yourself.
[00:05:48.540 --> 00:05:57.300]   Next question, how does depression trick you into believing you have to handle it alone?
[00:05:57.300 --> 00:06:07.740]   That is a good question, handling it alone, the depression will convince you that nobody
[00:06:07.740 --> 00:06:13.300]   can help you, nobody will understand you.
[00:06:13.300 --> 00:06:19.740]   So it wants to isolate you and keep you away from hell because again, it's in a way the
[00:06:19.740 --> 00:06:25.740]   depression wants to keep itself alive.
[00:06:25.740 --> 00:06:29.580]   It's very much in service of itself.
[00:06:29.580 --> 00:06:33.660]   That's the best way I can kind of describe it.
[00:06:33.660 --> 00:06:37.820]   It wants to keep driving the bus or running the show.
[00:06:37.820 --> 00:06:39.620]   Those are the metaphors I can use.
[00:06:39.620 --> 00:06:42.780]   It wants to be in control.
[00:06:42.780 --> 00:06:53.220]   And so when, you know, the depression is strong, it will totally convince you that you don't
[00:06:53.220 --> 00:06:55.720]   need anybody's help.
[00:06:55.720 --> 00:07:02.740]   Or like I said in the previous question, if it's as powerful as mine has been or can
[00:07:02.740 --> 00:07:12.060]   get, it will convince you that I need to handle it alone because I have to suffer.
[00:07:12.060 --> 00:07:17.900]   I'm a bad person and I need to suffer more.
[00:07:17.900 --> 00:07:27.780]   And knowing when that day will end, the suffering, you don't know, it sort of looks and feels
[00:07:27.780 --> 00:07:32.900]   like infinity.
[00:07:32.900 --> 00:07:36.340]   Yeah.
[00:07:36.340 --> 00:07:40.620]   Next question, what would you say to someone who doesn't understand why you pushed them
[00:07:40.620 --> 00:07:45.620]   away?
[00:07:45.620 --> 00:07:52.940]   It could be a trust issue, but you know, if it's family, and it's somebody you already
[00:07:52.940 --> 00:07:59.620]   had a good trusting relationship with, it's not trust.
[00:07:59.620 --> 00:08:08.300]   It would be more of more based in shame.
[00:08:08.300 --> 00:08:17.020]   You're so ashamed of your depression that you can't bear opening up even to the closest
[00:08:17.020 --> 00:08:20.100]   people in your life.
[00:08:20.100 --> 00:08:22.660]   You're so ashamed of feeling that way.
[00:08:22.660 --> 00:08:31.180]   And again, that, from my own experience, I'm confused as whether if that might be inherent
[00:08:31.180 --> 00:08:47.260]   in depression in and of itself, or if it's something that is culturally or societally
[00:08:47.260 --> 00:08:55.220]   put into your brain, your conditioned to feel an incredible amount of shame for being depressed
[00:08:55.220 --> 00:09:01.900]   or having any kind of mental illness, because you're not, quote unquote, one of us, the
[00:09:01.900 --> 00:09:07.460]   neurotypicals of the world.
[00:09:07.460 --> 00:09:09.940]   And that's a really good question.
[00:09:09.940 --> 00:09:17.740]   And for people that have loved ones that are depressed and don't understand why they might
[00:09:17.740 --> 00:09:28.660]   push not only family and friends away, but also push away doctors or any kind of help,
[00:09:28.660 --> 00:09:33.260]   it could be that it's shame based.
[00:09:33.260 --> 00:09:35.820]   They just feel so awful.
[00:09:35.820 --> 00:09:41.620]   And there's so much shame in feeling that way and owning up to it or exposing yourself
[00:09:41.620 --> 00:09:48.740]   to others that way is too scary.
[00:09:48.740 --> 00:09:56.420]   And like I mentioned before, the depression wants to control what's going on.
[00:09:56.420 --> 00:10:02.420]   So it will convince you to isolate yourself, you know, self-isolate.
[00:10:02.420 --> 00:10:05.540]   And that isolation can come in many forms.
[00:10:05.540 --> 00:10:09.020]   You know, you could have somebody sitting there right in front of you, but they don't
[00:10:09.020 --> 00:10:10.020]   talk.
[00:10:10.020 --> 00:10:11.020]   They don't open up.
[00:10:11.020 --> 00:10:13.300]   They're just kind of a zombie, right?
[00:10:13.300 --> 00:10:17.060]   And then there's other people that will go sit in the room, you know, play in bed with
[00:10:17.060 --> 00:10:22.660]   the covers over their head and that kind of isolation, you know.
[00:10:22.660 --> 00:10:27.300]   Some people will talk, but they may say very little.
[00:10:27.300 --> 00:10:34.060]   And what they do say goes nowhere near their own feelings or emotions.
[00:10:34.060 --> 00:10:44.820]   So hugely shame driven from my own personal experience.
[00:10:44.820 --> 00:10:52.940]   I think that's it for this paradox of wanting help and pushing it away.
[00:10:52.940 --> 00:11:00.460]   And the last metaphor I'll share with you is the idea of the little devil on one shoulder
[00:11:00.460 --> 00:11:03.300]   and the little angel on the other.
[00:11:03.300 --> 00:11:08.940]   The devil is just cheering on the suffering, right?
[00:11:08.940 --> 00:11:15.660]   That's the little devil's pushing all that help away and the little angel is just suffering
[00:11:15.660 --> 00:11:18.900]   and wanting that help so badly.
[00:11:18.900 --> 00:11:23.940]   Yeah, I think that'll do it.
[00:11:23.940 --> 00:11:25.420]   You got a good 10 minutes of me.