The depression spiral down starts with…
The depression spiral down starts with a lack.
Let’s start at the end with someone who spiraled down and stayed there. We start with a person, dead from age and lack of care in their apartment, filled to the brim with junk – a hoarder. Past-due notifications and a string of eviction notices that always just-in-time got fixed litter the ground. No utilities on – they probably froze to death.
How does one get here? Two reasons: Trauma, or depression. Most of the time both.
Everyone has their story, and they either heal from it, or use to protect themselves from hurt by covering up, shying away, showing a false face. There are too many that never address their traumas and things that cause (and feed) their depression. Usually the cause or food of depression, stems from this triangle list:
Trauma with Human Needs
First, I need to address trauma as related to this image.
Every single thing a human needs, can also have a trauma. Breathing Trauma: Asthma, COPD, lung cancer, lung removal, throat and tongue issues, even teeth. When breathing is a chore or difficult for a long time – it becomes a Trauma.
Pretty sure you can see how about anything on this list can be a trauma.
Lack of Human Needs
Every single human requires some variation or amount of the above things – although some need less or more than others in each. It’s important to remind ourselves that humanity is quite possibly the largest spectrum there is! What you may need daily, another may need once a day or for less amounts per day. What you may need once a week, others may not need much of at all.
But we all strive to fill as many of these needs to our highest level of requirement.
So what happens when someone is constantly denied some, or many, of these things – or worse, have unfixed traumas associated with them?
Understanding the spiral down
Even taking a few Needs and turning them into Lack or Trauma, one can see how people would react.
Let’s take one example. A person who once was provided most everything as a minor, is thrown out of the house on their 18th birthday, having just graduated high school a month before. Now, suddenly, they are missing food, water, security of body, employment, resources, family, at the very least.
What would you think would happen to the rest of their triangle if most of the bottom two columns are suddenly no longer platforms – but a foundation of very few sticks?
They may be able to breathe, use free public bathrooms, have homeostasis, and their health (for the moment) but how long will that last while living on the cheapest food, trying to sleep in unsanitary and unsafe conditions with temperature fluctuations? How long will their self esteem, confidence, and respect by others (and of others, when hungry) last? Let alone the top of the pyramid!
Not when you have no skills, and yet all you hear is “Get a job” and “services exist, go get them” as if those are the easiest things when your clothing hasn’t been washed in a week or two and you barely have 30c, not even enough for a bus ticket to….wherever those services are.
Every day, the cycle continues
Imagine waking up every day with more time between jobs, more judgment as your hair grows longer and you look more unkempt, more of a theft record from stealing food for pure survival.
And you’ve stolen enough to get a room or an apartment. You’ve become insecure about yourself, you’ve lost all of your previous self, and now have a mask over your true self. To hide your depression and insecurity. To blame others for them failing you. To get what you deserve.
A mask that says you’re alright – because being strong and surviving the odds are what society prizes….and gets you benefits. Like making friends just to be able to soon ask them for money. Until they see through the mask and ghost you.
Every day you fight for survival stuck at the 2nd level of the pyramid, never growing back to your full self’s potential, thinking yourself lost and worthless. Which spirals you down further…
Until one of two things happen:
- You die, in a cold apartment with eviction notices having piled up – your body discovered by the Landlord or Sheriff.
- Someone stops you in your spiral down.
And takes off your mask, exposing you. And strips you down to the core traumas, so they can then dismantle those and begin filling the Lack that started at 18.
This costs thousands of dollars worth of mental therapy. Something no one in that position has access or money to do.
But there is a way to do it yourself.
Stopping your spiral down...yourself. Free.
If you are in, or near anything I’ve said here, well, time for the spiraling down to end.
There is comfort in depression, but it is like a thin blanket covering you on the floor of the Mariana Trench! A band-aid of the most superficial comfort possible – for a very hurt inner child.
And coming out from under that blanket is absolutely frightening when you’re at the bottom of the Mariana Trench, with billions of pounds of crushing water The only light you see is the slightly lighter blue of water above- the idea of potential light that might exist for others on the surface but with no guarantee for you.
Time...to write. A lot.
I’m not going to tell you that this will be easy. The spiral down is easier than the spiral up. This will be painful. But you know what this will be?
Free.
I’m offering no course. No paid program. No tricks or links to further info, no ads on this site or monetary benefits for me. Just me writing one night in December 2022, hoping that this might help someone reach a point where they can see light again.
And if you’re not ready – no problem…you kinda have to hit the bottom to see upwards again. Until that point, your interest is still in punishing yourself or blaming others, fearing the future, regretting the past, and believing yourself to be the most unworthy of life, worst person ever!
But if you’ve already been there and now wonder if that horrible person could be happy again…you’re ready.
Grab a bunch of real paper.
Physical paper.
I know electronic writing makes you feel more comfortable, it’s easier, you can delete and rewrite fast…
And it doesn’t work.
Our brains are not designed for electronics processing. They are simply able to use electronics on a superficial frontal cortex level! We can see it, we can read and understand the words, we even feel it “hit” (especially short memes)…but we Do Not Process It. We go straight on to the next meme….last one forgotten after 3 minutes.
This does not work in any other way but physical paper and if you are not willing to do this on paper – then please click off this blog post now. Doing this electronically will mean your spiral down WILL continue and you will believe that “you have gotten help and it hasn’t worked”, leading to even more trauma.
I’d rather you not do this at all if you cannot do it on paper.
