I used to be badly depressed and anxious.  I cured myself of depression for good.  By accident.

When I was in my teens and particularly my early to mid 20s, I had what the guys in white coats with deep, calm voices call social anxiety.  A very bad case, one that, to my shame, couldn’t be hidden.  My chin trembling, smile frozen, movements stiff and gawky, the whole bodily kaboodle.  (I never looked in mirror at any social do that I might actually force myself to go to:  so out of control were my facial muscles that I thought it couldn’t possibly help to confirm what they were doing out there in public without my permission.) Usually so afraid of saying stupid things that I did, or said nothing at all.  Saying nothing added a sense of invisibility to my inner quivering and stiffness.  Like many social phobics, I had a paranoid edge, which made me think that people were laughing at my awkwardness, but since I also have acute insight into people, at times I was aware that it wasn’t, sigh, paranoia.

Being an extrovert, a person who is energized by people contact (as an introvert is energized by solitude), social phobia was hard.  In my case, I more than loved people; I needed, in some way, my reflection in them in order to even see myself.  So, lying in bed for three years waiting to grow a pair wasn’t an option.  Not even during times when there was a cute guy handy.

Research confirms we’re a self-interested species:  in studies, people consistently rate strangers who ask the most questions about them as having the best personalities.  My instinctive device to fool people into the notion of me as a normal person was to become a fantabulous question-asker.  (I later became an interviewer and therapist, so it just goes to show that mental difficulties can sometimes be parlayed into a career beyond stand-up comedy.)

The price of being the most-interested-in-you person was steep:  never having much sense of self to begin with, I lost whatever shreds I’d guarded.  To cover anxiety, I pretended to be more interested in other people than I was, to win their approval so that I’d feel I belonged somewhere.  The result was that I starved my own self.  I saw Me as useless and unworthy, undeserving of attention and interest, shameful, to be ignored if not figuratively killed outright.  I was anchorless, ripe for a fall.

It came, in the fall of 1985.

My facade crumbled. The circumstances aren’t important. I fell into depression so intense that sometimes I could swallow nothing, even aspirin.  Which I needed, because I could only eat if I was drinking, I could only talk if I was drinking, I could only be with people if I was drinking.   (I was at university, so this didn’t look abnormal.)  A glass wall divided me from the people I was with; alone, panic attacked me.  Sleep rolled its bleary eyes and left.  Most frightening, I lost words to describe what was happening to me or how to get through to anyone.  I felt shut out of the world. I can’t ever remember being so lonely.  One night I called the crisis centre on campus and simply sobbed uncontrollably, unable to get a single word out.  When I finally managed to console the poor volunteer, who I felt badly for, with a story of why I was so devastatingly sad, it was a lie.  I simply had no idea how to speak about my pain.  I didn’t know what was happening to me, only that I must be, finally, going crazy.

I started to wonder about suicide.  As an alternative to this crazy, failing fight against being in a daily state of devastation. Suicide is an either/or conversation.

Then another idea came, prompted by curiosity. Instead of choice A, fighting depression and failing, or B, ending things, perhaps there was an option C.  An experiment of sorts.  The way it actually presented itself was in this thought:

See how depressed you can get.

In three weeks I was fine.

Better than fine – overjoyed.  Giddy for months.  I considered what had happened a miracle, a teaching, a divine secret I had stumbled on.  It took a while to unpack what actually went on in that three weeks, after months of struggle.  Here it is:

1) I cared for my physical self.  Having decided not to ultimately abuse my body by killing it, I became aware of the ways I was abusing it already. Started to balance this with more caring acts.

2) I allowed my emotional self to have its experience. I accepted depression, allowed it to be, witnessed it without judging it. I resigned as Head Depression Warrior. Fighting something isn’t much different energy-wise from being desperately attached to it.

3) I protected my mental self.  I separated from people and situations that were unhelpful, including looking for approval. I didn’t intend it; it was just that I had something else – my experiment – to focus on.

For me, depression was the natural result of not doing 1, 2, and 3 in the first place.  Depression, the crack, allowed the light – learning how to be my real self – to come in.  Today, when I start feeling the creeping in of the black dogs, I stop whatever I’m outwardly doing and pay attention to whatever is in me that’s being ignored and needs my love, care, and attention. I love depression’s signal, a hail from the deep place that always knows what’s true.

Please know, not all depression is the same.  This is my experience and not my holier-than-thou prescription for you. Never that. Some depression needs medical treatment, and there’s no shame in it. (I sometimes consider wearing a T-shirt that says “They Make a Pill for That”.) I’m all for whatever helps. I’ve talked to people balanced on bridge railings.  I’m all for whatever helps.

I’ll also say that a follow-up study of people who were talked down from bridge railings found that the vast majority were glad.