Storytelling and mental health
Be careful what stories you believe because stories can inspire dreams or nightmares
When I was a child I struggled with crippling social anxiety. It was so bad that I was afraid of speaking on the phone with my friends, leaving the house, or interacting with pretty much anyone that wasn’t my direct family or very close friends.
Anxiety often precedes depression and this was true in my case. It makes sense why. An anxious child is more likely to avoid social interactions, and consequently will fall behind their peers in developing social and relational skills. Developmentally, that can be catastrophic. The more you withdraw, the lonelier you get, and the lonelier you get, the harder social interactions become. Eventually, you just stop trying.
In my late teens I was diagnosed with clinical major depression. I struggled to get out of bed in the mornings, I kept to myself during the day, and I slept way too much. My entire life was covered in a fog of greyness that I couldn’t shake. My loneliness grew, my shyness deepened, my anxieties proliferated like a spreading disease.
And that’s how I thought about my condition: my anxiety, my depression was a disease. It was a story that my parents and the doctors I saw reinforced. I was told depression was like diabetes (which I assume meant that the antidepressants I was given were like insulin). The message I received was that I had a biological condition, a chemical imbalance in my brain that I needed to treat with medication to make it right. The solution was to find the right drug cocktail at the right dosage.
This model of depression is sometimes called the medical model. And for a long time I thought it was the only way of understanding depression. I put my faith in the medications I was given, hoping that they would cure me of my affliction. When I became an adult, and the medications still weren’t ‘balancing’ my brain chemicals, I wondered if I would ever get better.
Only later in life did I learn that the medical model is only one model of depression, and that its evidence base is shaky at best. Realizing this was a revelation. If depression wasn’t a biological disease located in my genes, then I could learn to overcome it. But if that were true, why hadn’t anyone showed me how?
The reason depression often clusters in families is that it is, in the words of depression expert Dr Michael Yapko, socially contagious. While family members may have a genetic predisposition to depression, the social context creates the conditions for depression to emerge. In short, depression is learned and family members learn from each other.
For me, things came to a head when at 21, following a failed suicide attempt, my psychiatrist at the time fired me. It was the best thing that could have happened. I realized that no one was coming to rescue me. I started to do my own research. I began to question the story I’d been told about my depression: that my depression was a chemical imbalance, a lifelong chronic condition that could not be cured, just managed. I discovered psychotherapy, which is built on the premise that people can, and do, change. Sometimes they even change for the better!
It took a while for me to believe that I was one of those people who could change. Over the course of many years of therapy I learned to challenge my most deeply held beliefs. I realized that if I approached others as if they were my enemies, and the world as if it was only dangerous, then I was creating exactly the conditions for that to become a self-fulfilling prophecy.
I learned to slow down, deliberate about my moment-to-moment choices, and think critically about my decisions, rather than impulsively reacting in the moment as if I had no agency. Once I slowed down, I realized I had more choices than I had let myself imagine. My anxious ruminations – the ‘what if’ voices – no longer terrified me because I realized that I could learn to answer the ‘what if’ questions with actual plans. Learning to face my fears, sometimes with the help of a therapist, rather than avoiding them, lowered my anxiety and increased my confidence.
Learning to trust my own discernment, and stepping out of all or nothing (black and white) thinking, means that I no longer feel powerless in my own life. I find myself feeling more capable of stepping out of my comfort zone and embracing new experiences, because I know that even if things don’t go to plan, I have the capacity to effectively problem solve. In those cases where I don’t know what to do, I’m pretty sure I can reach out to someone to advise me. That’s the key: I’ve learned that I am not alone.
These may seem like common-sensical life and relationship skills to many but they weren’t common sense to me. It took effort and practice for me to embrace this new story – a story that held so much more promise for a hopeful future than the story of chronic depression and loneliness.
This is not a happily ever after story. Old patterns die hard and I still have days where I am filled with self-doubt, or feel stuck in toxic shame for not having better problem solving capacities. But I also now know – intellectually and experientially – that those feelings are temporary. I’ve lived through them too many times to believe otherwise.
When the self-doubts arise, I focus my attention on where I want to go and focus on one task at a time to get there. I live my life step by step, knowing that even if the future is uncertain, I have the capacity to make the decisions necessary to at least get through the day. This simple belief, that I am capable of getting through one day at a time successfully, makes life sustainable and even enjoyable at times.
I know I have to stay vigilant about my mental health - it’s part of why I have devoted my life to studying it. But I no longer believe that I am destined to a life of depression like I once did. And if there’s one message I want to pass on to others it’s that our thoughts, our deepest held beliefs, have immense power in shaping our perception of what’s possible. Be careful what you let yourself believe.
In many ways, we are the stories we tell ourselves. The good news is, when we tap into our creative capacities, we can learn to tell better stories. If your beliefs aren’t serving you, consider changing them.
Stefan is Tilted Windmills’ clinical counsellor and a self-described wounded healer. If his story resonated with you and you’d like support in reshaping your own story, consider connecting with him through our website.
Thank you, Stefan! That was very well explained. I have also suffered with depression and have not wanted to go the drug route. I tried many different drugs, none of which worked over the long haul, yet this is what well-meaning friends/family push at you all the time! I love how you just validated other approaches.