THE HUNGRY GHOSTS

You may wonder why I chose a post on “hungry ghosts” for a poetry blog. How does it relate to writing? It does. Bear with me: explanation will follow the introductory excerpt.

IN THE REALM OF HUNGRY GHOSTS ~ Gabor Maté, M.D.
 
Yon Cassius has a lean and hungry look.
~ William Shakespeare, Julius Caesar
 
The Buddhist Wheel of Life revolves through six realms. Each realm is populated by characters representing aspects of human existence—our various ways of being. In the Beast Realm we are driven by basic survival instincts and appetites such as physical hunger and sexuality, what Freud called the Id. The denizens of the Hell Realm are trapped in states of unbearable rage and anxiety. In the God Realm we transcend our troubles and our egos through sensual, aesthetic or religious experience, but only temporarily and in ignorance of spiritual truth. Even this enviable state is tinged with loss and suffering.

The inhabitants of the Hungry Ghost Realm are depicted as creatures with scrawny necks, small mouths, emaciated limbs and large, bloated, empty bellies. This is the domain of addiction, where we constantly seek something outside ourselves to curb an insatiable yearning for relief or fulfillment. The aching emptiness is perpetual because the substances, objects or pursuits we hope will soothe it are not what we really need. We don’t know what we need, and so long as we stay in the hungry ghost mode, we’ll never know. We haunt our lives without being fully present.
 
Some people dwell much of their lives in one realm or another. Many of us move back and forth between them, perhaps through all of them in the course of a single day.

My medical work with drug addicts in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside has given me a unique opportunity to know human beings who spend almost all their time as hungry ghosts. It’s their attempt, I believe, to escape the Hell Realm of overwhelming fear, rage and despair. The painful longing in their hearts reflects something of the emptiness that may also be experienced by people with apparently happier lives. Those whom we dismiss as “junkies” are not creatures from a different world, only men and women mired at the extreme end of a continuum on which, here or there, all of us might well locate ourselves. ~ Gabor Maté


 **

How does this little essay relate to the art of writing? It’s an example of an indirect, metaphorical approach (in this case the Buddhist WHEEL OF LIFE) that relies on knowing an additional field (woe to poets who read only poetry). As Henry James said, “To be direct is to be inartistic.” Art is usually indirect: it tries to convey its message through unexpected imagery and metaphor. It is a special kind of “fused” thinking that uses fewer words, but makes the meaning larger.

Popular books on addition take the chatty “human interest” approach that relies on telling the story of one particular addict, and making general statements later on. The books meant more for professionals start with abstract generalizations and continue in that manner, with case stories here and there. But this Hungarian-born physician makes a wonderful leap, talking first about the Wheel of Life. Note, however, that the author does not go into excess detail about the Wheel of Life and each of the realms. He skips the realm of the demi-gods, and quickly gets to the Hungry Ghosts, adapting the metaphor to create an analogy with addiction.

Those of you who know my interest in “interweave” -- a skillful weaving of two or more realms -- will know what I am leading to: the importance, for a poet/writer, of reading in depth not only the work of other poets and writers, but also in some field that is of interest -- history, astrophysics, geology, botany, Buddhism, the life and writings of Saint Augustine, anything. Or it may be sensory and practical knowledge, the kind you gain from mountain-climbing, for instance. That “other realm” is likely to provide a wealth of metaphor and simile, and an unusual and more interesting angle to anything that you write about.

One example that comes to my mind is Sarah Hannah’s second book of poetry, Inflorescence. In it she combines the story of caring for her dying mother with, amazingly enough, botany. Hannah’s additional asset is her familiarity with Shakespeare’s plays. The layering creates a rich kind of writing to which the reader can return with pleasure again and again. Here is one of my favorites:

MACBETH’S PROBLEM

You never think it’s really going to happen --
That Birnam wood will come marching
Down to Dunsinane --

Until, suddenly, your wife’s got OCD,
And babies visit you in dreams,
Clutching eucaplyptus.

And then those trees start walking.
I mean downright trouncing, toward you.
They do not come in peace,

And they are not willows or any other
Delicate variety; they’re rowans,
Oaks, and ash.

And they will kick your ass to Cardiff.
Hello? You were so damn hot and ready
To jump the life to come,

You misread all the signs, and now it’s Act V,
And you can’t rinse out what you’ve done,
Can’t redeem the time

Like Prince Hal, and besides, this one’s a tragedy
Well into hour two; the place is packed with folks
Who’ve paid good money

To watch you go down bloody with a bough.
 
~ Sarah Hannah, Inflorescence, 2007

 The “Birnam Wood” comes from the Weird Sisters’ last prophecy to Macbeth: “Macbeth shall never vanquish'd be until / Great Birnam Wood to high Dunsinane hill / Shall come against him.” In the literal sense, this seems impossible, and so Macbeth is lulled into a false sense of security. He doesn’t think metaphorically. But Birnam Wood turns out to the enemy camouflaged with branches.

But never mind metaphorical thinking. We prefer not to think at all. “You never think it’s really going to happen” -- that constant denial of death that is perhaps necessary to keep us going. This is a ruthless poem, unlike Sutton Breiding’s soothing

tell me, stranger,
. . .
are your days like shadows passing
and your nights a sweet taste of the longsleep?

No, this is no lullaby. Like Macbeth, we are crazed to defend our kingdom and our life. This is a battle that each of us is doomed to lose, so ideally we need to have an answer to the question that is never asked, yet central to each life: “So what are you doing about mortality?”

For me, the best answer was supplied by Rilke: “To work is to live without dying.” Of course Rilke meant meaningful, fulfilling work. I want to keep writing to the end.

**

To write means to have the courage to reveal more of yourself than at first feels comfortable. But that’s where lies your richest material. It would be evasive to say that I chose the opening the opening of Gabor Maté’s book on addiction strictly because of its stylistic merit, as a way to discuss the technique of interweave. As you probably suspect, I instantly felt a personal connection to the content.

I recognize my Hungry Ghost years very well: the years when I couldn’t get enough of the things I didn’t really want -- for instance, I was a  compulsive thrift store shopper. What did I really want? I don't care if Freud said it first: love and work. When you can't find reliable love and meaningful, fulfilling work, crazy substitutes emerge, often in the form of addictions. For me it was crazy behavioral compulsions rather than substance abuse, and that was my great good luck, since drugs and alcohol kill faster. 

My writing talent -- which I was first told I didn't have -- also saved me in the end, and that's where crazy persistence (this is a genetic trait) turned out to be beneficial. In addition, over the years I managed to soften "love" to affection, and that's easier both to give and get. Affection does not have the dark side that romantic love has -- though losing a friend can be almost as painful as losing a lover. Loss as a part of life cannot be evaded. But if we have something to fall back on -- doing the work you love, your other friends -- we have a certain “safety net.”

Another thought: seeing that having developed a writing skill laid a foundation for the rest of my life, making everything else fall into place, I suspect that everyone could benefit by developing some kind of "valuable skill.” For people in trouble in particular, the need is tremendous. Once I read that addicts are typically people who “have been trained to be incompetent.” 

Part of that incompetence is an absence of vocation and work skills. This is not always the case, but if it happens to be, then it would be wonderful if there were more places that teach various valuable skills. As I’ve discovered through my misadventures and eventual overcoming of the discouraging “curse” by someone I mistook for a mentor, talent is something that develops. And once you are able to use and expand your talent, the farther away you get from the realm of the Hungry Ghosts.

**

From Sogyal Rinpoche’s The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying:

“Six realms of existence are identified in Buddhism: gods, demigods, humans, animals, hungry ghosts, and hells. They are each a result of one of the six main negative emotions: pride, jealousy, desire, ignorance, greed, and anger.”

[Oriana: Ignorance is not an emotion, but let’s not be fussy; Sogyal means ignorance as a negative state of being -- hardly so for animals, but undesirable if we want to be fully human.]

Sogyal continues: “The main feature of the realm of the gods is that it is devoid of suffering, a realm of changeless beauty and sensual ecstasy. Imagine the gods: tall, blond surfers, lounging on beaches and in gardens flooded by brilliant sunshine, listening to any kind of music they choose, intoxicated by every kind of stimulant, high on meditation, yoga, bodywork, and ways of improving themselves, but never taxing their brains, never confronting any complex or painful situation, never conscious of their true nature, and so anesthesized that they are never aware of what their condition really is.

If some parts of California and Australia spring to mind as the realm of the gods, you can see the demigod realm being acted out every day perhaps in the intrigue and rivalry of Wall Street, or in the seething corridors of Washington and Whitehall. And the hungry ghost realms? They exist wherever people, though immensely rich, are never satisfied, craving to take over this company or that one, or endlessly playing out their greed in court cases. Switch on any television channel and you have entered immediately the world of demigods and hungry ghosts.”

It’s interesting that Sogyal chooses examples from the world of the rich, while Gabor Maté starts his books with examples of homeless street junkies as the Hungry Ghosts, trying in vain to escape from the realm of Hell. But hell is universal, and so is greed. The mob that trampled to death a Walmart security agent on a “Black Friday” was a crowd of Hungry Ghosts. “Greed is the failure to choose.” There are things more important by far than a flat-screen TV, but for this we need to stay calm for a while, until we are able to think at a higher level.

(A shameless digression: during a recent trip to Walmart in pursuit of a larger soup pot -- my soup therapy is working! -- C and I spotted a nun with in a peculiar headgear: on the cap on her head, there was a red dot that made me think of the Third Eye -- also called the Sixth chakra, Ajna, the chakra of forgiveness and compassion, of God the Mother, “beyond wisdom,” intuition.

On top of the cap was another red dot, which could symbolize the crown chakra, Sahasrara, the thousand-petaled lotus -- the chakra of pure non-dualistic consciousness, the union of the masculine and the feminine. But I noticed that there were dots also on the sides. Intrigued, C and I approached the nun. She explained that she belonged to the Sisters of Saint Brigid, and the dots stand for the  five wound of Christ. The order is dedicated to prayer and contemplation of the five wounds.

At the check-out, we ended up behind three of the Brigidine nuns, carts full of flannel pajamas, cat food, and an abundance of other colorful, practical objects. “Going to Walmart is probably the most exciting event in their lives,” C observed. “They don’t just have one sister go shopping. They travel in a pod.”)
 
I wish to end on a more joyful note: trips to the the realm of the Hungry Ghosts are  not the only way to gain respite from the hell of fear and despair. I discovered this through my experience of the Paradigm Shift that ended my depression. My recurrent dreams about being in a concentration camp also ended. This poem celebrates this liberation.

THE ROAD TAKEN

Only a year ago I finally understood
the kingdom of hell
is within you
and chose to walk out of
that concentration camp

The gate’s wide wings stood open
the guards diligently did not look
the road led through sunlit woods
past bride-like birches: the road to heaven
I must have seen in childhood and forever

Only yesterday I looked out the window 
and thought this is my country now and not
a Nazi camp or a Siberian gulag
astonished that after all
I wasn’t sentenced to hard labor

Only this morning I understood
my task is to keep on walking
reading sunlight and shadow
listening to birds in all their languages
singing the holy word home

~ Oriana © 2012

By now it’s been more than three years, without a single relapse. I take no special pride in this: “shift happens” and makes staying out of hell effortless. True, full recovery takes time. Memories of positive experiences are blocked at first; they can be gradually rebuilt (our memory is constructed; it’s not like a videotape). The capacity to experience pleasure also takes time to blossom again.

I’ve posted this poem before, I know. I’m doing it again because few things are as important as understanding that both heaven and hell are within. They are states of mind. We can choose to walk out of hell, and not into the brief artificial paradises of the hungry ghosts, but into the astonishingly beautiful world we live in.

Hyacinth:

The art work is beautiful and well chosen. Of course I loved "bride-like birches" and the  "nuns travel in pods."

"We haunt  our lives without being fully resent" is certainly true of all of us but especially the addicted.

"Hungry Ghosts": hungry  to be free of fear, rage and despair but lost in addiction.. trapped in the terrible guilt.

I enjoyed the reference to Macbeth's Birnam Wood. I always loved that twist, and especially after seeing it performed in the outdoor theater at the Old Globe. Eerie and magical.

The final photo of woods is perfect, the way the trail bears that intermittent light.
 
Oriana:

Thank you Hyacinth for that “intermittent light.” You made me see the beauty of it. Forest light is beautiful because it’s not “full blast”; it’s interrupted, softened, intermittent. The same way, we wouldn’t want our lives to be an eternal sunshine. We need to travel between realms.

Addicts badly need an alternative reward, a feel-good condition that's not destructive -- something that makes them feel content and like a good person in a lasting way: an entry into the kind of world that offers something richer than what addiction can offer. Instead of “escaping into drugs” (which are “never enough”), they would be able to “escape into life” -- into volunteer work, for instance. (Milosz spoke of “escaping forward” as his defense against brooding about the past.)

I think that dear old Sigi (Freud) was right: we need love and work. If we have those two, or even just meaningful work, the rest will take care of itself.

Half-way houses seem to offer “love and work” (especially if we substitute “affection” for love). We need more half-way houses. If some people need to live in a half-way house for the rest of their lives, that’s not a tragedy. The tragedy is not providing help. 

Scott:

Loved Hannah's poem and that line...'and they will kick your ass to Cardiff.' Macbeth is my favorite of the Bards's plays. There's a great Macbeth allusion near the end of Moby Dick!

In Chapter 117 'The Whale Watch' Fedallah, Ahab's agent of his demise, tells him that before he dies, he will see two hearses and 'the visible wood of the last one must be grown in America.'  Melville had been re-reading Shakespeare around the time of Moby Dick, especially Macbeth, and this was a clear allusion to the prophecy of Birnam Wood to Macbeth's end.

Oriana:

Thank you, Scott, for never ceasing to astonish us by finding references to Moby Dick in everything under discussion.

Charles:

Seems to me that "the Hungry Ghost" phase is that period in anybody's life when one is in great need of change. Some people choose the pursuit of greatness and some people are chosen by addiction. Great goals and drug addiction are opposites.
 
Oriana:

That’s more or less what I read about drug addicts: they don’t have a vocation or any real goal in life. But then some great writers were alcoholics. Still, Hemingway had terrific self-discipline: he got up at dawn and wrote until 11 a.m., at which point he began to drink. Without writing, he’d have been drinking the first thing in the morning. 

It’s interesting that you mention being a Hungry Ghost as a phase in life. For me the main source of hell was romance with dysfunctional men -- it’s hard to believe how many of them are out there. Functional men are “taken” early, leaving behind the undesirables, often addicts.

It wasn’t until my late thirties that I could say: “Writing is the most important thing in my life.” Once that happened, once I had a clear sense of vocation and the excitement of seeing myself grow as a poet, romance lost most of its power to turn me into a hungry ghost. I remember the first time I turned down a date because I wanted time to write. The old joke about discovering something more interesting than sex -- it’s true. But hormone levels have to go down. 

Sarah:

Liked the hungry ghost post a lot. Those realms have always spoken to me. Did I tell you about my fairly recent visit with a friend when i fell asleep on the sofa and was woken by a voice saying "You are already dead! Do not look back! keep going!" Something like the announcements on the London Underground (Mind the gap!). My friend thought it was a good idea to put the film of the Tibetan Book of the Dead on while I slept.

It wasn't a dream, it was the actual voice in the film, reading the Tibetan book of the dead. It woke me up, but, not realising a film was on, I wasn't quite sure where I had woken into!

Oriana:

Thanks for sharing this fascinating story. So interesting about cultures sharing the prohibition on looking back while you are in the land of the dead. “Keep going!” is the imperative -- our eyes on whatever slender light is guiding us.

I immediately identified with the Hungry Ghosts. For many years I despaired of ever breaking free. I knew that if only I managed to drop ambition, I’d be happy just living, writing whenever I felt like it, for the pleasure of writing and sharing with whoever might come by, so to speak. And finally, finally, it simply happened. The grasping desire fell away, part of my insight that I am posthumous now, so I can relax and be happy. 

In fact, now that I posthumous in terms of the life of striving, I am in heaven. Or, to be precise, I am in heaven on days when I get to do whatever I feel like doing, no longer whipped by “hungry ghost” desires. I don’t have to achieve anything, I don’t have to prove anything -- not to others, not even to myself. It’s an imperfect heaven, with bursts of unpleasantness such as noisy neighbors, but still, that passes -- and there is so much beauty around me!

 







 

POWERLESS? SHIFT HAPPENS



I think I’m really not interested in the quest for the self anymore. Oh, I suppose everyone continues to be interested in the quest for the self, but what you feel when you’re older, I think, is that you really must make the self. It’s absolutely useless to look for it, you won’t find it, but it’s possible in some sense to make it. I don’t mean in the sense of making a mask, a Yeatsian mask. But you finally begin in some sense to make and to choose the self you want.”

~Mary McCarthy, The Art of Fiction No. 27

An important disclaimer:
This post is not meant as a criticism of 12-Step programs, which have helped millions. Rather, it is an exploration based on my personal experience, reading, and conversations with others.

I’m surprised my hand didn’t tremble when, browsing in my town’s one remaining bookstore, I reached for Allen Carr’s The Easy Way to Stop Drinking. The moment I saw the title, I thought, riding a paradoxical undertow of excitement and fear and calm certainty all at the same time, “You decide not to drink.” You decide not in the sense of a New Year’s resolution; rather, your perception shifts radically, and there is no going back.

My hand should have trembled, just as, back in 2009, I should have trembled all over when I decided not to be depressed. After all, this goes against the accepted belief that we are powerless over depression, drinking, overeating, anxiety, hostility, compulsive shopping, and so forth. The list goes on and on. We are powerless and need to take very expensive drugs and/or stay for years in very expensive therapy. Or else we have to spend most of our leisure attending 12-Step meetings for the rest of our life, being endlessly reminded that we are powerless and it’s pointless to decide not to engage in a problem behavior: it won’t work. 

And you definitely can’t use your intelligence to try to figure out how to deal with whatever it is you finally feel sick of doing. The use of intelligence might lead you away from feeling powerless. Verboten.

But let me get back to Carr’s book. “Many people believe that quitting alcohol is about as difficult as climbing Mt. Everest,” Carr states. “If you find it difficult, then you are not doing it the easy way.” But he forbids the reader (presumably an alcoholic) to jump to the final chapter when the secret of  easy quitting will be revealed. No, first you have to reads several hundred pages of explanation of how alcohol destroys your brain, your body, and your life.

Naturally, I jumped to the final chapter right away.

I have never been an alcoholic. I don’t have the genes for it. Had alcohol ever worked for me as a stress reducer rather than a migraine-inducer, then given the compound stress of my teens and twenties, I’d be a goner. I mean it literally: I’d be dead by now, either of liver disease or by suicide.

When P, an alcoholic, shot himself at 28, I had the oddest feeling that he did it instead of me -- I was the one meant to commit suicide at 28. But I can’t take pride in having survived my youth: if it had been possible for me to drink, I would have embraced alcohol with a passion, and nothing would have stopped me from drinking myself to death. Instead, thanks to a genetic accident, I was sentenced to life.

But back to Carr, with that marvelous double r as in Starr. The reason I was fascinated by the topic was my instant intuition that the “easy way” would be similar to the way I ended decades of depression. I experienced a shift in perception and made the decision that changed my life. Carr calls that shift in perception (also known as “paradigm shift”) a “moment of revelation.” After absorbing all the information about he devastation and evil that stem from alcohol, the successful quitter will experience the holy hush, the moment of revelation when he knows he will never drink again.

Reading this, I felt that holy hush envelop me again, just as in the moment when I knew I’d  never be depressed again.

“Never doubt your decision,” Carr advises. As if that were possible. As if the previous neural configuration had not been deleted forever.

Powerless? Yes. I discovered that I was powerless over my decision not to be depressed. Powerless to reverse the insight that led to the decision (“decision” may not be the right term, since it came automatically with the insight; “paradigm shift” may be a more accurate term). My brain had rewired itself, and a different neural network was ruthlessly in charge. Again, I was sentenced to life.

I knew I should be feeling the rush of ecstatic liberation, but I just stood there dazed. Worse, now and then I couldn’t help feeling mournful. So now I had to work. Now I had to cope. Now I had to be strong. I had to be rational, slow down and keep calm. Now I had to count my blessings instead of my misfortunes. Now I had to see also the positive side of things (this was especially revolting to me; I always loved darkness and abhorred sunlight). I had to stop complaining. I had to take a  moderate view rather than an extreme one (this too was revolting, since I loved the extremes).

I could go on, but you get my drift. The first weeks of my emotional sobriety I felt tired, worn out by all this maturity. But there was no going back. And gradually I began to remember positive experiences (positive memories are blocked by long-term depression) and enjoy just looking at the world. I discovered that I loved my “quiet life” -- that was another shift in perception. And that quiet life has indeed become much more pleasant.

The first time I experienced the turn from powerless to empowered had to do with the “th” sound. In my teens, I thought I was powerless over “th.” Here is a poem that describes my struggles (I’m offering in the spirit of comic relief):

KEY TO THE WORLD


I stand in front of the mirror,
trying to place everything
correctly: tip of tongue against

upper teeth, right hand checking
vibrations of the larynx –
“This is your key to the world,”

states my English for Today,
a book of secrets where Tom and Jane
carry on their cracked romance:

Tom, is this a girl?
No, this is a lamp.

*

I rehearse the sacred chant:
Thelma threw thistles
through the thick of her thumb.

Thistle while you work!
A tooth for a truth,
a thigh for an eye!

“They lisp,” the teacher
explains. “Maybe because
of cold wind.”

“Your r’s are too guttural,”
teacher warns. Guttural,
that’s me. What’s the meaning

of the, I ask. Where’s the tip
of your foreign tongue?
Between Thelma’s teeth.

Tom, is this a mouth?
No, this is a hoof.

Today the the;
tomorrow I open the world.

 
~ Oriana © 2012

**

The shift happened when I discovered that I need to leave a little air space when I put my tongue between my teeth. Suddenly something close enough to “th” lisped in the room. “Thank you, thank you, thank you!” I started practicing.

And there was no going back to saying “fank you.”

This may sound awfully small in the scale of things, but believe me, Bewildered Reader, even the tiniest shift from powerless to empowered is a pearl of a great price.
 
*
Pondering other shifts, the one that led to my leaving the church was perhaps the most important. I was fourteen and reading about universal themes in mythology. A thought like a white cloud drifted through my mind: “It’s just another mythology.” The thought turned into a tornado that sucked out my religious belief. As of that moment, I was no longer a member of the Catholic Church.

Nevertheless, for a while something remained: I did expect to be struck by lightning. The god I’d  been taught to worship was exactly the kind who’d exact a terrible punishment for a thought crime. (I told Adam Zagajewski about this waiting to be struck by lightning. He replied, “Sometimes there’s a delay.”)

VICTOR FRANKL AND THE WIDOWER

Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning is on my short list of the books that influenced me most. What I remember most is Frankl’s session with a recent widower.

The widower was very distressed. He carried on about his suffering, which struck him as unfair: he’d always assumed that he’d be the first one to die, and instead his wife died first. Frankl asked: “What would it be like for your wife if you died first?” -- “Oh, she would suffer terribly,” the man replied. Frankl said, “Then perhaps the meaning of your suffering is to have spared your wife from going through it.”

After a moment of silence, the widower stood up. Without a word, they shook hands and the man left the office.

I myself remember catalyzing a perception shift in a distant friend. She kept  mentioning how much she hated her job. One time she began a really long lamentation about how miserable she felt because of the job, and how it prevented her from doing things she’d love to do instead. I asked, “Do you need that job for financial reasons?” “No. Not at all,” she said. The answer didn’t surprise me since I knew she was quite affluent. She was also around sixty, so I asked, “How much longer do you think you’ve got?”

She fell silent, and I saw a change in her face. Without a word, she walked away from me. The next news I had from her was that she was training her replacement, and would soon be free. A few months passed, and I learned that she was now playing with a local orchestra.

Yes, sometimes someone else can catalyze a paradigm shift. Cognitive therapy is pretty much based on that principle. According to what I’ve read, those who profit from it experience a life-changing insight fairly quickly. Those who keep coming week after week repeating their lamentations are not likely to improve. 

SHIFT SEEN AS COGNITIVE THERAPY                          
                                                          
In Richard Noll’s book about Jung,  The Aryan Christ, I found a description of how effective cognitive therapy works. In this case the therapist was the notorious but apparently also gifted Otto Gross, and the patient was the anarchist writer Erich Mühsam, in 1906. Mühsam writes:

The task  of the physician would be mainly to make the patient himself the physician. The patient is induced to diagnose his illness. On the basis of the diagnosis discovered by himself, he therefore carries out his own cure. He is brought to the point where he is no longer interested in himself as a sufferer but in the suffering itself. He objectifies his condition. He does not put the importance anymore upon himself as a pitiable patient, as the emotionally martyred, as a hysteric seeking cure, but as a physician, as someone who does not feel the sickness anymore but perceives it. (p.75)

This really struck home: the transformation from the pitiable victim, the emotionally martyred, the hopeless depressive -- to being your own physician! From “powerless” to owning your power over your behavior. From “emotionally martyred” (how well I know the seduction of perceiving yourself as the wronged one, a martyr . . . ) to a responsible adult who knows that she can make herself happy or unhappy: the choice is hers.                                     

But it takes time to arrive at the place where insight can happen. “Ripeness is all.” 

**
WHAT ELSE ARE WE NOT POWERLESS OVER?

Currently I’m considering the problem of sometimes being more anxious than I want to be, beyond what the situation warrants. While not exactly as terrified as in those minutes when I literally waiting for the avenging lightning, I’d like to be more relaxed, secure, serene, sagacious, cool.

“Some of us did not have the kind of secure childhood that builds a foundation for serenity,” a friend told me. But that doesn’t help me. Am I powerless over anxiety? So far I’ve come to the conclusion that I need to define being anxious not as a feeling but as a BEHAVIOR. A behavior can be changed. “My behavior is my choice.”

And a little voice in my head says “You slow down.”

Maybe that’s the closest I can come for now. Wait! -- now the voice says, “You slow down and practice being strong.” I have already decided to be strong, basically at the same time when I decided not to be depressed. I also hear a dear friend’s voice saying, “There is always a solution.” Again -- wait! -- now I hear my father’s gentle voice telling me not to worry about the universe. And this reminds me of the time I first read “Desiderata” and the sentence that affected me deeply: “You are a child of the Universe. You have a right to be here.”

Sometimes (probably most of the time) a lot of tiny cognitive steps are taken before that powerful change that seems instantaneous -- that burst of neural activity that creates a new configuration. Baby steps, baby steps -- and then, va-va-va-voom! Shift happens.

IF it happens. Stay tuned. 

POSTLUDE: PERCEPTION SHIFT = COGNITIVE AWAKENING

One of the important objections to a cognitive approach to changing self-destructive habits is that without a “spiritual awakening” (admitting that you are powerless but a higher power can remove your “character defects”), you are just going to substitute a new addiction for the old one, the way an alcoholic can shift to becoming an overeater. 

There are indeed plenty of examples of alcoholics who stopped drinking but substituted overeating, and vice versa. (In fact, I knew a woman who did just that, and ended up dying as a result of obesity. She was also an example that becoming spiritual doesn't always work. Maybe she didn't go into her practice -- mostly meditation -- deep enough. Maybe it was her bipolar disorder. And yet in Vermont I met a woman painter who made the decision not to be bipolar -- she self-monitors and regulates her mood with music.) In my own case, someone could argue that I quit doing depression only to become a workaholic. 

I am fully aware that a high-energy person is prone to becoming over-aroused and compulsive. My instant attraction to the “non-doing” of Taoism when I first encountered it in my late twenties had something to do with my dawning awareness that “effortless effort” can yield better results than overwork. And I’ve been spiraling around that insight ever since. I hope that I’m close to the point when it becomes a ruling principle of my behavior. I happen to be intense, so it’s not easy for me.

But “it’s too late for depression” -- my cognitive awakening -- started unfolding a whole set of insights that start with “it’s too late for.” It’s too late for any self-destructive behaviors, including overwork. Carpal tunnel lets me know. Chest pains let me know when there is too much adrenaline in my system, and force me to remember that heart disease and stroke run in my family. “Too late for depression” was a kind of “Yes to life,” its full meaning unfolding gradually. That’s why now I am so interested in becoming more peaceful and relaxed. I’ve been thinking and writing about the power and beauty of doing less for some time now, but it takes self-monitoring and practice.

Depression simply vanished, gone as soon as I had my perception shift. It took no effort. My brain did it for me. But I admit that I have to put some conscious effort into not getting over-intense and wanting to do too much at once. But I do turn off the computer earlier now. I am able to say, “Enough for today.” I have noticed the pleasure of working slowly, doing a bit at a time. I am shaping a different, more relaxed self. It’s an unfolding story. That’s why I say, “Stay tuned.” 

For me, being cornered by mortality and “it’s too late for” formula seems sufficient. But if someone finds it useful to join a Buddhist temple, for instance, or even to go to mass everyday, I say, “Whatever works.” I’m glad it’s not me, but I can see how a “spiritual awakening” might work for others. And no, I’m not going to lend them my copy of Jesse Bering’s The Belief Instinct, with its brilliant demonstration that god is a cognitive illusion. In fact Jesse Bering keeps saying that a cognitive illusion can be beneficial. 

Hyacinth:

Love the cat. Remarkable that you were able to use your intellect to liberate yourself from depression. I believe it can be done. The perception shift. I remember having that moment when after months of emotional turmoil I said to myself "You don’t have to love this person." And I got well and went on with my life. 

Oriana:

Love the cat too. He’s really into perception -- that’s my excuse for using him for the opening image.

It was more than the intellect. I had a whole-brain experience, I think. The understanding of how little time is left -- and it may be even less than we estimate -- probably had an emotional component. For one thing, I was finally feeling ashamed of what I was doing to myself (especially the self-hatred part of depression) and how I was wasting my one precious life. I had to clearly see how idiotic that was. 

And I love your perception shift. Psychologists/therapists call it “paradigm shift” -- from Greek paradeigma, pattern. The pattern/matrix changes in such a profound way that you just would have to work very hard to try to go back to past behavior. And it might be impossible. Anyway, who’d want to go back to anything self-destructive. 

Charles:

That cat, that’s me.

I don’t know if you’d call it a perception shift, but Obama had a moment of revelation when he understood that black politicians don’t appeal to white voters because they are angry. So Obama made the decision not to be angry.  He acquired his “cool” manner of not losing his composure. 

Oriana:

We don’t have to insist on “shift.” Let’s just call it a new perception. An insight. And if you make a decision based on that insight, it’s not like a typical New Year’s resolution. An insight-based decision rewires your brain. I think that’s why it has such great power.

I knew a man who reached a very high rank in his field, and a bit of his story. He came from a poor Italian family, worked as a waiter to put himself through college -- yes, that story, but here comes the twist: in his early twenties, he made the decision never to raise his voice. “The foundation of my success in life was that decision never to raise my voice,” he said, quietly but with great authority. 

That’s pretty similar to Obama’s decision, and reminds me of “Anger is the emotion of a victim.” You can refuse to see yourself as a victim. 

Lucrezia:

Abraham Lincoln said, “ A man is about as happy as he makes up his mind to be.”

Oriana:

I’ve been familiar with that quotation for a long time, and it did haunt me at times. But I’m still not that eager to decide to be happy. I need to make it more specific, e.g. No complaining, or, to quote Jack Gilbert, “It’s too late for discontent.” By the way, the latter did influence me and no doubt contributed to my perception shift.

To return to the theme of making an insight-based decision, I’m struck by a similarity in the various stories: it’s the refusal to behave like a victim.

Now, as long as I remember, throughout my childhood and teens, I heard my mother say, “Don’t be a victim of fate. The worst thing is a victim of fate.” But she’d say it in such a sarcastic way that it sounded like “How can anyone be such a schlemiel!”

This is a very rare instance when English proved more effective for me than the Polish version, or call it my mother’s version. In English, “Don’t be a victim” or “a victim’s mentality” or “anger is the emotion of a victim” -- these phrases resonate for me in an inspiring, empowering way.

Darlene:

I remember a guy who used to comment on your blog. He really disapproved of your decision to get rid of depression.

Oriana:

This reminds me of something I saw on TV after the Aurora shootings. A girl in early teens, one of the survivors, was being interviewed. She was remarkably composed and focused on what can be done now to help the bereaved families. The male interviewer interrupted her and said, “It’s OK to cry.” She replied, “I don’t want to cry. I want to be strong so I can help people.” So the interviewer didn’t get what he apparently wanted, a dramatic display of sobbing, falling apart, being a victim. And I wondered how many educated viewers were going for his point of view, and worrying that the young girl was just “repressing” and would later pay the price -- perhaps even end up on the mental ward.

I happened to admire her. I don’t mean to judge those people who did fall apart in front of the camera. Most people would, given the circumstances. But the girl reminded me of my grandmother’s strength.

Back to depression. Some Jungian analysts believe that depression is good for you, a holy state in which the psyche reveals some profound truths. What’s even more scary, there are those who believe that schizophrenia is good for you, and even more holy than depression. 

I can’t speak about schizophrenia, though I know a remarkable schizophrenic/alcoholic who is doing quite well. I suspect that the secret is that through incredible luck he has acquired a valuable skill, and when the right circumstances came, he managed to use that skill to start making money. His motivation to make money is making him act remarkably rational and keeps him sober (he needs to drive) -- even though, for all I know, he may still think he’s Jesus. It’s perhaps the most amazing transformation from victim to -- well, if not hero, then a successful small-scale entrepreneur -- the most spectacular crawling out of victimhood that I’ve ever witnessed. And it also reminds me of Dostoyevski’s observation of his fellow inmates in a Siberian prison: some of them were skilled craftsmen who became quiet and content when busy with their work (aside from the forced labor, they were allowed to produce small articles they could sell to people in town).

As for the supposed profound truths revealed by depression, I had a choice of channels. One was the “I hate America” channel, often activated during driving since I detest the hideous advertising billboards. My sane thought was that capitalism made America both great and ugly. The depression channel showed only “ugly.” Another channel turned on when I was working on a poem and wasn’t happy with my lines. Then the message was: “You are not a real poet and should commit suicide.”

Skeptical Reader, I’m not making this up for the fun of it. I could go on, but I realize that it’s best not to persist in this vein. The delusional nature of depressive thinking is dreadfully embarrassing from an emotionally sober point of view. Of course I can always say that it wasn’t the “real me,” which is radiant, bright, energetic, creative, generous, and other good things. We can judge the person by her worst or by her best -- but the wise thing is simply not to judge. As Spinoza said, “Not to weep, not to laugh, not to ridicule, not to be full of anger -- but to understand.”

And I’m not even sure if it’s necessary to “understand.” All understanding is partial at best, and sometimes it hurts rather than helps move us on. Cancer patients who are in denial of how bad their condition is do practically as well in terms of survival as the “activist” patients who take charge of their health. Whatever works. The point is to keep building on our strengths, keep developing our talents and to share our gifts with others. 

WE HAVE MORE CONTROL THAN WE THINK

Scott:

Your post raised some interesting thoughts; I wish I could find the quote but I recall the poet James K Baxter saying that we all had more control over things than we think. Just reflect on so many areas of our lives; are you overweight, then start eating less, eating right and exercising, simple walking is a good start. Are you in financial straits, control your spending, find ways to make more money. Lonely? Get involved with a charity, contact family and friends...you get the idea. A cynic would say, 'it's not that simple' and yes, for the chronic depressive or someone with a medical condition it may not be so but for the vast, vast majority of us, it truly is. And every day, no, every second is new; we should not beat ourselves up for living up to some standard, either self imposed or set by others; everything will turn out all right. I have found out that most of the things I have worried on in my life either never come to pass or if and when they do it's seldom as bad as I think and many, many times not even bad at all...sometimes even a great positive thing I never saw coming.

We all fail and fall short of what we should do or become but the constant beating oneself up is a horrible waste of time; when we fall short, shake it off and endeavor to do better. I know that sounds incredibly simplistic but the alternative, to wallow in guilt and remorse is just....well, nonsensical. Melville intrigues me as a writer but his life is hardly one to emulate; unhappy in his family, always fleeing them to chase some dream. Tolstoy is even worse, a man who truly had everything; wealth, fame, loving family, title, lands......and was miserable. No no, better to be a Tolkien; career he enjoyed as a professor, a writing career he had as a separate enjoyment, family, friends and with the exception of serving in France in WWI I don't believe he ever left Great Britain. I've been around the world, seen exotic locales but am happiest in my home with my girls. My armchair, 'in a river of books and black coffee'....my 'New Nantucket' if you will is my sanctuary.

Oriana:

So much wisdom in what you say. One reason people’s New Year’s resolutions fail is that the motivation and the focus aren’t strong enough. It’s just not important enough. We resolve to do what we think we should do, but the brain remains wired as before. After that moment of revelation, that shift in perception, we KNOW what we must do.

Take weight. My experiment with being a low-fat vegetarian made me feel chronically hungry, so I became an eating machine, with predictable results. The more “healthy” I tried to eat, the more weight I gained. But it took that one minute of standing in front of a mirror -- I remember the exact life-changing spot -- when quite involuntarily I had the thought, “A fat pig.” The next moment I decided to lose weight, and went to the nearest bookstore to browse through diet books. I came across Atkins, instantly knew that he was right (in my case, the carbs created the bottomless hell of hypoglycemia), and sure enough . . . Lost 25 lbs so easily, I was euphoric.

But that’s not the only way. I knew another formerly obese woman who decided to fast during Lent. No, it didn’t lead to anorexia. Basically she eliminated sugar, and thus stabilized her blood glucose, which is crucial for preventing insulin spikes (insulin is the fattening hormone). Others may do it through portion control. Whatever works. The motivation has to be strong enough, and then you’ll discover what works for you. Knowing that you need to lower and stabilize your blood sugar helps, but is not essential.

Happiness . . . Now that’s a complex issue, but one can tackle one aspect at a time. Not “beating up on yourself” is an example. Louise Hay considers this an essential first step. And not beating up on others. The odd thing is that I had this “non-attack on others” insight already at 19, when I sensed that somebody expected me to scream and maybe call him a klutz for making a mess -- and I said nothing, just reached for a paper towel. I acquired the motto: Everyone can make a mistake. The awful thing is that I didn’t apply that kind of sensible compassion toward myself. I continued to beat myself up for decades. Don’t ask. Some weird blindness. (a big sigh . . . )

Darlene:

If I remember correctly, you see depression as an addiction.

Oriana:

I think I may have said it that way in email to a few friends. I know I said, “I no longer do depression.” It was important for me to view depression not as a feeling but as a BEHAVIOR since I don’t feel powerless over my behavior (I classify brooding as a behavior).

Different people have different responses to stress and to certain triggering stimuli. When the going gets tough, some go shopping, others drink or gamble; I did depression. I wouldn’t want to write an essay on “Depression as an Addiction.” There are some traits that depression has in common in addiction; the reinforcement is withdrawal from even trying to cope. Another similarity is overreacting, overdramatizing versus “emotional sobriety” (or call it rationality). But I wouldn’t want to put serious time into analyzing this matter; for me it was a pragmatic definition. “Whatever works” is on the short list of my favorite mantras, and the pragmatic definition worked me for. I don’t mean to universalize it.

I’ve met a few others who also made a decision -- and at an earlier age than I did, which makes me so envious! Now, those few people did it without going to a therapist, but cognitive therapy has been proved in clinical trials to be effective in ending depression. Not for everyone. Those who succeeded were the ones who experienced their shift in perception early, in a matter of weeks.

I have a friend who is a therapist, and she said, “You did cognitive therapy on yourself.” 

IF THE DOORS OF PERCEPTION WERE CLEANSED

Lucrezia:

I think depression is mainly biological. What works best for me is exercise.

Oriana:

Depression can stem from hypothyroidism, PMS, chronic fatigue, chronic pain, the use of certain Rx drugs, and so on. And yes, exercise has been clinically found to be a mood lifter and de-stressor. I don’t mean gentle strolling, since that still lets a person engage in brooding. For some people qi-gong can work, but it didn’t for me. I did experience temporary mood lift from strenuous exercise back when I was still doing depression. Intense exercise kills thought -- I think that’s the secret. But if you have enough motivation to go to an exercise class, then your level of depression is relatively mild.

To summarize my case: I experienced a perception shift (also known as paradigm shift or cognitive shift; my guess is that “intuitional revelation” refers to the same experience). The decision not to be depressed was essentially simultaneous with the perception shift, and automatic; I chose to reinforce it with conscious commitment, but I suspect that the shift did all the work (rewiring the brain, that is). I also switched from intense self-absorption to an intense external focus (“the answer lies outside”). 

As my brain normalized, I discovered that my external focus didn’t have to be as intense, just as my physical exercise could become more gentle and pleasant. I also gradually regained access to positive memories and regained the ability to experience pleasure (chronic depression produces anhedonia). The doors of perception were cleansed, and the world enlivened.

Again, an insight-based decision is not like a New Year’s resolution. It stems from a radical change in perspective, a new understanding. And there  is no going back. 

EXIT THE DRAMA QUEEN: REBIRTH FROM DEPRESSION

A dolphin inside the womb. Photo: National Geographic

On a wonderfully overcast Thursday (Tuesdays and Thursdays have always been my favorite days of the week – don’t ask), a friend and I walked on the Imperial Beach Pier. It was cold and windy; let’s face it: it was freezing. I could hardly believe my eyes when I saw the only woman fishing at the pier, who was in shorts and high heels. Alas, she did not have good legs; anyway, the men were much too busy catching lots of mackerel. The mackerel were migrating, thanks to which we got to see more dolphins than ever before. Pelicans were few, being outcompeted by the dolphins. But those elegant slender birds that make seagulls look like ducks slashed through the air like white knives. And the final treat: very close to the pier, a sleek brown seal came up for the air four times, its dear little whiskered face in full view, before it dove deep into the gray-green water.

I thought, with some surprise: I’m glad to be alive. To me this thought is still a novelty. After decades of seeing my life as a mistake, and myself as a mistake, a birth defect, this was new.

Later, the brown seal and the sleek dolphins still “flashing upon that inward eye, which is the bliss of solitude,” as Wordsworth put it, I happened to read, in the more slender and easier to lift of my two gigantic biographies of Dostoyevski, the letter that the writer sent his brother just several hours after the mock execution and the sentence to a Siberian prison (Dostoyevski’s “crime” was belonging to a socialist circle that sought freedom of the press and the abolition of serfdom). The sentence was read, including: Dostoyevski, Fyodor Michailovich . . . for participating in criminal plans and spreading the letter written by Belinsky, which is full of impudent words against the Russian Orthodox church and Supreme Power . . . is sentenced to death by shooting.” But in the last seconds a white handkerchief was waved and the drum roll of retreat was sounded. The firing squad lowered their rifles.

The mock execution made one of convicts, Grigoryev, among the first three to be tied to the post, go insane. But the future author of Brothers Karamazov wrote instead an almost jubilant letter that continues to astonish me when I reflect on its context. Yes, his life had just been spared, and I can understand his joy at the reprieve – but right after the proclamation of clemency, he learned he’d been sentenced to four years of hard labor in a Siberian prison (the Russian word katorga is more dreadful than “hard labor”), then exile. The prison, where he wouldn’t be able to read and write – wasn’t that living death? Still, the joy of being alive prevailed, the joy of still having consciousness, of being able to see sun:

Brother, I’m not dejected or crestfallen. Life, life is everywhere, life is in ourselves and not in the external. There will be people near me, and to be a human among human beings, and to remain one forever, not to become depressed and not to falter – this is what life is, herein lies its task . . .

When I look back upon the past and think how much time has been spent to no avail, how much of it was lost in delusions, in mistakes, in idleness, in not knowing how to live; what little store I set upon it, how many times I sinned against my heart and spirit – for this my heart bleeds. Life is a gift, life is happiness, every moment could have been an age of happiness.” (~ December 22, 1849; the transport to Siberia, in shackles, began on Christmas Eve).

Aleksander Sochaczewski, “Farewell to Europe”; convicts being sent to Siberian katorga stop at the obelisque that marks the boundary between Europe and Asia

Dostoyevski had no idea how much suffering still awaited him, how oppressive the prison would be – “a coffin” – with those other human beings (thieves and other criminals) filled with hatred, constantly swearing and quarreling, as if the living conditions both during winter and summer were not oppressive enough. That he didn’t come to despise his fellow prisoners but preserved compassion for them is impressive enough. That he always remained capable of seeing that “life is a gift, life is happiness” seems a miracle. (How different from Buddha’s “life is suffering” – and this coming from Dostoyevski, the “child of the age, child of doubt,” torn between faith and reason, with his deep knowledge of self-torment as well as downright torture – that’s what the mock execution was, an old technique of torture.)

Oddly, at first I misread a phrase in the letter: “life is in ourselves and not in the eternal.” And that makes wonderful sense to me: life is of the moment, this moment; life is now and not in the hereafter. We can connect to great art, which lasts for centuries, we can learn history and fantasize, always inaccurately, about the world as it will be a hundred years from now; but to waste even a day of actual life is a crime against oneself.

How I wish I had understood this a long time ago. Dostoyevski’s words about losing “so much . . . in delusions, in mistakes, in idleness, in not knowing how to live” burn right through me. Like everyone, I have to forgive myself and make the best of what time remains.

**

EXIT THE DRAMA QUEEN

May is my rebirth month. April is my birthday month, but late May marks the anniversary of a major perception shift in my life. I can’t believe I didn’t write the actual date; but I remember standing to the left of my computer desk, the exact spot on my road to Damascus where I just stood for a while, dazed, grasping the fact that I would no longer be depressed, not ever. This kind of behavior-changing perception shift is known as “paradigm shift.”

For private reasons, I chose May 24, 2009, as the day of that powerful burst of gamma waves that’s associated with insight. A new neural network created itself and took over. The portal to depression disappeared.

The first step involved suddenly realizing that there wasn’t that much life left. While this might look like an effective way to start descending into depression, the opposite happened. Three years ago I gave up depression forever. This thief of life had stolen way too much time from me starting in my teens. I haven’t had a single relapse, which parallels all the other times I’ve experienced a shift in perception: I simply cannot go back to the old behavior. Not even if I wanted to (but that’s just it, it’s impossible to want to go back). The neural portal has vanished. Yes, I do remember at least one of the thoughts that used to be the key, but I can’t bring myself to call up that thought, which now strikes me as idiotic.

I take little pride in having made the decision. It felt as if something took place in my brain without regard to my wishes – as if the part that I call the Observer, the inviolate innermost self that never gets depressed or angry or hateful, but simply watches the craziness, waiting for it to pass – it felt as if the Observer got tired of the nonsense and decided to take charge. I didn’t have to struggle, then or later. I repeat: I haven’t had a single relapse. My brain has been on automatic, keeping me on a bizarrely even keel and ridiculously rational (oy . . . being rational sometimes feels like a burden; do I really have to be strong and cope? Can’t I just sulk like a child over whenever life doesn’t give me what I want? Apparently not.)

Now, one of the images that kept me entertained through the long years of brooding about my worthlessness, uselessness, chronic failure and so forth, was a New Yorker cartoon of a man with a cardboard sign that says “Irrational.” I identified completely. I certainly agree with Dostoyevski about the waste of life in delusions, mistakes, etc, but still . . . now and then I mourn the drama queen I was, with her intense self-loathing and near-delusional melancholy. And what about the crying fits – the later ones couldn't rival those great howling ones of my youth, but they were still vehement enough, sinister, Byronic, or, to change literary reference, like King Lear in the storm, mad and poetic. Madness! Who hasn’t felt drawn to that ultimate escape . . .

And the brilliant way I could enter depression at will, using the key of a single thought, and then go deeper and deeper, riding the spiral of automatic negative thoughts. There was something exciting about this entry into the lush darkness and total hyperbole with no supportive evidence whatever. My life seemed a series of catastrophes, a domino collapse. Wasting away with frustrated passion, all my energy and intelligence and gifts tossed away like nothing . . .  Only when that chapter of my life was finished did I realize to what degree I had cherished being the star of my own film noir. 

Artists love passion, intensity. I had an intense life of feelings. Unfortunately it stemmed from self-torture, something Dostoyevski understood well. Having been humiliated many times, you keep on humiliating yourself. 

Limbourg Brothers, Hell, in The Rich Hours of Duc de Berry, 1416

But would I want to go back to being that drama queen raging on some imaginary moors? No. Life is too short for that. Having wasted so much time, I have an immense desire to be productive. What I love most is the opposite of the drama queen: the sense of deep calm when I feel I’m on the right path.

Even during the worst years, I had the “mental resources” to lift my mood if I chose to. There were moments of grace, like hearing Mozart’s 25^th piano concerto on the car radio when I felt I had no strength to face another day. Even in the depths of my personal hell, in my own heart of darkness, I still knew many ways to lift myself out of despair and make myself happy. But I had no motivation to be happy. How boring to be happy, how unfulfilling (insofar as I even remembered such a state, increasingly an abstraction). Depressives seek to enhance their sadness. You know how people try to “cheer up” a depressed person, but all suggestions are instantly dismissed. Of course! If an angel, wings and all (I insist on wings), had appeared before me and said, “I could make you happy forever” – I’d have shrieked and assaulted the celestial.

(I still would. The prospect of being happy forever has something nauseating to it – it’s so inhuman. We are nourished by sadness as well as by joy (I mean sadness, and not depression, which constricts and diminishes one’s life instead of nourishing it; the sadness that can nourish is a transient sadness, the kind that doesn’t transmogrify into self-loathing, suicidal imagery, and so forth). (And anyway, about assaulting the hypothetical angel: it would be even worse if it happened to be certifiably god himself. I agree with the Yiddish saying: “If god lived on earth, people would break his windows.” There can be an enormous rage at god, even in people who are non-believers.)

Hell, circa 1180.

But the only angel I can remember was a Polish woman biochemist whom I asked about tofu. “Tofu never passes my lips,” she said, and in one stroke I was liberated from the food I hated but kept forcing myself to eat. My body was screaming to tell me not to touch the poison (one woman’s tofu is another woman’s poison; food is to us what sex was to the Victorians), but the pro-soy propaganda was powerful. Soy was politically correct, while dark meat, dopaminergic and energy-giving, was politically incorrect in the highest. The bad news about tofu – interference with thyroid and zinc absorption, increased risk of Alzheimer’s – hadn’t yet hit, but based on a couple of previous (and in one case, life-saving) gems from biochemists, I put my faith in biochemists rather than those free magazines you get in so-called health-food stores.

But I’ve digressed enough. As Milosz says,

The account of my stupidity

would take many volumes.

. . .

The account of my stupidity

will not be written.

It is late,

and the truth is laborious.

**

THE THREE GRACES OF TOUGH LOVE

I have always been aware of the power of words. I remember what the “no talent” verdict did to me, and the antidote delivered by a man who decided (on the basis of my prose) that I did have talent.

In spring of 2007 I began to experience what I called “morning insight.” Sometimes these were statements I read that affected me deeply. Three of them in particular turned out to be crucial. They were my “three graces of tough love.”

“It’s too late for discontent” ~ Jack Gilbert

“You can live from your wounds, or you can live from your greatness” (~ I don’t remember the source, and I know that this is not the exact quotation; but it was in this either-or that the statement had a powerful effect on me)

“You can practice falling apart, or you can practice being strong” ~ the surprising source for this was Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert. (I prefer not to ascribe any significance to the fact that two of my “graces” share the same last name. Sometimes a coincidence is only a coincidence.)

Those three statements shook me to the core of my being. I was ready.

LETTING GO OF BEING ASHAMED OF MYSELF

Insights in various form kept coming even after my paradigm shift. My understanding kept deepening. It’s curious that only yesterday, reading the biography of Dostoyevski that I mentioned, I came across a passage about Fyodor Karamazov, the “buffoon” father of the three brothers who bore his name, and his abused illegitimate son who’d kill him. Fyodor visits the monastery whose resident sage is Father Zosima. The monk tells him, Don’t be so ashamed of yourself, for this alone is the cause of everything.

This went through me like lightning. When I was growing up, one of chief child-rearing practices was shaming. It was bad enough to be humiliated by one’s peers; few sensitive children escape that. But priests, nuns, teachers – they were the main emotional abusers. And our transgressions and inadequacies were such trivia, really. I have a poem about it:

IN THE CAULDRON

You should be ashamed of yourself!
I heard from teachers, parents, strangers,

rouged old ladies in fox-fur collars

with the fox’s sad little feet.

Sometimes even a dinner guest
would thunder at me with the voice of God.

I can no longer remember why –
did I spill tea or stain my dress?
Did I break tipsy porcelain?
How could people who’d survived the Nazis
be so offended by a child?
 
I couldn’t answer that when I was nine,
when I imagined myself in hell
in the same cauldron with Hitler –

that lethal mustache and I,

a sign around my neck:
She should be ashamed of herself.
 
At confession, the old, hard-of-hearing priest
demanded, Louder! when I counted off
“dirty thoughts” and other

deeds of darkness. Then he’d hiss:
You should be ashamed of yourself!
 
A young priest came, only once.
He listened to my meticulous account

of the mild swear words

that crossed my mind, my list of sins:

disobeyed grandmother five times;

muffled a chuckle and said,

“One Our Father, One Hail Mary,

and pray to God that all children

be as good as you are.”

His voice grew even softer

as he blessed me: “And will you also

say a prayer for my soul?”

~ Oriana © 2012

**

The poem has turned out to be an audience charmer, a humorous piece. The reflection that a lot of my later insecurity and anxiety came precisely from having constantly heard the message that I should be ashamed of myself – that came relatively late in life, after many years of suffering.

And what were these terrible things that I should have been ashamed of? When I recalled the confessions of my misdeeds, and other things I was shamed for, those were such trivia. It occurred to me that I wouldn’t be convicted in any court of law. In the worst case – perhaps I’m forgetting something – I’d be sentenced to community service (which I’d love: being useful and gaining new material for writing).

I don’t know if everything, all kinds of pathology and foolishness, stem from feeling ashamed of yourself, as Father Zosima observed, but that is a major factor. And Louise Hay was wise in observing that the path to recovery starts with unconditional acceptance of yourself. Goodbye, unhappy priests and sour-faced teachers; goodbye, the idea of being a terrible sinner and total failure as a person. Good-bye, Drama Queen! Alas for you, such a quiet vanishing instead of the Big Bang of suicide . . .

The annular eclipse seen in Tokyo, May 20, 2012

Marjorie:

What you wrote at your blog about throwing yourself into work is similar to what I call putting one foot in front of the other. It’s a mechanical thing. You put one foot down and then you tell your other foot to come forward to meet the first foot. And so forth and so on until you’re far from where you started and can begin to progress normally.

Oriana:

I went through that first “blind work, like blind faith” period, but it wasn’t quite that heavy, mechanical feeling that even simple activities, like making the bed, can have in depression – the bedspread seems to weigh a hundred pounds. But it wasn’t quite like that. The paradigm shift was very swift. It was breathtaking, to come out of depression as suddenly as that. But that's how paradigm shift works: your perception changes, and suddenly you can no longer do what you did for many, many years. It no longer makes sense, so you simply can't. And I didn't even realize that on some level it DID make sense to me in the past to become depressed and to augment that depression once it was underway.

One of the things I missed by going through a perception shift is that neat feeling, almost a high, when depression lifts on its own. Instead I was INSTANTLY (at the speed of thought) in a kind of "not really happy but not depressed either" state. But not everything was instant. The ability to feel pleasure again and the retrieval of positive memories took time. The latter in particular took a good year at least – those neural pathways had been in disuse for so many years, I suspect I had to build new ones, using what traces remained. Certain poems that recorded what I call “eternal moments” proved important. But this reconnection to my positive, radiant side was gradual.

I didn't try to force anything, and just concentrated on being productive. It was pretty exhausting at first. Now I feel pleasure just looking out the window. And after working for a while in a focused way, I feel serene, which is a new kind of pleasure for me. It’s that deep quiet that has always, throughout my adult life, let me know I am on the right path.

More important, I haven't had a relapse in three years, and I don't think I'll have any. The door not only closed, but disappeared. The negative Drama Queen left through that door, and never returned.

I do, of course, feel the kind of sadness that it's only human to feel. But it doesn't transform into self-loathing, suicidal imagery and ideation ("the world would be a better place without me" and similar drivel), crying fits, deluded blaming of self and others etc -- you know, the usual depressive craziness (though I don't think I was ever in psychotic depression, at least not in public; sitting for many hours in a stupor was the deepest I ever descended, and that was only once; mostly I did agitated depression -- I think there may be something to the theory that agitated depression is what some people experience instead of a manic fit, missing all the euphoria -- sigh . . . )

Charles:

The wonderful story about Dostoyevsky is a build-up to the profound realization in your life.

Love the phrase a "...domino collapse"

Wonderful images of Hell by Limbourg Brothers.

Here is a picture of Christ in Glory that looks more like Hell.

Oriana:

It’s the beginning of the Last Judgment: the angels are blowing the trumpets to wake up the dead, who are already beginning to scramble from under the earth. The red color of the angels and the blood of Christ’s wounds, the earth cracking as the dead begin to emerge – this is hardly pleasant. But then life in the Middle Ages and beyond was so harsh that many yearned for the world to come to an end. Love of the earth and of this life is a fairly recent development . . . 

But that's a very interesting throne of rippling clouds on which Christ is sitting as he keeps on bleeding. The idea of blood sacrifice is a particularly archaic feature of Christianity.

John:

Oriana, have you seen this?  

http://www.openculture.com/2012/05/charles_bukowsk_on_depression.html

Oriana:

Yes, I saw it a few months ago (?? or more recently). And he might have a point, since the brain knows how to heal itself, once you limit the input and are confined to one spot (like a small room, but the bed seems even better). The thing is, I knew a lot of things that would have worked for me, but I wasn't about to try. I didn't want not to be depressed. I wanted to enhance the depression. That was part of the disorder. I think by now it's finally acknowledged that once people get into depression, they are not motivated to watch a funny movie; they act so as to enhance the sadness.

But I love Bukowski's idea of LESS, of limiting input. That’s why I rarely visit Facebook. Focus is marvelously healing. Maybe "working works" because you achieve total focus. My dream is having a "zero room" – nothing in it, just blank walls. To that room I bring a single book (or magazine, or a ms of my own etc), and concentrate 100%.

I have no problem sitting on the floor, propped against the wall, but – whatever works. It’s the complete sinking into a single project that is just terrific.

Why people don’t understand that they have to DO LESS in order to accomplish more – I should say: FEWER PROJECTS – that puzzles me, since it's so obvious. And it was obvious millennia ago. Isn’t it somewhere in the gospels – let your concerns be two or three? Even then people were multi-tasking and cluttering up their days with trivia. And if you’re not accomplishing anything because you try to do everything, it’s harder to resist depression. But if you concentrate on just one thing, wow, growth can be so quick, results so rewarding. 

Marjorie:

You say, “One of the things I missed by going through a perception shift is that neat feeling, almost a high, when depression lifts.”

Sounds as if you had a bit of manic depression disorder. You probably corrected it with proper nutrition.

Oriana:

I shouldn’t have used the word “high.” I didn’t mean any kind of euphoria, just a kind of pleasant “Oh!” when you wake up and the depression is gone. And yes, I think it was always in the morning. You wake up, you reach for the depression, and it's not there. Strangely enough, you feel quite good and refreshed by sleep. You don't feel like going into automatic negative thinking. You just don't feel like it. The brain is pretty amazing.

I rarely experience elated moods, and when I do, the elation is brief. That’s fine with me, since what I love is the feeling of very deep calm: what I call "floating." The sense of being weightless, rather than weighed down. Not striving.

But I am interested in the theory that agitated depression is a kind of manic state, just without the pleasure. Linda, who really was bipolar, and mostly manic, told me that at just the right degree of mania there is great joy and great energy. That’s why she hated to be on medication; she missed the intensity. Once when we were together near the ocean, I exulted over a beautiful sunset. She said, wistfully, “If I weren’t on lithium, I’d feel as delighted as you.”

I didn’t change my nutrition. I was low-carbo then and continue to be low-carbo. I learned years ago that low blood sugar can result in a low mood, but I learned to keep hypoglycemia away by emphasizing protein and good fats. My motto is, “When hungry, eat real food.” I also eat fish every day. My chronic depression wasn’t due to bad nutrition.

I don’t want into the account of the probably causes (several come to mind, but that’s probably only the tip of the iceberg) because, to quote Milosz again,  “the account of my stupidity would fill many volumes. But it is late, and the truth is laborious.” 

Marjorie:

In your poem I especially love the part where you confess your sins to the priest, who comments he wishes all children were so good. In my pre-school years, I was often sent during dinner to sit on the cellar steps. I didn’t mind too much, because our dog lived down there; so I had communion with the dog while being punished.

Oriana:

I think he was the only sane priests among them all. In fact too sane to remain a priest. I bet he left the priesthood soon after that unforgettable confession experience I describe – priests and nuns, the best and the brightest, were just beginning to leave the church.

I like some of the modern ideas that came into Catholicism – especially that heaven and hell are states of mind, and a hint (I’m not saying it’s been made clear) that God too is a state of mind. If so, then we don’t need the concept, God and heaven fusing into a blissful, loving state of mind.

There is a psychological problem, however: bliss can continue only so long. Then we need a variety, so that bliss can feel blissful again.

I can see how being with an affectionate dog transformed your punishment into a semi-heaven. No wonder these days people insists that dogs also go to heaven. I suspect they look forward to being reunited with their dog(s) more so than with their relatives.

Scott:

Your mention of Father Zosima brought back fond memories of the Brothers K, an all-time favorite. Zosima is one of my favorite literary personalities, the sort you would have enjoyed a good cup of coffee with over a game of chess. The icons of the Orthodox faith have always struck me as very beautiful.

Oriana:

The Brothers Karamazov is easily one of the ten greatest novels ever written. Just the chapter with Ivan’s “Grand Inquisitor” is enough to place it in the top rank. For all my admiration for Christopher Hutchins and other eloquent atheist intellectuals, all their volumes hardly amount to anything when compared to the Grand Inquisitor. That’s the power of great art versus merely competent expository prose.

Father Zosima is supposed to be a powerful character, the only one who could answer Ivan. The story of his conversion is interesting, but afterwards . . . well, Dante’s Paradiso is pretty boring compared to the Inferno. The dramatic tension isn’t there, the opposing argument is missing. On the other hand, Zosima has some interesting teachings.  I think he goes beyond even Christ: it’s not just that we are supposed to love others; we should feel responsible for all. Thus, if someone commits a crime, we need to take the blame – in some way, we have failed to nurture him into a loving person.

My favorite, though, since it applies to depression, is “Hell is the suffering of being unable to love.” Depressed people strike us as very self-involved and unloving towards others. That doesn’t mean that they love themselves. Their brain function is disturbed and they are unable to love anything or anyone, including themselves.

This leads me to something that may seem tangential at best, but which I see as relevant. If a person can make a fantastic omelet, all is not lost; we can build on that. So many people cannot do a single thing really well. It’s not that they are lazy; they have simply not been taught how to be competent at something. We know that children who learn to play a musical instrument do better not only in school, but in life in general. Prisoners who are giving cooking lessons so they can indeed make a fantastic omelet and more, who are given training in how to be a restaurant chef, have something to give, and something for which they can value themselves. (And a woman will not want to leave a man who can cook.)

I know a man who is a schizophrenic and an alcoholic; as if bad genes were not enough, as a child he was abandoned by his mother. But one man taught this abandoned child how to work with clay, and this apparently hopeless person became a very competent potter, able to make a living selling his shimmering, beautifully glazed ceramics. And that has been his salvation. He still hears voices, but that hasn’t diminished his skill. He’s also been pretty successful at staying out of bars because he needs his driving license so he can drive to art shows where he sells his wares.

How did I get into all this when I meant to discuss Father Zosima? Because I think his answer is only partial. Teach a person how to give a great lymphatic massage, for instance, and now s/he can support herself, and will come to love herself and others. This will do much more good than attending church services.  “Spiritual activities” may help, but I suspect that what we need more than anything else is trade schools, music schools, art schools, hands-on classes, coaching – we need to teach skills. It’s not that I disagree with Father Zosima. Being able to love is very important; it's just that I think it's much easier to be a loving person when you've been trained and educated to be competent, to be good at something, to be useful.