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See also Crisis.
Help me, Biblitz,
Can marriage make you suicidal? Aside from extremes such as verbal, physical or sexual abuse, can marriage be
a cause of suicidal feelings? What would be some conditions in a marriage that would lead to suicide? Would it be the
feeling of being stuck or trapped? Hate their kids? Feel like they gave up their dreams? Feel like they have no future
except routine? Have no excitement in their daily lives? Depressed more days of their marriage than happy?
I'm just trying to figure out how a marriage can start out blissful and end up after 10 years with suicidal thoughts?
Like what I'm asking is there are days that you just don't see any joy in life. Just a routine, over and over and over.
Vacations, change of jobs, etc just don't cut it. The suicidal person has seen a doctor and all they give is pills that
basically leaves him doped up, even though sessions aren't doing anything. The thoughts have grown from monthly to
weekly and the only thing stopping him is not wanting to traumatize his kids. If they were out of the equation, he would
certainly end it all. He can trace it all back to when he got married and had kids and how his life has an endless
routine with no passion for anything anymore.
Biblitz replies:
No, marriage is unlikely the root cause of what ails this guy, and quite often, as Frostback poet Leonard Cohen
discovered, the pills don't work. What's probably required is a
combination of antidepressants and
cognitive behavioral therapy - about 10
sessions, probably - with a good pyschologist he likes. The idea is to use the anti-depressants to re-set brain chemicals, which will then facilitate
implementation of strategies developed together with shrink to get life back on track - basically, learning to
balance work, family, friends, hobbies and volunteer work with a view toward self-actualization. Seeking
professional advice is a tough but effective first step, so tell him to put his shoes on!
More about depression.
More survival strategies.
Envision your life in five separate but interrelated aspects, each of which requires your regular attention and
energy:
1. Career. Working to live is just that. We try to find work we enjoy but ultimately we work to live, so
compromise is often required.
2. Family and domestic obligations. Whether they live with us not, family or primary relationships require
a certain care and nurturing attention. Same with household chores so that we'll have a safe and healthy living
space.
3. Leisure activities. We all need physical activity,
hobbies and interests to pursue other than the daily
bread to keep us fresh, challenged and somehow balanced. Among these activities, it's essential for each of us to
provide some heartfelt volunteer work. Mental health, according to many trustworthy studies, requires altruism. We
apparently take more than pleasure from giving back.
4. Friends. Again, these are relationships that require some level of attention and nurturing. Consider the old
adage: to have a friend you must first be a friend.
5. Self-actualizion as per motivational expert Abe Maslow. This is the toughest one to achieve. It requires both
planning and luck. It describes what many of us recognize as a peak experience - a moment of extraordinary light when
we've got all our ducks in a row and quacking!
How it works:
The object of the game, so to speak, is to picture the above as a series of candle flames each of a different
color. In a well-balanced, happy life, each flame is maintained at about the same size and strength. This is, of course,
tough to do. All of us are inevitably responding to a crisis in one or another aspect of our lives, and crises
necessarily demand most of our attention until some sort of resolution is achieved. The point is to recognize first,
the need for balance and second, when we are out of balance, how to apply a checklist approach to assess and then
address any imbalance. (Overview of a session given by the excellent
Women's Career Counselling Centre
in Ottawa, Ont. years ago)
Hardcover
By Manuela Dunn-Mascetti
Saint Helen, Healer of
Depressions
Helen was born in the county of York, England. She married a Roman emperor and had churches built over the
Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem, and over the cave where Jesus was born in Bethlehem. She also retrieved the cross
on which Jesus died.
If one suffers from depression, then the aid of Saint Helen can be requested by carrying a small green sachet
containing a piece of paper with the name of the saint written on it, three loose nails previously nailed into
wood, part of an evergreen plant, a lock of hair, and a medallion or a paper image of the Saint. The sachet must
be carried always, and the following prayer requesting Saint Helen's help must be said every night:
Glorious Saint Helen, our protector,
please intercede from Heaven on my behalf,
I venerate your name and ask you to grant me the grace to imitate you,
the strength in my soul and feelings to invoke you,
so that I may thank you for bringing aid to me.
To thank the saint the petitioner will say seven "Credos" for seven nights and offer a small cross to her statue
if there exists a church in her honor in the neighborhood.
(-- p. 190, below Saint Helen, by Paolo Veronese)
... Though your heart it be broken and life about to end, like the Mary Ellen Carter, rise again!
Paperback
By Zsuzsanna E. Budapest
Spell to Help Those in Depression
December is the month when cheerfulness is pushed on us in commercial doses, but it isn't really the mood of the
season, at least not until Winter Solstice. In fact, depression is the natural mood of the month - introspection,
self-doubt, questioning - it's none too cheerful. Still, too much depth is not good, so perform this spell for
yourself with confidence.
The herb you'll use is called huckleberry
herb. If you cannot find this, use sage. Purchase a good ounce of this,
and do this spell when the moon is waxing. You will also need some high-quality temple incense - frankincense and
myrrh are traditional. If you can't get it, just using sage will do fine. Create a circle about seven to nine feet
in diameter and stand in the middle. The direction of the east is associated with inspiration and breath, newness
and cheerfulness, eagles and flight. Call on those spirits to help you or somebody you love to fight depression.
Hold up your hands after you have lit your incense and, inhaling it deeply, say:
I call on you, healing spirits of the east,
That you shall attend me at once.
I conjure you in the sacred name of Hecate, the
Transformer and Midwife!
I conjure you by the sage and [name the herb you are working with] to lift my spirit from this despair!
Lift the misery by the smoke.
Lift it by the fervent wish.
Lift it by the power of the moon.
So mote it be!
Repeat this ritual on three consecutive nights, and soon all shall be well. (From Anna's Spells, Rituals, and
Celebrations for December, p. 236)
Nov. 15/01
More of Cohen.
Still more of Cohen.
... Except for the funeral of Pierre Trudeau, where he was an honorary pallbearer, Cohen had not returned to his
Montreal home in six years. ... Cohen was in town to promote his first album of original material in nine years,
Ten New Songs. ... His exuberance has left me at
a loss: 'Are you taking any drugs?'
'You mean, like, medication?'
'Yes, like, prescribed stuff.'
'No, not now. I was taking things like Prozac for depression, but none of those antidepressants worked.'
'Which have you tried?'
'Oh, let's see. I was involved in early medication, like Desipramine. And the MAOs [monoamine oxidase inhibitors],
and the new generation -- Paxil, Zoloft, and Wellbutrin. I even tried experimental anti-seizure drugs, ones that had
some small successes in treating depression. I was told they all give you a 'bottom,' a floor beneath which you are
not expected to plunge.'
'And?'
'I plunged. And all were disagreeable, in subtly different ways.'
'How?'
'Well, on Prozac, I thought I had attained some kind of higher plateau because my interest
in women had dissolved.' He laughs. 'Then I realized it was just a side effect. That stuff crushes your libido.'
'Oh dear. You can't have that.'
'No. So one day, a few years ago, I was in a car, on my way to the airport. I was really, really low, on many
medications, and pulled over, I reached behind to my valise, took out the pills, and threw out all the drugs I had.
I said, 'These things really don't even begin to confront my predicament.' I figured, If I am going to go down I
would rather go down with my eyes wide open.' ...
My depression, so bleak and anguished, was just crucial, and I couldn't shake it; it wouldn't go away,' he says,
looking back at that time from his suite in the Vogue. "I didn't know what it was. I was ashamed of it, because it
would be there even when things were good, and I would be saying to myself, 'Really what have you got to complain
about?' But for people who suffer from acute clinical depression, it is quite irrelevant what the circumstances of
your life are.' ...
'You seem happy,' I remark.
'For the first time in my life I am not depressed. I am happy.'
'How did that happen?'
'It was a particularly pleasant surprise. The anguish just began to dissolve.'
'Do you attribute this to your Zen practices? To life at Mount Baldy?'
'I just think my brain changed. I read somewhere that some of the brain cells associated with anxiety can die as you
get older.
'So, it's chemistry, pure and simple?'
'I don't know, but gradually, within a small space of time, by imperceptible degrees, this depression lifted. It's
been that way for two or three years now.' ...
'Tennessee Williams had this famous quote: 'Life is a fairly well-written play except for the third act,'' says Cohen,
flicking an ash off the table. 'And I'm at the beginning of the third act. The end of the third act - nobody has
a handle on that one. But the beginning - there is a certain relief for me here. It is palpable.' (-- pgs. 22-28)
Paperback
By Pulitzer-Prize winner Mary Oliver
More Oliver.
The Chance to Love Everything from The Truro Bear
and Other Adventures.
The Swan from Winter Hours.
Wild Geese
You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting -
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.
(-- p. 14)
Hardcover
By John Burningham
