What can we learn from depression?

“Serve you right to suffer, serve you right to be alone, because you’re still livin’ in days done past and gone … ” jangles that marvellous blues number played by one of the most awesome duets known in blues history, Van “the Man” Morrison and John Lee Hooker. The latter dude went through such rough times and a poor education he later on in life had to do research to figure out when he was born, or so the music urban legend goes. It is just the lyrics I am not keen on, no one needs to suffer.

I always sympathise with people who go through depression as I am no stranger to it. There is no way this writer from China is as bad as he used to be, but the malaise has taught MacKenzie compassion.

Of late I have come face to face again with that old, spiritless foe, what Winston Churchill called “the black dog”. Along with it came its spectral companion, anxiety, yanking its ice-cold metal chain around my throat at 2am in the morning and I wake up here in Shanghai and wonder where my wife and I will end up living. On paper we can be sponsored by the family to that lovely country I have spent some time in, New Zealand, but, oh but and what if … When my old foe anxiety slinks into my bed at 2am I have learned to just not think. About the only problem I can solve at that time is two plus two equals five. All the sugar and serotonin levels are way down. And if I cannot sleep, well, you cannot force yourself to sleep. The internet is an amazing invention for insomnia: reading requires too much concentration, watching movies is too much noise but the internet? Just surf around for an hour or two till tired enough to go back to pillow worship.

Erich Fromm, whose books such as The Art of Loving I think are so cool, has a wonderful analogy. The human eye (play on human “I”) is only unhealthy when it can more or less just see itself or an aspect of itself such as a cataract or myopia. It is completely healthy when it cannot see itself at all, but is only aware of its surroundings. I think, beloved reader, the profound message should be clear. When we are only considering others or are absorbed in constructive projects (I like to think this blog is one) it is very difficult to slide into “the slough of despond”. Or rather, one gets out of the bog rather quickly.

By the way, that is precisely what I was doing in that previous blog, “Things I just LOVE about China”. That blog started as a “gratitude list” exercise to wipe away the cobwebs of melancholy. A gratitude list is just that: you write down all the things you can be thankful for, instead of sorrowing about all the things you do not have or wish you could change. You can start with things like having eyes, ears, hands, the ability to walk, then progress to having a job to go to and even throw in fun stuff like having Niknaks and Crunchy bars (cheesy, moreish crisps and a popular SA chocolate bar respectfully to those non-Saffers reading this). You can also throw in talents and achievements; we tend to forget what we have achieved.

But that gratitude list I wrote I realised had become a blog and from most of the reaction I got, including personal emails, I made quite a few people’s days.

And that is the ultimate wonder about getting back into a tingling, energising mindset: you start to impact other people in an upbeat manner. When I walked out my home to go to work after writing the “Things I just LOVE about China” blog everyone just seemed so much more friendly. And the Chinese really can be. A policeman in the lift had a chat with me. I am nervous around police but he was such a pleasant chap. It was all the usual, somewhat quaint questions that are typical in their culture: “Did you have breakfast?” (Saying hello is regarded as too abstract.) What did you have for breakfast? “What apartment number?” “Are you going to work?” “What work do you do?” “What rent do you pay?” And no, it was not an interrogation.

The positive effects on me have affected the children I teach. I used to teach children motivation and confidence-building, those “soft” life skills. So this week I am teaching simple NLP*. I get a child to come up and stick his arm up in front of him. I tell him I am going to try and push his arm down with two fingers. Umph. I can’t. I then get him to say something positive, like, “I am a winner” over and over again. I still cannot push his arm down. I then get him to say something negative, like, “I am a loser”, and his arm turns to water. Then the activity is related to goals and the wonderful example of Florence Chadwick, the swimmer who in 1952 could not see the coastline because of the fog and gave up swimming. She later said she would have made it to the coastline if she could have just seen land. In class we then discuss that people who have something realistic they can aim for — while living in the now — tend to be stronger, happier people with a sense of purpose.

I started those lessons this morning and my whole body prickled: There was such aliveness in me. There was the thought that what I was teaching was so empowering for these little ’uns, something they will hopefully remember and use in the years to come and the tough times. The scripture rightly says, “When the storm comes” not “If the storm comes”.

I have taught children since 1989. And I have had the privilege of children years later telling me they remembered and applied the simple tools, be it the gratitude list or affirmations.

So depression, perhaps ironically, has taught me to value and enjoy life more.

More Chinese chicken soup for the soul?

*I am aware of the dangers of NLP and unrealistic expectations people can have of themselves and they then come crashing down. I just regard it as one small but effective tool in the toolbox for having a happy life.