Inna Shukshina

By my nature I am inclined to dejection and depression, and over my life I have sunk into it many times for various reasons. I had to fight it on my own, and in the end I managed to find some grains of truth. I want to share my findings in this article; the article is also written as the view of a Christian woman.

Cause 1. We try to cope on our own with a problem that requires the help of other people.

A human being is weak, and strong connections with other people, the help of specialists, and also the involvement of chance acquaintances are regularly necessary for everyone. On the one hand, shifting all your problems onto other people is not healthy; we must carry our own burden. But when the burden becomes too heavy, turning to people for help is in the spirit of Christianity; it is the opposite of pride and self-assurance.

At 17, having lived through an unrequited love, I sank into a heavy depression. And one person then said a very important thing to me: “Silly girl, we cannot cope with all our problems ourselves, you should not have been lying alone on your bed crying. Friends could have helped you.” That was when I grasped that there is nothing shameful in being unable to cope with something alone, whether it is material problems or psychological ones. But people do not always think to offer help themselves, it has to be asked for, and this is precisely what Christian humility consists of — stepping over your pride, admitting your weakness at that moment, and asking for help.

The phrase “never ask anyone for anything”, as we remember, was not a phrase of Christ at all, but of Woland. How do you know it is time to ask for help? When you feel you are at a dead end, you have tried this way and that but nothing has worked, you feel bitterness, confusion, despair. Some will refuse — others will agree; the main thing is to keep looking. Help can also be paid and professional.

Cause 2. Because of excessive “spirituality” or of being overloaded with things to do, the physical needs of the body are ignored.

In the contemporary Orthodox milieu this approach is popular: forget about yourself for the sake of others, loving yourself is a sin. How far can care for yourself be cut back? People are different. Some do not notice what they are wearing and forget to eat, while others always know what they need in order to keep themselves in shape, and how and when to rest. If we decide, for example, that it is enough to brush our teeth, take a shower, comb our hair and dress in clean clothes, and that everything else is superfluous or would be “excessive sinful attention to oneself”, then we can gradually fall out of tune with our real needs.

Simply keeping yourself clean is enough for a man. A woman, however, can be depressed also because of dissatisfaction with her appearance. Physical needs fall into three main ones — health, beauty and material well-being.

• Health. If we eat badly, do not do at least a little sport or fitness, and do not get enough sleep regularly, then the body gradually enters a depressed state. For example, my bad mood often went away as soon as I had a proper night’s sleep, whereas after overeating sweets depression appeared. We cannot imagine a priest going for a morning run or counting calories, so all of this may seem superfluous to us, unnecessary for high aims. In reality priests too suffer from excess weight and illnesses, so healthy eating and movement are necessary for everyone. During a fast, the diet is often unbalanced, with a predominance of carbohydrates and a lack of protein. So I think it would not be at all superfluous for those fasting to agree their menu with a dietitian, to calculate its calorie content and the amount of proteins, fats and carbohydrates. And also not to forget to drink enough water every day. As for exercise. I rarely find myself in a state where I have so much energy that I do not know what to do with it and start doing exercises. Usually it is various degrees of tiredness. And it seems that if I do fitness on top of that, I will have no strength left at all. In reality it is the opposite, strength increases. Surprising, but true. And the mood improves immediately. So the problems may come from an elementary lack of movement and from poor eating.
• Beauty. We may tell ourselves that appearance is not the main thing, that our family loves us as we are, and anyway, “it is a sin to tempt others with your beauty”. Fear of attracting someone brought me to a sorry state, so that even my husband could be attracted only with difficulty. It is pleasant to look at a beautiful woman, because the eye rejoices and a desire to live and to work appears. There is so much that is unpleasant, heavy and ugly around, so why not be an example of beauty and elegance? I myself often find myself gazing at beautiful women in the street — you rejoice at the harmony, you admire them as you would a beautiful flower, a butterfly or a sunset. The clothes, hairstyle, jewellery and make-up that suit you specifically are a great labour; everything has to go together in colour, shape and proportion. So it is worth giving enough time to your appearance. Neglect of the outward in a woman can also become a cause of depression. And what about creams, masks, nail care? Every time I am amazed at how much my mood lifts from such a simple action as putting a mask on my face for 10 minutes.
• Material goods. We can convince ourselves that “we need nothing”, “I will manage”, “wealth is a sin” and so on, while inwardly suffering from cramped housing, a lack of household appliances and good things. That is normal, and in order to have all of this you simply need to work more and set yourself goals. Without setting a goal nothing will appear by itself. Having married very young and as very Orthodox people, my husband and I hardly understood the value of money and things at all. It seemed to me that this was not worth paying attention to, that spirituality was more important; I was simply up in the clouds. As a result we ran into a large number of problems that weighed on us.

It is especially important to give yourself time, money and attention if you are a mother, all the more so a mother of many children. Excessive self-sacrifice turns the mother of a family into a dejected, plump, exhausted creature with a ponytail, in baggy clothes and lugging heavy bags. How often do you tell yourself and those around you “I need nothing”, do you buy everything for the children and the home first, and for yourself something worse and cheaper? Do you choose an item not because you liked it, but because it is the cheapest? Constantly ignoring your own wishes and needs also leads to dejection and depression. First and foremost children need a mother who is glad of life and satisfied with it, not one who sacrifices the maximum amount of strength, money and time to the children, leaving nothing for herself.

Here is an example: we are getting ready in the morning to go into town as a whole family on errands. Usually, in the rush, I do not manage to get properly ready, and dash into the shower. But recently I decided that we could leave a little later but I would give myself proper time. My hair was in the state of “you can still not wash it, but it is no longer great”, so I washed my hair, dried it with a hairdryer, used a body scrub, and cream, and a few more quick cosmetic procedures (probably only mothers of small children will understand how hard it is to carry out these procedures). Then I dressed unhurriedly, and instead of running lipstick over my lips on the move, I did proper make-up.

And — a miracle: I was in a wonderful mood the whole trip, I was not angry with anyone, did not take offence, was not irritated, did not constantly pull the children up. And the children behaved calmly. The charge lasted about 3 hours. The conclusion I drew for myself was this: in order not to get irritated and not to get too tired, it is simply essential to give myself half an hour roughly every 3 hours: either to my beauty, or my health, or my mind, or simply to rest, or to spiritual development. Without this my mood deteriorates, and I am capable of giving those around me not love but only negativity.

Cause 3. Ignoring feelings and emotions.

If in childhood you were taught a good hundred rules that a good girl simply must observe, and were supplied on top of that with instructions about what this very girl is categorically forbidden to do, depression will probably be a frequent guest of yours. Swallowing hurt, staying silent, smiling when you are sad, distracting yourself from unpleasant feelings, forbidding yourself to be angry and cross — all of this leads to a complete failure to understand your own inner world and an inability to handle negative feelings.

Negative emotions have their own meaning. They warn us, serve as protection against violations of our boundaries, or point to mistaken inner attitudes that contradict the laws by which the world is arranged. There is also the pain from the imperfection of the world, from everything being arranged not as we would like. Working with a psychologist can help you make sense of yourself and of your “dark”, perpetually suppressed side.

Cause 4. Stopping developing.

God wants us to realise our talents to the full, not to bury them. When we stop developing spiritually, emotionally or intellectually, we begin to feel unpleasant feelings. This is a signal that we need to move on. Imagine if great people had at some point stayed at the beginner’s level instead of growing further — they would surely have been tormented by the feeling that they were capable of more. This is a frequent cause of depression in men — being unfulfilled at work, a job they do not love, low earnings.

You could think up other causes, but on the whole I came to the conclusion that depression is needed so that we either start taking better care of ourselves, or rethink our goals and values, or realise ourselves more fully in creative terms. I am not considering spiritual causes — that is a subtler and more individual matter. Depression is the engine of our progress, the thing that can prompt us to look for something new, a signal that changes are needed in life. Now, every time I feel a heaviness bearing down on me, I start analysing the causes and looking for a solution.

Here are a few simple techniques that can relieve, if not a severe depression, then certainly a mild low mood:

• travel;
• spend time with friends;
• attend courses where you can learn something new, sensible trainings;
• shopping, taking care of yourself;
• sport, fitness, improving your diet, limiting sweet and fatty food;
• write a list of your wishes and start carrying them out;
• take up something creative: handicrafts, music, drawing.

It is important not to shut yourself into your own swamp but to look for a way out. Even if it seems that things will always be this bad — it is not so, things will certainly get better!

This article of mine was published on the site Matrony.ru: http://www.matrony.ru/pobedit-depressiyu-lichnyj-opyt/#ixzz33rDY9Okw