Depression; It is a state of mental life with symptoms such as mild malaise and unwillingness due to the intense unhappiness that can not continue the daily work and social life of the person. Severe and long-lasting condition is defined as a disease and the need for treatment is seen.
Is depression necessary?
The emotional state caused by situations such as sadness, disappointment, rejection, loss, inhibition, and inability to get one’s desire is included in the depression scale.
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The outlook on depression is mostly negative, everything is done to get rid of it. The individual’s fantasy of being strong and the expectation of the system to be useful do not allow him to experience the process that deepens, matures, and increases his capacity to understand, feel and see himself and the other.
Crazy shopping, never-ending vacations, binge eating, sex, addiction to alcohol and drugs, and resorting to uncontrolled antidepressants or other relaxing medications are powerful defenses against feelings of pain. In daily life, a person uses the mild level of these to escape from negative emotions, the emotion increases as he escapes, the intense flood of emotions called depression captures the person. If the person is still trying to deny these feelings, destructive actions may occur; It can reach the level of harmful actions such as suicide, murder, sexual abuse or exposure, substance use, and the lives of those around them.
We have no escape from the feelings that we call bad, that hurt us, we can just buy some time or get lost in destructive actions rather than experiencing those feelings.
Is there a depressive period in spiritual development?
According to psychoanalytic theory yes. In the development of the child, there is a developmental period called the depressive period. This period is around the age of one to three, it is the adaptation period in which the world, along with the physical and mental development of the child, discovers the limits and limitations of people perceptually and tries to digest it spiritually, and this period is maturing for every child. It is a period in which the limits and obstacles of reality and reality are noticed. The spiritual maturity of the parents and their relationship with reality also determine how the child will spend this period.
Cause depressive feelings; It is also related to what happened in the previous period when we could not stand the feelings of sadness, mourning, loss. The period before the depressive episode is the schizoid-paronoid period, which lasts up to the age of one. This period; It is a period in which the child lives himself as an extension of the adult, his self is not yet formed, he expresses his emotions, and perceives the outside as a threat, that is, he does not know the reality yet. A negative look may be perceived as killing, and the emotion may be reacted as if it were an action. The child is foreign and inexperienced in the world, this period is developmentally healthy and the baby is guided by the survival instinct.
Paranoid period; We can say that it is a period in which the outer world and the inner world are thought to be all powerful, there are no borders, sometimes the outside is itself, sometimes the inside is the outside, it cannot perceive people and itself as a whole, divides itself into either bad or good, and it is perceived as being lived under a magnifying glass. It is a state of experience where everything is strange, big, and boundaries are lost. How these images will change, how they will evolve into a spiritual structure will differ according to how the parents perceive the world and themselves and how they see the child.
If we complete this period with little damage, we will slowly pass into the depressive period. In other words, the shape, density, form and existence of what we see begin to change, people are noticed. The distinction between inside and outside, self and other begins, and it brings with it the feeling of loss. There are people, they have a will, they act, they come if they want, they love if they want, it is necessary to do something to be fed. That magical world is corrupted, everyone is human, strangely distorted, but the big image has disappeared, this is mourned and adaptation begins. Along with accepting his separation, uniqueness and limits, he also takes responsibility, strives for his wishes, learns about shopping.
Survival is the first goal for the spiritual structure, which is flexible in a way that the family structure is shaped by its behaviors. The child copies and feels and acts as the spirituality of the parents is. At this age, the child is vulnerable to the outside, he is a being without borders, and being human depends on the existence of others. The most important skill of the human being, who discovers this with experience, is harmony. Thanks to the ability to adapt, the baby first used his brain to solve the family system and developed his creativity, and then created and continues to create people, civilization and technology.
It is seen that the features of the paranoid period rather than the depressive period are dominant in today’s human psyche, and all that we call narcissism acts with the motivation of the period when it was all powerful and its opposite all weak.
Is time to blame?
It is observed that while human behaviors are expected to progress with civilization developmentally, they act with more primitive defenses (such as denial, division, action). Anti-depressants are widely used, shopping is done, and things that give pleasure are almost caught. For people, pleasure has become synonymous with survival, pain has become so unbearable that dying and killing has been easier than feeling that emotion.
One of the reasons for this process is that people cannot bear the pain and trauma of generations. How Does? How many generations of wars, pains, losses, and fears that people have fought for their existence have been passed down from generation to generation, and this burden may be tiring humanity and exceeding human strength. On the other hand, man is looking for ways not to carry this burden, looking for escape, even if these escape routes will bring his end.
A person may be lost in history or want to turn his back on history, so he cannot stand his own pain, he may be running away from it, he may be looking for pleasure. But as long as he escapes from his own pain, both his own life and the lives of future generations will be negatively affected.
Psychologists and sociologists should analyze the structure of today’s people well and raise awareness of the masses. This will not be easy. Because; their speed of reaching the masses will be much lower than the speed of reaching an image. Internalizing the complexity of knowledge will require time, effort, thinking, but an image, an accident, a death, a murder, a sexy figure will block the upper functions such as thinking as it will fire the human brain faster and more intensely, and the person will be dragged as a prisoner of these intense emotions; will commit acts beyond his control, such as murder and rape, and will not be able to give a logical explanation for these actions when asked.
When it comes to consumption, mass media, technology, social media, people who cannot protect themselves under the bombardment of stimuli have taken refuge in all their strength so that their self is not fragmented. He is running away from everything that reminds him of his weakness, his need for the other, loss, he is forced to flee, he has to catch up with the speed of the car, all these are survival strategies, our unconscious is being restructured.
When we look psychologically, if we act with the fantasy of survival as a whole, which belongs to the paranoid-sizoid period, which is considered to be developmentally backward, which; Given our escape from pain, our rejection of reality, our division between good and evil, all that has been done personally and socially to be powerful, it seems developmentally impossible for this structure to survive. Man has fallen into the paradox of transforming his own weakness into strength.
If we reject the acceptance of human weakness, truth, neediness, and limits, because we cannot tolerate pain, sadness, and negative emotions, what we do is the denial of a part of our spirituality. What is suppressed and ignored does not disappear and becomes stronger and harms the organism. Therefore, if you can be sad and get out of this feeling, if you can be alone and listen to yourself, if you can stand the feeling of mourning when you are abandoned or separated, you should consider yourself very strong and lucky. You should not be afraid of falling into depression, you are at peace with your negative emotions and your self has a whole structure that can accommodate both positive and negative emotions.
Depression is good
If we want to move forward in terms of spiritual development, if we want to overcome this healthy depressive period and live life more realistically, to be able to tolerate pain, to experience the pleasure that one’s own self needs, to separate myself and the other and to establish meaningful relationships, we have to start with ourselves and make peace with our negative emotions.
Nietzsche said that pain that does not kill makes you stronger.
It is the painful process of postponing pleasure, stopping the pleasure, keeping the aggression waiting, and transforming it, and it is the way of being a healthy depressive state, that is, being human.
First make peace with your unhappiness, pay attention to the advertisements that are alert to the explicit and implicit messages of the system for consumption purposes (which activate our children’s fantasies by promising the pleasure in fairy tales).
Do not run away from the little pains, deprivations, disappointments in life, so as not to fall into mortal pain. If possible, experience the bad feeling, don’t struggle to be happy, especially don’t chase random pleasure to escape from the bad feeling, be unhappy if you’re unhappy, be happy if you’re happy.
Think of it like a garbage heap, the bigger the thing you suppress, the more likely it will explode when you don’t expect it, and the greater the impact.
You are not responsible for the behavior of past generations, do not carry their burden, take responsibility for your own life and behavior.
If you don’t want to get depressed, go into minor depressions, if your depression is big, you can’t cope with daily life and work, the things you enjoy are not enough to make you feel good anymore, the advice given by the environment and books does not work, if you have sleep, eating problems, anger outbursts, crying spells, your constant negative perception about yourself and If you have a feeling of harming yourself, if you have suicidal thoughts, take these symptoms seriously and seek help from a specialist. It is quite natural for a person to seek help from another person. Antidepressants will make you feel better in a day or two, it will be very easy and inexpensive, but contact a specialist, even if you are taking medication.
Permanent healing takes place through healthy, conscious communication.
Know the value of your brain, your soul and listen to its voice, it will guide you to the right solution.
You can know best what is best for you, as long as you are open to hearing yourself.
