depression, part 2. hell and heaven

These days if i am not feeling well as described in part one I try to avoid the statement "I am depressed" I remember reading although I can not remember where I read it, that identification with the state of depression might undermine the rest of me that is not a full participant in the depression. Even the idea that "I have depression" is more desirable in that it acknowledges a me beyond the depression that can be mobilized in a search for a more comfortable and comforting solution. Beyond how I name my condition there are ways of looking at depression that see the condition less pathologically. 

Imagine that, the rehabilitation of my worst enemy that comes and takes over my life in unpredictable and soul draining bouts,  would give birth  to a fee paying, or karma yoga type guest that signals the need for and helps with seasonal house-cleaning.
Elizabeth Kubler Ross in her work places depression as a necessary stage in the grieving process. This work has been around a long time and should be known by people interested in depression and recovery. If you havn't read it. Do. Thomas Moore in a book "Care of the soul" makes interesting observations as to how depression turns a person away from acting on the outside world. This offers an opportunity to go inwards and make or suffer changes to ones inner world. A crisis of the ego or self becomes the growth incentive of the Self. Moreover he challenges the prevalent view that the only acceptable face of wellness is the post war boom of happiness driven by the satisfaction of wants through mass production and consumption. Moore calls for a return to an interior life.
My friend back in Ireland put it this way "some walk to the Altar of Sacrifice, some will be dragged". Thank you Ike for honest and brutal truths.

How much activity in the world would be better left undone. Imagine if Adolph called Heinrich and said  "Heh, let's call off that Polish thing I'm feeling awful fucking depressed today". 

How much of the destructive action carried out by motivated men in the world is motivated by a fear of depression. And more importantly fear of that which lay beneath and beyond despair, legitimate sadness. 

There are worse things than being depressed.

The gates of heaven and the gates of hell differ only in the direction taken by a pilgrim.

Depression a portal to joy.

now is the place where I begin my life. The label I affix to my being now may effect the direction I take from here. For this reason I want to clarify what I am referring to when I speak of depression.
I speak from my experience and not from any theoretical position or professional vantage ground.
Because I am referencing my own experience, in public, on this complex and painful subject I need to qualify where I am coming from,
It is a truth that I have always experienced difficulty fitting snugly into the environment that I encountered from an early age. This itself is problematic because now I speak of the world and me as if these events had a distinct separation and as if they were objectivities. This of course is not true and one of the main problems with the society that I experience is that I am embedded in it.
I have not been clinically diagnosed with any of the multitude of depressions in the DSM. The depression that I speak of is not necessarily one of those diagnosable depressions and may or may not be curable by some chemical intervention, I just never travelled that route.
But there have been times in my life when experienced dire confusion and hopelessness. To feel overwhelmed by a negative vista is a painful experience and I am here to report that there are reliefs,

I am fifty six years of age at this time of writing and am less a victim of those states than I have ever been.

Here I sit waiting for a server to deliver a simple supper of chicken strips, salad and a side of fries. I spent eight hours earlier today at a course for soccer coaches. Cian has signed up to play U 14 this year. And I want to be there. My truck is behaving badly and will go to the shop in the morning. This is something I could allow to ruin my evening but I am not a prophet nor a mechanic, so now I will eat my supper.
That food was really nice. It is clear that this post is going to go on quite a while and will have several instalments so slog on with me if you will....

Happiness; I had a friend explain to me that if I relied on happiness for my well being I would always be at the mercy of events. He quoted Eleanor Roosevelt as saying that "happiness is a
by-product of living life well". I never checked that quote but as with most quotes, who cares who it was that said a thing it should stand or fall on its own. My friend went on to disagree with Eleanor partially. but that will emerge later.
For the purpose of this discussion I am interested in happiness as a state of being that we can assume that depressed people are not. People generally do not go about declaring how happy they are to be depressed or how depressed they are to be happy. It was a bit of a shock to me to find that my unfulfilled longing for happiness was a major factor in the development of my depression.
Friends; I have indicated that I lay claim to a major improvement in my state of being and i need to acknowledge friends as the medication that relieve my distress. I am totally beholden to other people for the improvement in my life. Although i found my friends not in the brightness of successes no they are the people i discovered in the dark shadows of what i perceived as a fall and a failure. When i admit that i  am a loser friends appear to witness my search through the shit of my life to uncover the lost light. The price of hope it seems is to share my despair.

part 2 to come