Out of the Blues: Helping Women Overcome Depression

By Zita Weber

Are you depressed? Do you want to improve your relationships? Do you know a mother who has lost a child? Do you want to take control of your life? Depression has been described as a universal experience and a normal human experience. No one is immune to a case of 'the blues'. In this book, Dr. Zita Weber introduces you to ideas and theories about depression. You will also meet women who share their experience of depression and their ways of coping. Their stories will show you a way out, through and around depression. There are no simple answers or cures. But here is information and knowledge that offers positive energy, hope and promise.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Zita Weber
• Release date: Jun 7, 2011
• ISBN: 9781458122490

Zita Weber

Dr. Zita Weber PhD is an experienced therapist, counselor and academic who specializes in grief and loss, women and depression, relationships and sexuality. She is the author of Back from the Blues, Out of the Blues, Good Grief, Skills for Human Service Practice, The Best Years of a Woman's Life, Unfaithfully Yours and Sex for Sale.

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OUT OF THE BLUES

Helping Women Overcome Depression

By Zita Weber Ph.D.

Published by Zita Weber at Smashwords

Copyright 2011 Zita Weber

www.zitaweber.com.au.

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

‘And then the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat.’

Genesis 3:6

‘Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee.’

Genesis 3:16

‘Pandora sat in the dying light. She knew that she, woman, would be blamed for this monstrous happening, so she sealed a memory within herself which could be discovered by women of the future. It was the memory of feeling at one with a great feminine presence who filled her with belief in herself. Remembering this power in her own body, she had lifted the great cornucopia of life, and poured hope into the world.’

Lindel Barker-Revell

CONTENTS

Dedication

Author’s Thanks

Acknowledgments

Introduction

1. Are You Depressed?

2. Female Vulnerabilities

3. Images of Women

4. The Challenge of Relationships

5. Trouble in the Teen Years

6. Birth Blues

7. A Baby Maybe

8. When a Mother Loses a Child

9. Vulnerable Points and Processes

10. Taking Control of Your Life

Coda: Hope - The Legacy of Pandora

Dedication

For my grandmother, Anna Goller and my mother, Ilona Weber

Author’s Thanks

I would like to thank all the people who, over the years, have contributed one way or another to my work.

Many women shared their experiences and their stories in the spirit of generosity and courage. Clients who had the courage to tell all; interview respondents who wanted to tell their story in order to make a difference; and group participants who were willing to undertake tasks and exercises which not only helped them, but added to my understanding of women’s depression: you all are part of the following pages.

The ideas and work of my colleagues and other professionals have guided and informed my research and added to the richness of my direct work with women, both individually and collectively.

Again, thank you John, for encouraging me and giving me the space to write.

Acknowledgments

The author acknowledges the work of the following authors, whose scales, exercises and quizzes have been adapted in the search for suitable and relevant tasks to use with women experiencing depression:

- Tennant and Andrews, 1976

- Boyce, 1987

- Tanner and Ball, 1989

- Montgomery and Morris, 1989

INTRODUCTION

Depression has been described as a universal experience and a normal human experience. No-one is immune to a case of the ‘blues’. Research studies in different countries and cultures and across all social classes show a similar frequency of depression.

The late Lady Diana, The Princess of Wales, spoke about her depression and her self-destructive behavior. She told Panorama’s Martin Bashir in her much publicized 1995 interview:

‘When no-one listens to you, or you feel no-one’s listening to you, all sorts of things start to happen… You have so much pain inside yourself that you try to hurt yourself on the outside… Yes, I did inflict pain on myself. I didn’t like myself. I was ashamed because I couldn’t cope with the pressures.’

Not being able to cope with pressures is a common cause for depression. Lady Diana received, in the first week after she spoke out, 6,000 letters from women who identified with her and who, like her, had experienced desperate unhappiness in their lives. These women have low self-esteem, poor self-value and their sense of disappointment, shame and guilt result in self-attacks.

While depression is no respecter of color, creed or class, it does seem to affect women more. Women are twice as likely as men to experience an episode of depression. According to academic and psychologist Dr Leslie Brody: ‘Men are about four times more likely to commit acts of violence than are women, while women are about twice as likely to become depressed as men.’ Women also are more likely to seek help.

In this book, you will be introduced to ideas and theories about depression. You also will meet women who share their experience of depression and their ways of coping. Their stories show the ways out, through and around depression. There are no simple answers or cures for depression. But there is information and knowledge.

Every woman has a story. Each story imparts some information, some knowledge. In 1597, Francis Bacon wrote: ‘Knowledge is power’. And that remains true today.

You are invited on a journey in the following pages. A journey to gain more knowledge and to understand depression. Understanding depression leads to a sense of empowerment. At the end of this book, you will be in a better position to cope with depression.

You’ll meet women who’ve battled with depression caused by a number of different stresses and strains of everyday living. Some women will talk about their depression which is related to relationship difficulties and breakdown, others will share their depressive feelings about their roles as wives, mothers and workers, and sometimes the balancing act involved in having all three roles. Still other women will tell us about their diet-related depression, their baby-blues, their age-related depression and the depression linked with infertility and other traumatic life events. Traumatic life events include losing a parent, a spouse, finding out your husband is having an affair – with another man, and the bitter-sweet pain of being ‘the other woman’.

Then there are those women who experience mood swings and recurring depressive episodes. There are many reasons why women get depressed. Understanding some of these and learning how other women have won through leads to a sense of hope.

By becoming aware of what helps and hinders your mood and sense of well-being, you will develop better strategies to make changes in your life. You will gain a sense of satisfaction and personal power when you realize your skills and strategies can make a difference. You can control your depression and improve your mood.

Finding your way through the maze can lead to a more productive life. Women who have been able to ‘pick up the pieces’ offer insights into how you can restart your life.

Taking control of your life is your aim. Taking control of your life means you have empowered yourself. It might have started with Eve, but women’s vulnerability to depression can be transformed by understanding how you can use hope to overcome your vulnerability.

Pandora, who was Greek mythology’s Eve found hope and let it loose into the world. From Eve to Pandora, women can experience vulnerability and they can experience hope. It’s up to you to explore your vulnerability and find your own version of hope.

ONE

Are you depressed?

‘I am rather blue today, all the meaning of fate falling on me over the weekend in the form of a nasty sinus cold and a very painful slipped disc in my back… also two rejections of poems and stories from the disdainful New Yorker.’

Sylvia Plath, [Letters Home]

Sylvia Plath was no stranger to depression. Born on October 27, 1932 in Boston’s Memorial Hospital, Sylvia’s genius became apparent early in life. When she was 14, she surprised her high school English teacher, Wilbury Crockett, with poems she had written. Prizes at school and praise at home were threatened by emotions from within. Sylvia was a young woman aware that she was vulnerable and that the world could hurt her.

The poem she showed Mr Crockett was titled I Thought That I Could Not Be Hurt and it shows a sensitivity that was to haunt Sylvia all her life.

I thought that I could not be hurt;

I thought that I must surely be

impervious to suffering –

immune to mental pain

or agony.

My world was warm with April sun

my thoughts were spangled green and gold;

my soul filled up with joy, yet felt

the sharp, sweet pain that only joy

can hold…

Then, suddenly my world turned gray,

and darkness wiped aside my joy.

A dull and aching void was left

where careless hands had reached out to

destroy

my silver web of happiness…

Throughout her life, Sylvia’s personal hell was managed through her work. She dealt with her depression by writing constantly about herself – defining herself and managing the outside world through her literary material which reflected her personal experience. She sustained her spirit until she couldn’t fight her fragility anymore.

Depression is a widely felt emotion. It describes a debilitating emotional condition. It is a feeling of being pressed down by the world. There is one powerful message. While some of us are unusually vulnerable to depression, none of us is immune. Even if we escape the experience personally, we will eventually encounter a family member, friend or colleague who feels bleak about themselves and the future.

We often avoid using the word. Instead, words like ‘the blues’, ‘feeling down’, ‘feeling low’, ‘being out of sorts’ have become popular ways of expressing the experience of depression. Depression is hard to define and hard to predict. It can strike anyone at any time and at any age. Often there is a great deal of shame attached to feeling like you’re not coping. And fear that others will notice. As Lady Diana said, ‘I was ashamed because I couldn’t cope with the pressures.’ The language that people use to describe the experience of depression provides strong clues about the darkness and isolation that envelopes them.

The language of depression

Depression covers a spectrum. The English language has been used richly to describe these depressive feelings. Colors like black and blue are used frequently, and body parts, like the heart, are linked to our moods.

Many depressed people will talk about falling into a pit, or being in a long, dark tunnel. Often the idea of hope is represented by ‘the light at the end of the tunnel’.

Every kind of metaphor imaginable has been used to conjure up the experience of depression: to suffer a broken heart, to be sick at heart, go into the doldrums, to be crestfallen, cut up, to feel flat, to be downcast, be blue.

So endemic is depression that there’s a form of music simply called ‘the blues’. We may not talk about it openly, but we can listen to someone singing about their ‘blues’ and know we’re not alone.

Depression as crisis

Depression can be viewed as a crisis. Crises are life problems which demand more than your usual routine coping. A crisis provides an opportunity to learn more about yourself and your view of the world. In the Chinese language, the word ‘crisis’ has two representations, one is the character meaning danger, the other the character meaning opportunity. Such an opportunity enables you to further develop your coping strategies.

For some women, depression provides the opportunity to rebuild a life based on more understanding of themselves and an acceptance of their emotional lives. One woman called depression, ‘the special gift’ that had turned her life around. Some women see their depression as the strongest factor in determining the person they had become.

Until people see a checklist of the symptoms of depression they may think that depression means feeling so awful you can’t function and so low that you feel suicidal. Some women report going to work every day, feeling like work projects are insurmountable, having little energy and no desire to socialize, sleeping restlessly, but not recognizing that they are depressed. One woman said, ‘I thought you had to be suicidal to be depressed. I was hanging in there – okay, life was miserable, but I wasn’t considering killing myself’. Then she saw a checklist and decided to get some professional help.

Some women, it seems, adjust to a low-grade chronic depression and don’t realize that they are depressed. Such a situation can endure for months or years until something happens to alert the woman to her plight. In such cases, the full impact of the depression hits the woman when there is some shift, however subtle, in her way of being. Perhaps she has always felt off-color, a little down but believed that her low spirits were part of everyday life. Then she read something, saw something or talked to someone and realized she was depressed. Her discovery can be in the form of a sudden realization or a dawning one in which the reality slowly starts to fall into place.

Other women put up a good front and defend themselves against their depression – at least publicly. They may feel depressed – utterly hopeless and despairing of the future and still appear to be functioning reasonably well. It might be the case that their denial of their feelings is easier when they take pills or drink alcohol. The gap between the surface picture and reality might be a significant one. One client told me she was the ‘Mistress of keeping my real feelings well out of sight and pretending life was a breeze’. All the while, her own personal hell was kept at bay with practiced pretense and a fondness for cocktails and sleeping pills. But her mask began to slip and her crutches proved inadequate and eventually she became desperate enough to seek help.

Mild, moderate and severe depression

Depressive episodes can be mild, moderate or severe. Sometimes depression can be experienced as initially mild then become moderate and even severe. The reverse is also true. Progression from one state to another is common. A severely depressed woman is someone who is unable to look after herself. Her general health suffers and she may be at risk of self-injury or suicide. She may be lethargic or extremely agitated.

For some women, depression is not progressive. It is rather more static, with some women reporting a chronic low level or mild depression over a number of years. On the other hand, if a depression becomes severe enough, it might be labeled a ‘clinical depression’. This term means that the depression is serious enough to require treatment.

Depression is best viewed as ranging along a continuum. This continuum is in terms of depth and severity, as well as the extent to which physical, emotional, psychological and social functioning is impaired. It is difficult, in reality, to identify one point where a depression becomes ‘clinical’.

Signs and symptoms of depression: A checklist

1. Depressed mood, feeling sad, low, blue, despondent, hopeless, gloomy

2. Loss of energy, fatigue, lethargy

3. Anxiety

4. Changes in appetite

5. Sleep disturbance

6. Bodily complaints, such as headaches, stomach pain, for which there is no medical explanation

7. Loss of sex drive

8. Changes in posture, grooming, speech

9. Loss of interest in usual work and social activities

10. Diminished ability to think or concentrate with mixed-up thoughts and slower thinking

11. Feelings of worthlessness, self-reproach, guilt and shame

12. Feelings of helplessness

13. Fall in self-esteem

14. Thoughts of death and suicide

Very rarely do depressed women experience only one of the signs described. Most women report multiple symptoms. She usually experiences depressed mood plus four or five other symptoms.

Often women visit their doctor, believing something is physically wrong with them. Physicians report that a large number of depressed patients present themselves in the first instance with ‘vague physical aches and pains’ – symptoms such as chronic headaches, neck and back pain, stomach pains and sleep disturbances. One physician told me that in such cases he always asks the patient: ‘How are your spirits?’, as a way of prompting the patient to share her feelings.

Maggie Scarf, in her book Unfinished Business, writes about what she considered ‘those bizarre statistics on women and depression’. She was surprised to find that, ‘For every male diagnosed as suffering from depression, the head count was anywhere from two to six times as many females’. Surprising the statistics certainly are. They are also compelling and beg some explanation. For the fact is, that women from adolescence onwards, are far more vulnerable to depression than men. In every subsequent stage of the life-cycle, women are more vulnerable. Men and women are never equal when it comes to depression.

Contrary to popular belief, women become depressed long before the onset of menopausal chemistry becomes the standard explanation for women’s greater vulnerability. In my practice and research, I have found higher numbers of women reporting their experiences of depression. These women have come from every social class and represent every age group.

What women say

‘I remember going into the doldrums just before my 40th birthday. I wrote in my journal, I’m closer to 40 than 39. I want time to stop. I have no practice at being 40. But I turned 40 anyway and I was depressed for about six months, until I got a grip on things and realized it wasn’t the end of my life as I know it. But I do think it’s hard for women in this society. You know, 40 is such a big hurdle.’ Eva, 43

‘When I was depressed, everything seemed futile. There was no purpose to anything in life. Everything was hopeless. I thought this feeling would never end. Sometimes I felt I couldn’t face the day.’ Corinne, 34

‘I used to get very depressed when I was at high school. I used to keep a ‘blues diary’ and I wrote down all my dark thoughts and feelings… I wasn’t in the right clique and I didn’t make the sports teams, so I hid a lot in the library. I guess I had a low opinion of myself.’ Melissa, 20

‘I know now that all my life, my dose of the blues was related to one thing only – men. I couldn’t get it right with men and relationships. It took me until I was 35 to settle down with a caring man who valued me for myself, and not because I was supposed to be a Barbie. I think men are the cause of a lot of depression among women. Especially younger women.’ Leigh, 38

‘When I’m depressed I can’t sleep, eat or rest – I’m fidgety and I cry a lot. My depression is usually related to some sort of disappointment. Last time it was being fired, the time before it was a relationship split-up.’ Karen, 28

‘I’ve only been depressed really badly once. It was after my mother died. We had a very close relationship. The depression affected my whole body. I felt paralyzed, like parts of my body didn’t work. I had terrible indigestion, I couldn’t think straight I was so distraught with the loss.’ Blythe, 32

‘Shortly after I had a miscarriage, I plunged into the depths of despair. I felt all wrong. I got agoraphobic and I ate all the time. I thought I was a failure. I felt lousy, ugly and evil. I felt so alone. I couldn’t be consoled, although people around me tried hard.’ Lyn, 25

‘I felt so miserable I thought I’d fallen down a deep pit. I sometimes thought I was clawing my way out but bits of the sides would break off in my hands and I’d fall even further. I remember wondering how I’d get up from the bottom of the pit, climb out and get on with the rest of my life.’. Joan, 55

‘When my doctor told me I was going through the change of life, I sort of felt that life was over for me. I had all these silly ideas about life not being worth living. But, as it happened, my symptoms were not that bad and soon I realized that it wasn’t the end for me. I remember walking down the street thinking, ‘what a lot of fuss about nothing’, life was still interesting and I threw myself into it wholeheartedly.’ Maree, 53

‘I was very down when my kids were younger. You know, it’s exhausting looking after three kids under five. I didn’t have enough support and some days I thought I was going mad. I was irritable, moody, teary and constantly tired.’ Tricia, 36

‘After my second baby was born, I had a dose of the baby-blues. I was very down, and what made it worse was that my husband wasn’t very supportive. He wanted just as much attention as before and was always too tired to help me with anything. He’s a pretty selfish man, and now he had two other little people to compete with. I’ve always said, I have three children. Finally I managed to get out of the depression, I guess I owe it to a neighbor, who’s like a mother to me.’ Judy, 29

‘I thought I had a marriage made in heaven – until my husband walked out on me and the two kids. He’d been seeing another woman for two years. I thought I’d die – I felt so rejected and alone. I got very depressed for about a year.’ Jenny, 34

These women have had a bout of the blues. Their words convey the despair and hopelessness of their experience. But as Gloria Steinem found, depression offers an opportunity to redefine your life. Redefining your life can mean making small and large changes. It is possible that such changes are hard to make without the spark offered by a depressive experience.

Depression: An opportunity for growth

You’ll recall the earlier reference to depression as crisis. A crisis can offer the opportunity to make changes.

In Revolution From Within: A Book of Self-Esteem, Gloria Steinem candidly talks about her experience of and exposure to depression from an early age. Steinem recalls her bedridden mother who had nervous breakdowns and severe depressions for most of Steinem’s childhood. Her foodaholic, three-hundred pound father, who left when she was 10, also suffered from depressions from time to time, when his business dreams were dashed.

Steinem describes emotional and physical losses which probably created a vulnerability to depression. During her teenage years, Steinem developed body image problems, which are so pervasive today. Steinem describes herself as ‘a big, plump, vulnerable girl… growing up in an isolated family whose food addictions and body image’ she took on board. Two decades later, as a 34 year old freelance journalist, she became active in the then growing women’s movement. In her words, ‘Feminism saved my life’.

However, the legacy of childhood experiences and social conditioning are difficult to challenge. Steinem opted for a variation on the theme. She did not become a wife and mother, but she spent decades of her life as an activist and advocate for the women’s movement. Like other women, Steinem had learned to take better care of others than herself. At 50, she faced head-on the vulnerabilities and stresses that aging brings in a youth-centered society. She was exhausted and found that she was under tremendous pressure which lead to ‘a burnout and erosion of self so deep that outcroppings of a scared 16-year-old began to show through’.

Finding some solace in a relationship and facing a bout with breast cancer around the same time brought Steinem to the crossroads. She admitted that depression had been a backdrop in her life. Setting aside her belief that therapy was for other people, not for her, she found a woman therapist.

Steinem