{"id":65620,"date":"2013-03-30T14:00:56","date_gmt":"2013-03-30T18:00:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/?p=65620"},"modified":"2013-03-29T14:11:04","modified_gmt":"2013-03-29T18:11:04","slug":"negotiating-a-poly-depressisode","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/polyamory\/negotiating-a-poly-depressisode\/","title":{"rendered":"Negotiating a Poly \u201cDepressisode\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"

I\u2019ve been trying to write this column for three weeks. I hope you find it\u2019s worth it. Being depressed and trying to write about depression is like trying to dig your wheels out of a sand dune. You expend a lot of energy and you just end up in deeper.<\/p>\n

\"Poly
Poly Paradise at Burning Man. Photo by Eric.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

At one point in this process, I got the second half of a reading from our own Len Wallick. (I once got a reading from Eric, as well, but I\u2019ll tell you all about that another time.) As he asked about my questions and concerns — as you can probably tell by reading his work, he\u2019s pretty good at listening — I told him about how in all my DIY astrology I kept getting descriptions about the Neptune-Chiron-every-other-damn-planet cluster on my midheaven, and they were scaring me. <\/p>\n

Like that Neptune on the midheaven meant a fall from pride; scandal; disgrace. That the commentaries said I\u2019d do something wrong or slipshod that would destroy my life and bring guilt and shame upon me, but I wouldn\u2019t even know it, because Neptune is so tricky that way. Basically gloom, fog, gloom, gloom, shame, gloom and spam.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe don\u2019t do it that way here,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

So that\u2019s part one of my membership drive<\/a> pitch for Planet Waves. For the special rate of $49 for a year<\/a>, you are guaranteed NOT to get the kind of disempowering, fear-fueled, know-it-all, dire, cryptic counsel you will find in so many other venues, not only in astrology, but from all kinds of New Age and Spiritual groups and gurus. Eric don\u2019t play disempowerment. <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

(As an advertising writer for my paying work, I know I\u2019m not supposed to go negative and tell what something isn\u2019t. But I\u2019m depressed, so negative is where it\u2019s at for me right now!)<\/p>\n

Part two is another remark Len made, about the \u201cPlanet Waves family.\u201d It does have that quality. From someone who hasn\u2019t always gotten an empowering, interesting, thought provoking and encouraging message from her family of birth, it\u2019s very appealing to get such a message here. And family pitches in to help each other out, so if you want to keep the relationships strong, you have to put in. <\/p>\n

The $49 comes out to less than a dollar a week<\/a>, and you can read what you get with a membership here<\/a>. But I\u2019m not going to judge how possible that is for anyone. I will say that Planet Waves has always been open about honestly listening and considering price breaks for anyone who asks. <\/p>\n

The \u201cfamily\u201d part as much as the empowering part are what make it possible for me to reveal so much about myself here, and I think what makes others willing to be written about here as well. They sense that they\u2019ll get a fair, open-minded, welcome treatment, and I try to live up to the environment here.<\/p>\n

So in the throes of a \u201cdepressisode\u201d (not my invention — more on that later), I just threw the two words into Google: polyamory depression. And what popped up but a podcast of Pedestrian Polyamory<\/a>. This is the podcast by the sort-of Nick and Nora Charles of poly, Gavin and Shira. They are usually very funny, along with being informative. I am not the first to remark that they really master the banter. In fact, so many have remarked on their banter that they have decided to trademark the term: Master Banter\u2122.<\/p>\n

The last time I checked in on these two, they were talking about penis size. If there\u2019s a man out there who feels somewhere deep inside that if only his dick were bigger he would always be happy and dwell among rainbows and unicorns — lots and lots of unicorns — listen to this podcast and you will learn different. A big dick is nice, but it is no protection against the sorrows of life. <\/p>\n

In this episode, Gavin tells of how he dealt with death and illness in his family, and this triggered an episode of depression — or, as they termed it, a \u201cdepressisode.\u201d<\/p>\n

The podcast makes hard listening; it\u2019s two sharp, bright people wrestling some of the biggest realities dealt us all — death, illnesses of all kinds, fear, guilt, sorrow and joy and love — and in the process working hard to put something out there in the world that others can benefit from. <\/p>\n

Of course, depression for a poly person isn\u2019t, at base, a hugely (ha ha) different thing from what it is for a mono or celibate or queer or… one. But it does have some considerations that the couple bring out, and I think they\u2019re helpful to hear for those in all relationship types. <\/p>\n

As Gavin was going through his difficulties, Shira was immersed in New Relationship Energy, all pink fluffy clouds and zingy happiness. You know the kind. For poly people, the contrast when one or more in the group aren\u2019t in good health is more pronounced. Everyone can start feeling helpless and guilty — the healthy ones for being happy and engaged, and the depressed one for bringing everyone down. Jealousy, misunderstandings — all the things that can trouble even the healthiest relationships stalk the ones where someone isn\u2019t in physical and emotional health.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s funny — depression poly actually looks a lot like badly managed half-ass poly. Gavin told of these kinds of feelings:<\/p>\n

\u2022\tIf something happened that bothered me, I felt like it was a strike against me (rather than reasoning out whether it\u2019s actually unfair, unthinking or has another cause)<\/p>\n

\u2022\tIf she\u2019s sitting with someone else it must mean she likes the other one more and I\u2019m at risk of losing her (rather than figuring it\u2019s convenience, enjoying her pleasure, all the other thoughts that happen normally)<\/p>\n

\u2022\tIf they don\u2019t take out the trash it must be because they care so little about me and that means I\u2019m worthless (rather than accepting that someone in your group is careless or forgetful and working on a strategy to get everyone\u2019s needs met)<\/p>\n

This is the same way poly looks when the people involved jump in or fail to talk about things. Which is interesting in itself. It shows a \u201cnormal\u201d person can think like a depressed person, and stop thinking like one when certain steps are followed, usually involving awareness.<\/p>\n

Here are a few other useful things from the show:<\/p>\n

\u2022\tDon\u2019t let habits form. Keep breaking behavior up, so you don\u2019t get habits of thinking or of acting. Depression wears a sort of groove into your behavior, but if you run on a different track, you can stop it.<\/p>\n

\u2022\tDon\u2019t be afraid to ask for reassurance. Keep checking in, keep asking, on both sides. Do all the multiple check-ins and talking and reassuring that you do as part of healthy poly. Don\u2019t stop for the depression duration. A depressed person might feel guilty about asking over and over. Another partner may feel inadequate because he can\u2019t seem to reassure her enough. Remember how often you talk in a poly relationship? Keep it up.<\/p>\n

\u2022\tGet physical. Gavin recommends running or really demanding physical activity that doesn\u2019t give you time to think. That\u2019s my tactic as well.<\/p>\n

\u2022\tGo out. Don\u2019t go out. Just don\u2019t weird out. Some people in your poly family may want to go out and have fun and get involved in lots of things. You may need to stay home and take care of yourself. You may find it helps to get involved in something. <\/p>\n

But whatever level of activity you choose, don\u2019t get weird about it. You are not a big drag on everyone if you choose to rest or relax. You are not deserting the one you love if you choose to go out and have fun with your other love. You are betraying yourself if you don\u2019t ask honestly when you need companionship, love or attention. You are not being fair to your love if you try to second-guess them and curtail your own life to match what you think they want from you. One thing poly is about is getting off on another person getting what they want. Don\u2019t stop asking: What do you want?<\/p>\n

\u2022\tThis is a good time to take the focus off sex. People who are depressed can have a lowered sex drive. Unless the depressed person is the hinge on the V (damn!), the other people in the relationship can enjoy sex with other people and use the depressisode to tap into other ways of being close. <\/p>\n

\u2022\tSet boundaries on communication. A conversation with a depressed person can pull you into a can\u2019t-win spiral. Poly and kink people are good at boundaries, good at keeping them with love and respect. Use this skill.<\/p>\n

\u2022\tDon\u2019t own your partner\u2019s happiness. That\u2019s an easy one, if you\u2019ve been doing The Poly for a while. It\u2019s where you\u2019re coming from anyway. So don\u2019t own their unhappiness, either. <\/p>\n

Compersion depression! Yep, you can be just a profoundly compassionate yet not attached to your partner\u2019s unhappiness as you are to their happiness!<\/p>\n

I must here add in the typical caveats that responsible communicators are obliged to do: This is not medical advice. If you feel you could do harm you must get help. Don\u2019t stop until you get what you need. And it will change. It may not get better, but it will change. Don\u2019t do anything impulsive, and you\u2019ll find out.<\/p>\n

I know very well what I need to do to manage my mental and physical state. Because of a bad work situation, I wasn\u2019t able to do those things, and that\u2019s how I ended up in this fix. <\/p>\n

I need more steady, difficult exercise than most people seem to. I need sleep, though even when I have time to get it, I\u2019d rather be doing something else! I need to watch my diet and use some herbs and other supplements. I\u2019m usually good at keeping up that end of it even when the rest goes to hell. And I need to talk to at least a few adults, occasionally, who actually like me and aren\u2019t trying to get something out of me. I can go for a while without doing anything creative, though not writing and not being valued for what I do (I\u2019m convinced I won\u2019t be valued for what I am — few of us are that fortunate) takes a long-term toll on morale. <\/p>\n

Gavin related that he\u2019d tried an antidepressant but he found it turned him into a rageaholic, so he stopped. It\u2019s no secret that I\u2019m not into pharmaceuticals for depression treatment. I tried a few over the years because I felt it would be \u201cirresponsible\u201d not to, that it represented \u201crefusing treatment\u201d and \u201cnot caring\u201d about the people I love. These days, if you turn down the pill, you\u2019re immediately told you\u2019re being too hasty (but the internist who prescribes one after a 10-minute visit is not?) and that you\u2019re \u201clistening to depression\u201d and that \u201cdepression lies.\u201d <\/p>\n

I\u2019m not going to tell anyone what they should do. When people who are large go to the doctor for a broken leg, they get told they should lose weight. And when people who \u201cpresent\u201d depressed, as I do, go to the doctor for a broken leg, they\u2019re encouraged to take an antidepressant. Both situations are frustrating to all concerned. <\/p>\n

I\u2019m highly suspicious of two lines of narrative emerging from open discussions of depression: \u201cDepression lies\u201d and \u201cUntreated depression is dangerous and destructive.\u201d Both are dangerous because they\u2019re a little bit true, in some ways, and a lot false in other ways.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s look at the lies. I\u2019m a brutally skeptical person when it comes to humans. My first counterpoint to this is, well, what and who doesn\u2019t lie? But that aside: when I\u2019m convinced that no one wants me or loves me, that\u2019s 80 percent of a lie. But it\u2019s a truth that I was unwanted as a child. And it\u2019s a truth that some of the people who are obligated to act as my \u201cloved ones\u201d in this society aren\u2019t really feeling much love for me. And that even the ones who really love me like crazy wish I would just hush up and get my shit together sometimes. <\/p>\n

You know what does lie? Pharmaceutical companies. But even that is about 80 percent lie. There\u2019s a stage in the research and in the factory where people are being hugely exacting and careful and perfect and precise. But as soon as words get involved, lies come in. <\/p>\n

The research papers, the places the papers get published, the way the research is reported and re-framed, the commercials — well, that last one is obvious, but even the commercials are only about 80 percent lies. The people making them are basing their work on what they\u2019ve been told — it\u2019s a lie of omission. And they\u2019re 90 percent concerned with paying the mortgage and the health insurance, and have managed to convince themselves with the other 10 percent that they\u2019re helping people.<\/p>\n

So maybe depression lies, but its lies are lost in so many others it\u2019s a long day\u2019s work to tease them out. And if we\u2019re going to call bullshit on what depression has to say, it\u2019s only fair to call bullshit on the other kinds of lies as well.<\/p>\n

So if someone tells me I ought to be medicated and I point to what I\u2019ve read and researched that steers me away from that course, and they say, \u201cOh, that\u2019s just the depression talking,\u201d then I\u2019m going to be tempted to cut a motherfucker, as it were.<\/p>\n

But because I don\u2019t want to end up locked up and cause trouble for my daughter, I can put aside that temptation, and look at things objectively — and I can do the same with depression, almost all the time. I\u2019ve found that if I can get the energy to push past the impulse to do something bizarre or destructive, stop, gather my awareness, and then act based on reality, I can live with depression. <\/p>\n

Cognitive behavioral therapy is what that\u2019s called, and it\u2019s got a little more of a track record for \u201ctreatment\u201d than do antidepressant medications, which, it appears, don\u2019t work. If they did, we wouldn\u2019t be having so much depression all around, because when you get down to it, you\u2019re taking SSRIs every time you have a drink of water<\/a>. Feel good yet?<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a lot of anger and badmouthing that goes on when people \u201crefuse\u201d to \u201ctreat\u201d their depression. Can you even entertain the thought that this umbrage over \u201cuntreated depression\u201d is a self-defending, nicer-sounding way of saying \u201cget over it,\u201d without immediately going to the default, \u201csee, that\u2019s the depression talking\u201d?<\/p>\n

There are a lot of ways to treat depression. Mine is through exercise, sleep, diet and love. These give me the foundation so I can gather my awareness and not say or do destructive or hurtful things impulsively, which is the danger of depression. <\/p>\n

The reason my depression is so bad right now is that my work situation is not allowing me to get any of the things I need to treat it. I\u2019m literally being worked to death, and I\u2019m quite certain I\u2019m not the only one. <\/p>\n

But treatment with a pill — even pills shown not to work all that well — is more convenient and profitable than making it possible for people to lead sane and healthy lives, so we beat on.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s lethal to me about depression, or any mental \u201cillness,\u201d or any physical illness for that matter, is that it torpedoes your credibility. As I was entering this spiral, I was hearing news stories about Aaron Swartz, the young activist and computer genius who killed himself after being hounded by the FBI for hacking a bunch of scholarly articles that really weren\u2019t worth much at this point, but he was making a point. (The writers don\u2019t get any money; the journals don\u2019t get a lot either; the aggregator\/seller business is the one who profits from pay-per-view scholarly articles, by the way.) The narrative has been getting shaped quite effectively — he was exquisitely sensitive, heartbreakingly self-effacing, always in and out of depressions. <\/p>\n

But you know what I say? I say so what.<\/p>\n

The guy could have been dancing around naked in a Napoleon hat with a tube sock on his wang, telling the world he was the second coming of Siddhartha — and the FBI prosecution still would have been grotesque, misguided and a rights violation.<\/p>\n

The guy could have been hanging out at the top of the Central Park castle talking to the pigeons, waving a broken umbrella and telling the world he\u2019s the secret love child of Mary Poppins and James Bond — and the threats to and harassment of his girlfriend, an independent journalist with a computer full of notes and interviews on hackers and a 7-year-old daughter whom Swartz cared very much about, STILL would have been a stratagem out of the Stasi playbook.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s not depression lying. Those are some stone cold realities there. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I\u2019ve been trying to write this column for three weeks. I hope you find it\u2019s worth it. Being depressed and trying to write about depression is like trying to dig your wheels out of a sand dune. You expend a lot of energy and you just end up in deeper. At one point in this … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7221,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"generate_page_header":""},"categories":[207],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65620"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7221"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=65620"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65620\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=65620"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=65620"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=65620"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}