Welcome to From Insults to Respect. Today we take an interesting look at two states of being, depression and melancholy. A central difference between the two has to do with throwing insults at ourselves; when we are depressed we spend a great deal of time doing that, in melancholy, not so much. To better understand what I mean by this, and to clarify the natural function of depression and melancholy, it will be worthwhile to first take a brief look at another state of being, sleep.

Six Similar Characteristics of Sleep, Depression, and Melancholy

As a result of our special familiarity with sleep–we experience it pretty much every single day–when I point out six of its characteristics, everyone will readily know what I’m talking about. It will then be easier to see that similar characteristics occur with the less familiar depression and melancholy experiences.

Six Characteristics of Sleep

Before we go to sleep, we experience a warning that sleep is heading our way. We refer to this warning as “feeling sleepy.”

When we get this warning, there are a few things we can do to exercise some control over when we actually fall asleep. For example, when we are sleepy while eating breakfast but have to go to work, typically we can muster our determination to put off sleep until later.

At some point, like it or not, and even with the greatest determination to stay awake, sleep will come.

Feeling sleepy can range from being a little sleepy, all the way to the point where we can barely keep our eyes open. This range of sleepiness is dependent on a special memory that stores how sleepy you are. This memory can be visualized as a bucket. If you are a little sleepy in the morning, the bucket is viewed as only slightly filled. If you manage to divert your attention from the sleepiness so you can go to work, by the time you get back home, your sleepiness memory hasn’t forgotten that the bucket was slightly filled earlier, and now that several more hours have gone by without getting some sleep, the bucket has filled up beyond the height than it was in the morning. This becomes noticeable by more frequent waves of sleepiness, and each wave feels more heavy or intense. If you divert your attention from how sleepy you are so you can have dinner and watch a few of your favorite TV shows, you will find that none of your earlier sleepiness has been completely forgotten for long, and on top of that, even more sleepiness has been added. By the time you are watching the opening monologue of the Tonight Show, your bucket may now be filled up, and sleep will come even if you try to resist.

Just like there is natural variation in the various characteristics of us humans, like how tall we are or the color of our hair, different people have various size sleepiness memory buckets. Most have average size buckets, and after about sixteen hours without sleep their bucket becomes pretty filled up and they will typically sleep for about eight hours. Other people can go with less sleep; others require more sleep.

Finally, some people, desiring to avoid having their bucket getting filled up too early, will carve out some time in their day to take a nap or two. Each nap lowers the level in their bucket, and they therefore remain more alert during the day after a few minutes of grogginess passes.

Summarizing the six sleep characteristics I want to  bring to your attention, 1. sleep has a warning sign, 2. we can delay sleep for a limited period of time, 3. despite our efforts at putting off sleep, at a certain point sleep will come, 4. we have a special memory that remembers how sleepy we are, 5. people vary on how much sleep they need, and 6. we can decrease the duration of our major sleep event by doing something we call a nap.

The Six Characteristics Of the State of Being that is Often Referred to As Depression

As Katrina is on her way to work, a concern arises within. “My job is not really right for me,” she says to herself. “It’s getting more and more boring, and the pay is barely enough to make ends meet. I have to make a change.”

Now she has arrived. She pauses and says to herself, “I’m going to put off dealing with this job concern ’cause I have to focus on my work responsibilities.”

Katrina finds that throughout her work hours, for the most part, she is able to put off thinking about this concern, though from time to time, she does notice a wave going through her reminding her of it. Each time this happens, she finds that she can cut it off quickly so she can focus on her job responsibilities.

So far in this scenario, we begin to see some similarities between sleep and the buildup of concerns that might lead to depression. That is, each wave of sleepiness is a warning sign that a person will need to get some sleep soon, and each wave of concern that Katrina is experiencing is a warning sign that she will soon have to address her job concern. We also see, in this Katrina scenario, that she can exercise some control over when she addresses her concern, putting off dealing with it until a more convenient time. Notice that this is similar to sleep in that when we feel sleepy, we still can put off going to sleep for a while.

Now, let’s continue with Katrina’s story.

After work, she meets her mother at a nice restaurant to have dinner. There, her mother reveals that she has discovered a lump in her breast.

Upon arriving home, Katrina puts on the TV to see some shows she likes. While watching, she finds that her concerns intrude into her consciousness more frequently and in a more intense manner than previous recent days. In the medical model of thinking about this, these intrusions would be viewed as symptoms of a possible mental disorder. As I view them, they are as natural as a sunrise.

Later in the week, Katrina finds out that her mother’s lump has been diagnosed as cancerous. Then the guy that Katrina has been dating and is really crazy about, calls. In as pleasant a manner as he can muster, he ends his relationship with Katrina explaining he has met someone new. Despite Katrina’s effort to stay positive, she finds she can no longer put off experiencing feelings of disappointment, despair, anguish, sadness and tears.

Like the sleep memory that we visualized as a sleepiness bucket, we can visualize the concern memory also as a bucket. As time passes for Katrina, her memory bucket remembers all of her previous unresolved concerns, and as new concerns come her way, her bucket begins to fill up more and more. As it does so, she experiences more frequent reminders of needing to deal with all of her concerns, and these reminders begin to feel heavier or more intense. Eventually, her concern memory bucket becomes filled to the top and, therefore, putting off dealing with her concerns can no longer be done.

As it did for sleep, this visual metaphor of a bucket works well for depression in two other ways. First, when we look at the various characteristics of depression, we find variation in people’s ability to put off until a more convenient time addressing their concerns. We can visualize this as having either a large, average, or small concern memory bucket. Second, like the sleep memory bucket which we can decrease its contents prior to our main sleep experience by taking naps, there are ways we can decrease the contents in our concern memory bucket before entering into a full blown episode of depression. For example, by meditating once or twice a day, this provides an opportunity to spend time addressing concerns with little distractions.

Meditation is supremely useful for this because the practice involves going to a quiet place and then closing your eyes. Although during meditation you may spend some time focussing on your mantra, this mantra task is so simple that ample time and mental space is available for your concerns to bubble up to the surface where they can be addressed while you are in a relatively calm state.

Taking a walk, or watching a sporting event like baseball also provide a lot of down time to mull over our concerns, and therefore, are examples of other ways we can work though our concerns in a manner that allows us some control over when we have to deal with a full blown depression experience. In today’s world, because there are so many opportunities to distract us from addressing our concerns, from entertaining TV shows, movies, the ease of calling friends, and engaging on social media platforms, methods that free us from so many distractions for periods of time can be enormously helpful.

A Difference Between Sleep and Depression

We have just looked at six characteristics of depression that are somewhat similar to the six characteristics of sleep that we discussed earlier in this essay. There are, of course, some differences between sleep and depression. The difference I want to point out here is that the passing of time is the main factor that leads to needing to go into a period of sleep. The longer you are awake, the sleepier you are likely to become.

When it comes to depression, time is still a factor because the more time passes, the more concerns can develop in a person’s life. Nevertheless, a much bigger factor that influences when someone enters a state of depression has to do with the nature of each concern. Some concerns are relatively easy to address, others are harder. Moreover, concerns vary with regards to how threatening they are to one’s goals.

Easy to resolve concerns are taken out of the bucket after a brief period of reflection, while difficult to resolve conflicts take up space in the bucket sometimes for years. Highly threatening concerns take up far more room in the bucket than low threatening concerns. If they are highly threatening and hard to resolve, much of one’s bucket can be almost filled to the brim for years. When this happens, for years each warning about the need to address concerns will be more intense, and it will take much less additional concerns to fill up the bucket. Thus, people who experience traumatic events are more likely to experience depression more often.

The Difference Between Depression and Melancholy

The six characteristics that apply to depression apply to melancholy as well. The chief difference between the two, as I mentioned earlier, is when people experience depression they insult themselves, whereas when people experience melancholy, not so much.

As the bucket begins to fill up, those who are prone to throw personal insults at themselves, typically choose ones that have to do with feeling guilty about becoming depressed, past mistakes, being crazy, and being worthless. The psychiatric model has them thinking they have bad genes, a lifelong pathological condition, as well as having a condition that is stigmatizing. All of this leads to the person experiencing self-loathing. The insults people attack themselves with add to the concerns in their bucket, leading to it becoming fuller more quickly than if they did not do this, and the insults are distracting, so that the real work of addressing the real concerns are less efficiently addressed.

In contrast, consider how musician and song writer Joni Mitchell described melancholy in her beautiful song, “Hijira.”

There is comfort in melancholy where there is no need to explain, it’s just as natural as the weather in this moody sky today.

In melancholy, the person practices self-compassion and views the experience as a natural helpful process.

David Whyte

David Whyte is one of the finest writers to capture the essence of the melancholy state. We get a sense of this by reading the following from his fine book, Consolations: The Solace, Nourishment, and Underlying Meaning of Everyday Words:

Disappointment is inescapable but necessary; a misunderstood mercy and when approached properly, an agency for transformation and the hidden, underground, engine of trust and generosity in a human life. The attempt to create a life devoid of disappointment is the attempt to avoid the vulnerabilities that make the conversations of life real, moving, and life-like; it is the attempt to avoid our own necessary and merciful heartbreak. To be disappointed is to reassess ourself and our inner world, and to be called to the larger foundational reality that lies beyond any false self we had only projected upon the outer world….

Despair takes us in when we have no where else to go; when we feel the heart cannot break anymore, when our world or our loved ones disappear, when we feel we cannot be loved or do not deserve to be loved, when our God disappoints, or when our body is carrying profound pain in a way that does not go away.

Despair is a haven with its own temporary form of beauty; of self-compassion, it is the invitation we accept when we want to remove ourselves from hurt. Despair is a last protection. To disappear through despair is to seek a temporary but necessary illusion, a place where we hope nothing can ever find us in the same way again.

Despair is a necessary and seasonal state of repair, a temporary healing absence, an internal physiological and psychological winter when our previous forms of participation in the world take a rest; it is a loss of horizon, it is the place we go when we do not want to be found in the same way anymore. We give up hope and certain particular wishes are no longer able to come true and despair is the time in which we both endure and heal, even when we have not yet found the new form of hope.

Melancholy provides a richer, and more powerful approach for addressing our concerns, even the most challenging ones. It doesn’t waste time with all of the insults, though, because of old habits, some may still leap into consciousness. When they do, those in melancholy can observe them without believing they are true. Rather, they recognize them as old unhelpful habits, allow themselves to experience the physical sensations that come with them, and then, when those sensations pass in their own good time, they move on to other work that needs to be done.

Transforming Depression To Melancholy

In our society, many of us learn to address our concerns using the depression pattern. How can they change that pattern so, when the bucket is full they experience, instead, melancholy?

One way that can be helpful, and won’t cost any money, is to start reading my blog, beginning with the first post (see HERE). Additionally, my three novels provide an entertaining way to learn to develop self respect (see HERE). There is a modest cost to purchasing them, but the ebook versions are very inexpensive.

Though most personal counselors are stuck in the medical model that pathologizes the experiences we discussed today, more and more are turning to an alternative approach that values enhancing self-compassion. Naturally my two favorites of these are my son, Jack Star Rubin, and his talented wife, Emily Whyte Rubin. You can learn about their services, which are available online, by clicking HERE. They rely on a variety of wisdom traditions that have demonstrated research support, and they listen deeply and compassionately as their clients’ express concerns. In this way, with the help of modeling, their clients come to adopt this way of listening deeply and compassionately as they, themselves, deal with their own concerns even when their counselor is not present.

Well, that’s my post for today. I hope you found some nourishing food for thought. Stay safe out there, and please join us again right here at From Insults to Respect.

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Some people will enjoy reading this blog by beginning with the first post and then moving forward to the next more recent one; then to the next one; and so on.  This permits readers to catch up on some ideas that were presented earlier and to move through all of the ideas in a systematic fashion to develop their emotional and social intelligence.  To begin at the very first post you can click HERE.

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