Welcome to From Insults to Respect.
In a recent post, I shared some advice the highly respected psychologist and philosopher William James gave to his depressed 13-year-old daughter. It was so well received, I decided to describe another example of James giving advice to another person feeling so very blue.
Unlike my previous example, which occurred when James was a mature professor and father, today’s example occurred in 1866 when James was a mere 24-year-old. But before we get to that example, we shall go back a little further, when James was 19. By doing so, we get to see an intriguing shift in his way of thinking about mental health concerns.
James’s View of the Nature of Mental Health Concerns When He Was Nineteen
James’s cousin, Minnie, two years younger than he, lost both of her parents when she was very young. She somehow appeared to recover from the severe blow, turning herself into the James family’s most enchanting and adored relative. 
In fact, James’s brother, the famous author, Henry James, drew two of his most appealing heroines from her image,–Minnie Theale in Wings of the Dove, and Isabel Archer in The Portrait of a Lady. Sadly, at the age of seventeen, Minnie began to display emotional patterns that raised serious concerns. James, in a letter to Minnie’s sister, explains his understanding of the cause. “…it is but an organic lesion of the gray cortical substance which forms the pia mater [innermost membrane enveloping the brain and spinal chord], which is very consoling to us all.”
On what basis does James have for this explanation of the cause of Minnie’s mental health concern? And why would viewing Minnie as having a brain lesion be consoling? The letter doesn’t answer either of these questions, but blaming the brain for mental health concerns and the belief that such blaming is consoling survives up to the present day.
In recent years, after failing to prove a brain lesion is the cause of mental health concerns, a chemical imbalance in the brain has been promoted and eagerly accepted by many as true.
For example, the most recent relevant survey I could find on the internet suggests that 67% of the general public believe it has been scientifically established that depression is caused by a serotonin chemical imbalance in the brain (see HERE). Despite this belief, a 2022 research article published in Molecular Psychiatry concludes:
…the huge research effort based on the serotonin hypothesis has not produced convincing evidence of a biochemical basis to depression. This is consistent with research on many other biological markers [21]. We suggest it is time to acknowledge that the serotonin theory of depression is not empirically substantiated.
Many believe the reason why this idea has been so promoted is that it legitimizes the lucrative marketing of psychiatric drugs. Although I think there is considerable truth to this, the eager acceptance of this notion by many members of the general public has to do with it being a consoling notion to family members who might otherwise be blamed for their offspring’s concerning behavior. With this way of thinking, it is not anything any family might have done to cause the concerning behavior; it’s some problem in the brain that is the cause.
Now, don’t misunderstand me here. I’m not at all suggesting that family members should be blamed for all such concerns. There are, undoubtedly, many possible reasons why someone begins to act in a way that raises concerns.
When James is called upon to offer some advice to a friend several years after his comment to Minnie’s sister, his notion about the cause of mental health concerns has clearly changed.
James’s Advice to His Friend
In a letter dated, June 8, 1866, James wrote to his friend, Tom W. Ward:
I have just read your letter over again, and am grieved afresh at your melancholy tone about yourself. You ask why I am quiet, while you are so restless. Partly from the original constitution of things, I suppose; partly because I am less quiet than you suppose; only I once heard a proverb about a man consuming his own smoke, and I do so particularly in your presence because you, being so much more turbid, produce a reaction in me; partly because I am a few years older than you, and have not solved, but grown callous (I hear your sneer) to, many of the problems that now torture you. The chief reason is the original constitution of things, which generated me with fewer sympathies and wants than you, and also perhaps with a certain tranquil confidence in the right order of the Whole, which makes me indifferent in some circumstances where you fret. Yours the nobler, mine the happier part!
I think, too, that much of your uneasiness comes from that to which you allude in your letter–your oscillatoriness, and your regarding each oscillation as something final as long as it lasts.
There is nothing more certain than that every man’s life is a line that continuously oscillates on every side of its direction; and if you would be more confident that any state of tension you may at any time find yourself in will inevitably relieve itself, sooner or later, you would spare yourself much anxiety.
I myself have felt in the last six months more certain that each man’s constitution limits him to a certain amount of emotion and action, and that if he insists on going under a higher pressure than normal for three months, for instance, he will pay for it by passing the next three months below par. So the best way is to keep moving steadily and regularly, as your mind becomes thus deliciously appeased (as you imagine mine to be; ah! Tom, what damn fools we are!).
If you feel below par now, don’t think your life is deserting you forever. You are just as sure to be up again as you are, when elated, sure to be down again. Six months, or any cycle of time, is sure to see you produce a certain amount, and your fretful anxiety when in a stagnant mood is frivolous. The good time will come again, as it has come; and go too. I think we ought to be independent of our moods, look on them as external, for they come to us unbidden, and feel if possible neither elated nor depressed, but keep our eyes upon our work and, if we have done the best we could in that given condition, be satisfied.
James goes on a bit more in his letter to encourage Tom to seek to harmonize his life to nature’s will and to develop patience, equanimity, humbleness, and kindness. These attributes, he says “would do your heart good.”
As the letter draws to a close, James writes,
I will now, my dear old Tom, stop my crudities. Although these notions and others have of late led me to a pretty practical contentment, I cannot help feeling as if I were insulting Heaven by offering them about as if they had an absolute worth. Still, as I am willing to take them all back whenever it seems right, you will excuse my apparent conceit. Besides, they may suggest some practical point of view to you…..
I am anxiously waiting your arrival on Class Day when we shall, I trust, patch up the Kosmos satisfactorily and rescue it from its present fragmentary condition.
My Take On James’s Letter
At age 19, James appeared to accept that his cousin Minnie’s troubling emotional behavior pattern is caused by a brain lesion and this notion is somehow consoling. There is no thoughts expressed that perhaps the trauma of losing both of her parents might be playing a part. No wondering if some new disturbing event might have occurred that family members are unaware. A brain lesion theory does provide a simple explanation.
At age 26, when James tries to come up with an explanation for Tom’s emotional concern, the brain lesion notion doesn’t come up at all. Instead, James begins by expressing some empathy for his friend by writing to Tom,”I have just read your letter over again, and am grieved afresh at your melancholy tone about yourself.” I like this. If someone you care about is going through some hard experience, expressing some empathy is a wonderful, humane, and kind thing to do.
Then, James responds to Tom’s question about why he is so “restless” in contrast to James. Perhaps it has to do with a difference in their constitution, James theorizes. But then James suggests that he actually might not really be less restless, he just doesn’t share this with others, preferring to consume his own smoke. In actuality, anyone familiar with James’s biography well knows he suffered greatly from periods of depression. (See HERE for a discussion of James’s bouts with depression and how he came to overcome them).
James goes on in his letter to point to the possibility that Tom might have gone through a period of great pressure and, if so, naturally he would need some time to recover. The recovery process could be experienced as melancholy. He also suggests that certain thought patterns of Tom’s, if changed, might be beneficial.
James concludes by suggesting to Tom that all of what he had written could be wrong, but nevertheless, they may suggest some practical point of view. In providing this post to my readers, I, too, suggest that perhaps James’s advice might be worth considering if either you or someone you care about is struggling with melancholy experiences.
My Best,
Jeff
Let’s begin this exploration with a diary entry from a mental patient that appears on page 224 in Richard P. Bentall’s fine book, Madness Explained:
Once we, in our modern society, come to associate anxiety and grief as painful, this leads many of us right into the idea that we best manage it as we do when we experience physical pain, that is, by distracting our minds to something pleasant and washing the feelings away by consuming alcohol and other drugs. And yet, even when dealing with physical pain, these two approaches are often far from optimal.
In research studies, when distracting oneself from pain was compared to a “sensory focus” approach, sensory focus came out distinctly better even for when dealing with the particularly challenging pain that occurs while giving birth (see 
Drugs that contain acetaminophen, like Tylenol, are the leading cause of acute liver failure in the United States, and some studies indicate that it can be harmful to kidneys as well. Each year, the side effects of nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs), which are commonly used for pain, cause nearly 103,000 hospitalizations and 16,500 deaths. More people die each year from NSAIDs-related complications than from AIDS and cervical cancer in the United States. Common over the counter NSAIDs include ibuprofen (Motrin, Advil) and naproxen (Aleve).
Let’s begin here with a series of studies indicating that how we conceptualize emotional arousing experiences can dramatically alter the experience.
These studies began in earnest back in 1964 when a team of researchers presented a film showing primitive adolescent “subincision” rites to their subjects and found that it produced marked stress reactions. However, when some subjects were coached to view the film as if they were objective scientists, their stress reaction was markedly reduced. The findings supported the conclusion that the same visual stimulus varies in the amount of stress produced depending upon the nature of the cognitive appraisal the person makes.
Subsequent studies replicated this study by using a series of films that showed horrific workplace accidents, and again, altering the cognitive appraisal strategy of the subjects, altered the level of stress experienced. So, perhaps altering how we appraise our experience with anxiety and grief might alter our level of stress for the better.
We have, for over two million years, been evolving ways to address our concerns so we have a better chance to survive and to pass our genes on to subsequent generations. Two of our most common concerns involve perceiving a risk of future danger, which we experience as anxiety, and perceiving we have lost something or someone important to us, which we experience as grief. Recognizing these types of concerns is the first step in a more complete process of finding ways to minimize the risk of danger and to successfully move forward despite our losses.
When we put off dealing with these types of concerns, they don’t just go away; they come back again and again reminding us that we have to adequately address them. Despite our efforts at putting them off, as our concerns begin to accumulate without being fully addressed, it becomes harder and harder to delay dealing with them. Our memory begins to remind us of them more frequently and more intensely until we reach a point at which we must attend to them, like it or not. If we put off taking time to process our concerns for too long, our functioning for dealing with many aspects of life can begin to deteriorate, and at some point, we may end up having what some people refer to as a mental breakdown.
So, with this understanding, anxiety and grief are part of a wonderful process, rather than a sign of mental illness that we need to distract ourselves from or to take drugs to manage. Part of this process requires that we devote enough time to process these concerns or the level of intensity is liable to become more and more challenging.
When we are reminded of our perceived dangers and grief, rather than automatically perceiving such experiences as painful, we can allow ourselves to observe the physical sensations that come with it. If words such as, “Man, this is painful,” “Man, this is hurting,” or, “I can’t stand this suffering,” we can observe them without automatically accepting them as accurate. What is accurate is the physical sensations, and the specific concern to be addressed as best as you can fathom. Once the sensations go through us, we naturally begin to spend some time thinking about some ideas to address the concerns.
In two recent posts I aimed to encourage folks to consider learning to deal with anxiety in a manner that can improve their self-respect. The first of these, “
To begin this discussion, I present the context in which two of the leading characters from the play, The King and I, begin to sing the delightful song, “I Whistle a Happy Tune.” The song’s lyrics, along with a discussion of the song’s philosophy is then presented. In the end, we get a deeper understanding of how to wisely handle anxiety.
You can view the charming opening scene of The King and I, which includes the singing of the song on YouTube for free by clicking 
As their ship arrives in the Siam bay, Louis notices that the king’s royal barge is approaching. As Louis spies the people on the barge through a telescope, he says, “They look so cruel, mother.” Looking anxious, he goes on to say, “Father would not have liked us to be afraid, would he?”
“Oh, yes, sometimes.”
I whistle a happy tune
Anxiety is the experience of fear that occurs when we think about dealing in the future with a fearful situation. In the scene, Louis learns his father would not like it if either he or his mother ever experience fear. Perhaps his father might have conveyed the attitude that to experience fear is cowardly. This is a common lesson that children are taught by their parents, and consequently, these children may grow up to feel guilty when experiencing anxiety, and then take steps to avoid experiencing it.
Louis’s mother, Anna, admits that she does experience fear, but whenever this happens, by acting fearless and whistling a happy tune, she claims that it prevents people from suspecting she is fearful. She also claims that these actions even convinces her that she really isn’t afraid.
In the scene we are discussing, we see that the anxiety being experienced has the potential to serve a useful function. Louis expresses his anxiety to his mother when he says with tension in his voice, “They look so cruel, Mother.” Upon expressing this, it leads to a discussion between Louis and his mother about fear, and he ends up learning a strategy to deal with fear–whistling a happy tune.
Judging from Anna’s face, not only is Louis now experiencing fear, she is as well. To deal with their shared fearful experience, both of them begin whistling a happy tune. Despite employing this technique, judging from their faces, the whistling is not entirely eliminating all of their fears.
When we put off dealing with the concerns connected with our fears, they don’t just go away; they come back again and again reminding us that we have to adequately address them. Despite our efforts at putting them off, as our fearful concerns begin to accumulate without being fully addressed, it becomes harder and harder to delay dealing with them. Our memory begins to remind us of them more frequently and more intensely until we reach a point at which we must attend to them, like it or not. If we put off taking time to process our fears for too long, our functioning for dealing with many aspects of life can begin to deteriorate, and at some point, we may end up having what some people refer to as a mental breakdown.
Some people who learn to feel guilty when experiencing anxiety and other forms of fear can often find ways to distract themselves from these types of feelings. As their fears begin to build up, they have to try harder and harder to distract themselves. They may begin to eat far more than is healthy, binge watching suspense movies, begin to talk and talk about anything other than their fears, etc. Alternatively, they may try to suppress the feelings by consuming more and more alcohol and other drugs.
With this understanding, we now return to our earlier question, Is whistling a happy tune a wise strategy? Part of the answer, is this: There are times when it does makes sense to put aside for a while our anxiety in order to better deal with some other pressing experience. If you find that whistling a happy tune in such situations helps, that’s fine.
If she had given them the impression that her fear can easily overcome her, the king might take advantage of this. He might think she can easily be pressured to do things she might not wish to do. Better to give the impression to him that she is a force to be reckoned with in order for her to be in a stronger bargaining position. If this was her reasoning, then attempting to put off her feelings of anxiety until she can process them in private makes good sense.
As the movie continues, we soon learn that when Anna meets the king, he informs her that he has arranged for her to live in a room within his royal palace. Anna objects to this, explaining assertively that she accepted the teaching position in part because of a clearly stated condition in her contract indicating she must be provided a cottage off of the palace grounds.
Now, I won’t reveal the outcome of this conflict in case some of you haven’t seen the movie, but the issue of wanting a place separate from the palace serves for us a powerful metaphor for my next point. Anna requires a place where she can set up a boundary separating her work responsibilities from times when she can have some peace and quiet.
Likewise, all people need to put time aside to deal with their anxieties, frustrations, and griefs. Therefore, whistling a happy tune at times makes sense. In such cases, it is crucial to make sure you put aside some time to welcome some alone time so those fears are adequately addressed at a more convenient time.
Meditation, prior to breakfast and the evening meal each day, is an especially ideal habit to get into. You can learn a simple form of meditation for free by clicking 
When we meditate, we find a quiet place, thus eliminating outside distractions. This allows us to focus on our internal issues such as our stored up anxieties. A wonderful aspect of meditation is you end up discovering that you don’t have to try to work on your anxieties while meditating. Instead, each of them at various times during your meditation float up into your consciousness quite effortlessly, and when they do, your thought processes begin the work of tossing around plans to address them, also quite effortlessly. At some point, you end up selecting a promising approach to prepare for fearful situations.
Taking walks, especially in nature, is also ideal for working through our anxieties. It is also a wonderful way to keep your heart healthy.
Recently, I wrote a post titled, “The Nature of Anxiety” (see 
The point of view that I described is in stark contrast to the common view in our society that looks upon anxiety as a negative, destructive, “abnormal” experience, a symptom of mental illness, one which must be fought and if possible, drugged away and annihilated. Today, I make the case that the opposing view has something to do with misunderstanding the nature of guilt and responsibility. But before we get into all of that, let’s take a quick look at a little parable designed to be a helpful jumping off point for today’s topic.
Five-year-old Ken is playing in his family’s living room with his blocks while his seven-year-old sister, Jill, is working on a puzzle. Ken’s mom, comes in from the kitchen and says, “Ken, that’s a nice tower you are making with your blocks. Next week you start kindergarten. I heard they have a great set of blocks there.”
“There’s nothing to be scared about, Ken,” says his mom, “Don’t be a baby!”
Ken runs to his room. On his bed, tears stream down his cheeks. “I hate myself,” he cries out, feeling guilty for what he has been experiencing.
Of course, the answer depends on how you define anxiety. Here, consistent with many experts, anxiety is viewed as feeling fear about something that might happen in the future. Some people will use the words, “a sense of uneasiness” or “worry” to describe this feeling.
When we anticipate that we will be facing some event in the future that has the potential of harm, such as downhill skiing, it is possible to feel a wonderful exhilaration. This exhilaration occurs as long as our mind is focused on memories of when we were enjoying the experience and anticipating enjoying the experience once again. 
However, while thinking of this, if our mind drifts to the possibility of being harmed and we perceive that that harm could be significant, then the feeling of anxiety would accompany those thoughts.
Many people don’t make a clear distinction between experiencing anxiety, from such experiences as frustration, grief, being upset, depressed, or melancholy. They, therefore, may use these types of words rather interchangeably. There is some justification for doing so because when we look at specific examples of people having these types of experiences, we find that all of these challenging emotions can blend together, and it is not always easy to say which emotion is most apt for describing what is actually being experienced.
When seeking to understand anxiety, it is not only useful to know its definition, it is also crucial to know its function. What purpose does it serve for us human beings?
When we have managed to avoid working through a great many anxiety concerns, and we reach a point at which anxiety begins to burst into our consciousness even when we prefer to be dealing with something else, sometimes something strange happens. All of these concerns get so mixed up in our anxiety memory that they become a mishmash. This may result in our having the experience of anxiety, but we have difficulty pinpointing what we are anxious about. We might feel that we have become anxious about everything. We may experience a general sense of dread. In the writings by psychologists, they often refer to this as “free floating anxiety.” Its function remains the same, to motivate us to spend time addressing all of the concerns that have been stored up in our anxiety memory.
Some people, using a variety of strategies to desperately avoid dealing with these memories, can eventually have an experience sometimes referred to as an emotional breakdown. Today, psychiatrists typically prescribe drugs for this. Providing a place for rest and emotional support for working through all of the stored up anxiety was the main approach prior to the drug approach era. An extensive review of the available scientific evidence by
Daily meditation and walks are ideal activities to process our anxieties. Writing a journal about events that distress us can also produce heaps of rewards, for it lets one take a step back from what occurred as feelings are put into written form. Regularly discussing our concerns with a supportive friend or family member can also be of help. Sometimes it is better to discuss these issues with a supportive counselor because some of the issues that lead to anxiety may be less embarrassing when shared with a professional who has an ethical obligation of maintaining confidentiality. Professional counselors also often have knowledge that draws upon a variety of wisdom traditions to smooth out the processing of anxiety.
Ken’s mom yells at him for feeling fearful. She seeks to have him feel ashamed for having these feelings. His sister, joins in with the shaming.
To deal with his feelings, Ken goes to his room. There, while crying and feeling guilty, he experiences hating himself. Then he finds he can divert his attention from these feelings by playing an exciting video game.
Perhaps getting something to eat works to some degree as his mind focuses on the aroma and tastes of food, so he begins to eat in excess. As he gets older, he may find that alcohol and other drugs, at least initially, deadens these feelings. As tolerance of these drugs develop, he may have to do more and more of these drugs to get the same result. The side effects and negative health consequences make this approach less than ideal.
As I mentioned, the anxiety memory has, as one of its characteristics, a tendency, when time is not set aside to address concerns, to enter consciousness with stronger and stronger feelings. When these feelings can no longer be kept suppressed or avoided, Ken may go to a psychiatrist who will translate his experience into a language of symptoms of mental illness and then prescribe a medication. Today, many psychologists and counselors may also view his experiences as symptoms of a mental illness, but will spend most of their time listening in a caring manner.
“I was scared too before my first day,” says Pete’s sister, Nancy, “but it turned out that the teacher was really nice, and we did a lot of fun stuff, and I made lots of friends.”
“Some of the kids could start calling me names.”
“First, I called the kid a name back, but my teacher caught me and said I shouldn’t do that. So then, the next time it happened, I told the teacher. The trouble with that is the kids called me names for being a tattletale. So now I just ignore name calling.”
“You’re stupid,” says Pete.
So, Pete tried it, and first when he looked into his mother’s eyes, he did it in an angry way, so his mother pointed this out to him. “You want to show the name caller that you are not scared. When you glare at him the way you did, you look like you want to challenge the kid to a fight. That’s not going to be helpful for making friends. Try to make it look friendly-like. You want to show that you heard what was said, you are not afraid, you are friendly, and you are ready to move on with playing.”
“Now, Pete, there is a lot more to learn about name calling, so we can’t learn it all in one sitting. For example, when you look down, before you look into the name caller’s eyes, I want you to ask yourself, ‘Why is this guy calling me this name?’ When you do that, let’s say you know he did it because you accidentally pushed him. If it was an accident, what could you say?”
“There are a lot more skills to learn about handling name calling, like, sometimes kids like to call each other names in a fun, playful way, just kidding around. That needs to be handled in a different way. Sometimes some kid will be calling you names over and over again, acting like a bully. That has to be handled in another way. But for now, we’ll just practice the set of skills we just worked on today for a few minutes each day until you start kindergarten. If you ask the name caller the reason he or she did it, whatever the kid says, just do the looking into the eyes, nod, and continue with what you were doing plan, but remember what the kid said. When you get home, we’ll discuss what to do depending on what was said.”
After all, suppose he has to go to war, or he has some other dangerous job. In those situations, being afraid won’t be tolerated. But, if you talk to our greatest war heroes, you find that they were very fearful when they acted out their heroic deed. They will say things like,
Guilt has you punishing yourself while trying to distract yourself from your anxiety, and/or suppressing it with drugs. When you take responsibility for your actions, you permit yourself some time to mindfully experience the anxiety you are feeling in your body. You think about what you have done in the past that might have been a mistake. From here, you begin to think about what you can do to deal as best as you can with the situation that you thought of that prompted the anxiety. Then you practice the skills that may be helpful. That’s acting responsibly. Being guilty is just wasting your time punishing yourself.
Now, sometimes you feel anxious about something and after pausing to consider it, you may feel that you are helpless to really do anything about it. When this happens, does it make sense to avoid and suppress your anxious feelings? The answer, in my opinion, is no.
Now, sometimes we begin to feel anxious because we made a mistake that involves, not just ourselves, but other people with whom we interact. The fear comes from knowing that these other people are blaming us. We may also fear that when we interact with them, we will be rejected.
Those of us who have learned to suppress these feelings may try to put the blame on others for what happened. Perhaps there is some justification to think there is some shared responsibility in what had occurred. Is this the time to attack those who also made mistakes and seek to make them feel guilty?
Instead, I suggest modeling for the others what taking responsibility looks like. Thus, when you see them, consider making the following type of statement:
Now, of course, all of what I’ve been discussing takes time. If you are to adequately address your concerns, you might have to give up a few TV shows. Perhaps a social engagement where juicy gossiping occurs might have to be cut a little shorter. I say this fully understanding that people have come to enjoy all of the activities designed to distract them from responsibly addressing their anxiety. Nevertheless, I encourage you to devote several hours per week letting your mind dwell on all of those anxious issues that bubble up into your consciousness, for you will be far better having done so.
Well, recently I published a post titled, “The Nature of Depression and Melancholy” (see 
Depression and melancholy, as I explained more fully in 
This memory can be visualized as a bucket. When it is only slightly filled, each time the memory warns you that you have some work to do in order to deal with your various concerns, you can, if you so choose, easily put off dealing with them until a more convenient time by shifting your attention so you can carry out some other task.
As the concerns become more frequent, or feel more intense, some medical doctors, particularly psychiatrists, will be eager to classify your experience as a symptom of a mental disorder and prescribe drugs to deal with this. It is a lucrative business model, but in my opinion, this causes more harm than good. 
One way or another, concerns have to be addressed, and masking them with substances that have a variety of harmful side effects will only lead to more concerns in the long run.
We can visualize this as being born with either a large, average, or small concern memory bucket. For those who are born with a relatively large concern bucket, they can hold more concerns and larger, more serious concerns before their bucket begins to become filled than an average person. Thus, they can go for longer periods before they begin to have more and more difficulty shifting their attention away from their concerns. Others who are born with smaller buckets find that it takes less time than the average person for it to begin to fill up. Thus, even when facing relatively few and minor concerns than the average person, they nevertheless begin to have more and more difficulty shifting their attention away from their concerns.
For example, meditating once or twice a day provides an opportunity to spend time addressing concerns with little distractions. Although as we enter into meditation, we don’t do so with the intent to address concerns, they naturally bubble up from the relatively peaceful state, and our minds spend time working through our various concerns in a natural manner.
In today’s world, there are an incredible number of 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 in avoiding reaching what some have described as a nervous breakdown.
So, the six common characteristics of depression, melancholy, and anxiety I want to bring to your attention are, 1. the concern memory system serves as a warning sign, 2. we can delay attending to these warnings for a limited period of time, 3. when we put off dealing with our concerns, they don’t just go away, they come back again and again until they are adequately addressed, 4.despite our efforts at putting them off, as our concerns begin to accumulate without being fully addressed, it becomes harder to delay dealing with them, and our memory begins to remind us of them more frequently and more intensely, until we reach a point at which we must attend to them, like it or not, 5. people vary on how many and how serious their concerns must become before they no longer can divert their attention from their concerns, and 6. we can decrease the period of time before our concerns start to reach extremely frequent, strong, intense experiences by putting aside each day some time to reduce external distractions so we can more smoothly and comfortably address our concerns.
If we perceive a tiger rushing toward us, we would experience fear that would immediately fill up our concern bucket, and our attention would be completely on this event. During this time, you would not be thinking about what TV show you want to watch later that evening. Instead, your body would go into a state of flight or fight, your heart would be pounding, and adrenalin would begin to circulate in your blood, giving you added strength.
For example, observing a doctor coming toward you to give you an injection might produce just a mild degree of fear. At such time, you might decide to divert your attention to a pleasant image, and find you can do this.
For example, a woman might have plans to traverse a path in a jungle next week having heard that tigers have attacked people on that path. Each time she thinks about this, she is very likely to experience some fear.
After a hard day at work, Rob desires to get home so he can relax. As he is driving home, suddenly he hits a traffic jam, slowing his car almost to a stop. He initially experiences frustration. As he assesses the situation, he sees there is some road construction blocking one of the lanes. Then he sees that just up ahead, once cars pass the construction, traffic picks up to normal. This five-minute delay is no big deal, and his mind passes to some song playing on his radio.
Shanice desires to be viewed by her family as an excellent cook, and her family of four love that she takes charge of the evening meal. One day, as Shanice is working around her house, a concern arises within. She thinks to herself, “What should I make for supper?” When she can’t think of anything, she feels frustrated. Over the past few days, she has gone through her main classics, and now she doesn’t want to make something she views as “the same old, same old.”
Suddenly the phone rings, and because Shanice is in the midst of experiencing her frustration over this issue, she pauses before answering, thinking she wants to get her supper plans settled. But then she says, “I guess I could put this supper stuff off for a few minutes,” and she decides to answer her phone.
As Shanice flips through these recipes, her eyes fall upon one for sesame pasta. “Oh,” she says, “the last time I made this, everyone raved about it. I haven’t made it in a long time. I bet this might be a perfect choice, and she is now even more hopeful.”
Fred, an assistant manager in his firm, desires to get a promotion. When his annual review comes, it is excellent, and his hopes soar. One day the firms owner calls him into her office. He thinks to himself, “Maybe she’s going to tell me I’ve been promoted,” and once again his hope soars. Instead of a promotion, she fires Fred, explaining that the firm was just bought out by a big conglomerate, and they are bringing in their own personnel leadership.
It’s a month later. He is grieving because he has received rejection letters from two of the nearby firms. He also finds that when he wakes up every morning he has a bout of anxiety, fearing the letter carrier will bring another rejection letter.
Here we see an example of someone experiencing, during a period of months, strong feelings of hope, frustration, anxiety, grief, fear, and happiness. There are times Fred has trouble concentrating on the usual family matters and community obligations. Still, many of the important tasks of life that don’t involve looking for a job manages to get done by Fred. But, at one point, he does excuse himself so he can eliminate distractions, fully experience his emotions, and formulate some plans.
Janet has just graduated from a Mental Health Counseling masters program. She now has thousands of dollars in college loans, but her husband makes just enough money so their living expenses are just barely being met.
To prepare for the test, she pays for a set of computer based instructions, which also provides practice tests. The cost to take the test, and the instructional material has really stretched her budget to the ultimate limit.
In this example, if Janet was asked to describe her emotional experience during this period of her life, she may very well say that she was mainly feeling a great deal of anxiety. The combined fear of failing her test, having to take the test over, maybe failing it again, having a miscarriage or having a baby with serious medical problems, we can imagine, could have overshadowed her other emotions.
To understand the nature of anxiety, we must understand how it is related to four other emotional experiences. The above four examples seeks to help us see these relationships.
Now, when we have frustration along with grieving experiences or anxiety, many of us begin to insult ourselves. We might say, things like, “Why am I acting like a baby,” “I’m acting crazy,” “What an idiot I am,” “I’m mentally ill,” “I’m hopeless and helpless,” “This is a horrible experience, and it’s all my fault,” “I hate myself,” “I deserve to die,” etc. Those who go to war with themselves in this manner, add a whole additional serious concern to what they are already facing because people have an inherent desire to respect themselves. Creating the impression with these insulting attitudes that they are not worthy of respect frustrates this desire.
So, here we see two alternative experiences, one in which frustration and grieving gets mixed together with insulting, and one in which frustration and anxiety gets mixed together with insulting. When we experience frustration and grieving, and are also insulting ourselves, we might want to refer to this as depression.
As I pointed out in my post titled, “Depression and Melancholy,” melancholy offers us a third alternative.
Consider how musician and song writer Joni Mitchell described melancholy in her beautiful song, “Hijira.”
In melancholy, the person practices self-compassion and views the experiences of frustration, grieving, and anxiety as a natural helpful process we all must go through from time to time. 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, individuals in a melancholy state of being 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.
TV shows, movies, and politics portray people constantly blaming others in a hateful manner for all the problems that they see in the world. So, this style of dealing even with our own concerns is something that we pick up like mud on our shoes after strolling through an unpaved path after a storm.
Additionally, my three novels provide an entertaining way to learn to develop self respect (see 