9. Mar, 2017

Meaning matters

It’s always there nagging at me. Even as I sit here in the hairdressers trying desperately to improve my outward appearance, my inside feels bereft, ugly and soulless.

In fact, I get up and change seats so I don’t have to stare at my empty reflection in the mirror.

The voice is never kind. It tells me horrible things; so much so that a friend told me recently that no one would ever say to me what “mean Nicki” says.

With the complete absence of any self-love and self-compassion, I expectantly look to others to fill me with the love I can’t feel for myself.

It’s exceedingly hard work being a family member or friend to someone with depression because what they see is so different to what the person with mental illness believes.

Having someone tell you how fabulous you are is not the same as being able to recognize your own personal worth.

I get lost. I get caught up in the dialogue of the master manipulator that is my mind.

“You’re not worthy”, “you’re not attractive enough”, “and you’re never good enough”. And like a belittled, desperate and brainwashed cult recruit I get sucked into a tangled web of deceit, but the dark hole of depression is my oppressor.

Darkness descends then darkness transcends and as it does so it eclipses colour, movement, light, love and contentment.

It’s easy to fall prey to its power, especially when life stacks challenges and hurdles on you like they are Lego bricks.

I am reminded of a powerful verse I recently read from the book “Man’s Search for Meaning” by acclaimed psychiatrist Viktor Frankl. He wrote, “The salvation of man is through love and in love”. On reading that I realized that it is not only our love for others that will assist in saving us when being buffeted about by the storm of depression, but also in our love for ourselves.

Frankl spent three years imprisoned in various concentration camps during WWII. He wrote that through enduring his own suffering and witnessing the suffering of others “the prisoner who had lost faith in the future – his future – was doomed.”

And that is why the disease of depression is such a threat to our very existence…because it eliminates hope!

It steals your courage and convictions and your faith for a healthier and happier future by leading you to believe horrendous, shocking and soul-destroying lies about yourself. It is toxic, loathsome and immensely difficult to conquer - but not impossible.

Frankl believed that if you can hold on to meaning, then you can survive even the worst hardship.

And as for me…well…I can’t even begin to compare my suffering with Frankl’s, but I think it is all too easy to spend our days looking far and wide for a greater purpose that we assume will give our lives real meaning, but while we are looking outward searching for what often are illusions, we forget to look within our hearts and minds and we fail to truly recognize what or who really matters in our lives.