When was the last existential moment that you remember that you were you?
Weird and awkwardly worded question, eh?
This is a question that I find myself asking when I sit with someone who struggles with depressive thought patterns or is going through a difficult storm. Most of the time, when we go deep into the darkness, we begin to lose touch with who we are and our place in our world. We stop certain things that we once enjoyed about life. Laughter just doesn’t feel right anymore…. Sunshine just doesn’t feel so warm… And when joy comes around for others, it’s almost like the angel of death; but instead of taking us, it leaves us behind feeling numb and alone in the midst of people who we might even begin to resent for being so darn happy.
Depression is no walk in the park. It’s a slow dredge through what feels like an unending marsh.
Imagine for moment you’ve been struggling with that big black dog everyone is talking about, feeling out of touch with everyone you know and suddenly you are caught off guard with a memory.
A memory that you remember knowing that you were you.
Can you picture it? Can you describe the setting? Do you remember what your senses were telling you? Did you feel something? Were there any people in your life who you did feel any sort of connection with?
More often than not, the answer is no… that is until we really start digging around in the memory bank. And then suddenly a flood of memories come. Some pleasant, others difficult… and a few of them bringing some sort of meaning (or confusion) of how we got to the place we ended up presently.
And I think that somewhere along the line, many of us have lost touch with that person who we knew before.
The good news in all of this is that I don’t think that person ever really goes away.
They just hide. And sometimes they are really, really good at hiding…
One of the most rewarding aspects of my role as a psychotherapist is to help folks play this game of hide and seek with themselves. Why play this game? Because in order to figure out who we are, we need to remember who we were as the staring point on our healing journey.
Light hearted? Sometimes. Difficult? Absolutely!. Deep and rewarding? That's why I became a therapist.
If you are reading this and you're feeling that you've lost touch with that person, it might be time to give your friendly neighbourhood psychotherapist a call. Feel free to surf over to the contact section of my website and even if you aren’t local, I might be able to connect you with a therapist closer to home for you.
Until Next Time,