Strategies for the Mind
Depression speaks to the nonverbal part of ourselves, whether we refer to this as the subconscious, the younger self, the id, or by some other term. Depression drains out the hope and the optimism along with the energy, making it easier to drop the ball and harder to recover emotionally from social gaffes and recriminating self-talk. We reinforce expectations of the worst case, fulfilling our own prophecies. “'Fake it ‘til you make it' has effectiveness,” Sarah W. believes. “It’s not blase, it's communicating to your subconscious. Your emotions will catch up if you act the way you want to be acting.” In effect, we are asking our conscious mind to lead by example if we “fake it,” to go through the motions of an ideal day to train that part of the soul to expect that things are changing.
Approaches to managing depression can include anything with personal resonance, says Sarah W. Breathing techniques are a go-to for regulating mood, but she also suggests purification using a familiar practice rather than trying something new, if possible. Trusting what’s familiar is worthwhile, because while the spiritual aspect will work regardless of one’s mindset, “the psychological tends to be personal.”
Shame is one of the ways that depression preserves itself. The emotion is one we recoil from or avoid, the same way that someone with a bad knee recoils from or avoids putting too much weight on that leg. Pain is a warning that something is wrong, and just avoiding the tender part isn’t necessarily going to heal it. “To stop judging yourself and start seeing yourself as you are, you’ll need to develop your curiosity. If you are curious about what you feel, what you think, and how you behave, you are more likely to view yourself objectively and less likely to judge yourself unkindly.” 36 Since it’s being used as a defense mechanism, the sense of shame may even increase under the scrutiny of curiosity, but anyone who is strong enough to live under the thumb of depression is more than up to the task of enduring a short-term backlash. I find that on difficult days it helps me to remind myself that even though the source of my challenges seems untiring, I remain in control of how I see the world. It is my curiosity about the source of my feelings that proves that this is true, because the only illegitimate feeling is one that comes from an external source, like depression. The emotional response in the form of shame is supposed to push me away, and that means I’m on the right track.
Tracking Mood
The reason why it’s valuable to track one’s mood is because human memory is not like a computer’s. Our brains do not record events in a way that most of us can replay as we might a video recorder. Rather, when we key into a particular moment, we reconstruct what happened based on past history and context, among other cues.37 It’s similar to how we process visual information, which also relies heavily on filling in gaps based on existing patterns. That works well enough most of the time, but during periods of depression, we are already predisposed to emphasizing the negative over the positive. The result is that we tend to forget moments of happiness and joy, because they don’t fit the narrative of constant misery.
Mood trackers can be as simple as a memo pad or as robust as a full-featured mood journal app for a smartphone. All one needs to do is jot down the first emotion that comes to mind, along with the date and time. A mood tracker can disprove notions of not having any emotions, or that you only experience the negative ones; over time, it can also show patterns of mood that can be broken by changing up routine. Tracking several times a day is more helpful than just once, because moods change over time. This tool is only effective if it’s used, which is why I recommend setting several daily reminders just to log those emotions. I picked a time in the mid-morning, one in the early afternoon, and a third sometime in the evening. I also try to log my mood first thing when I wake up, and just before retiring for the night. Each reminder might only take moments to get the mood recorded.
Tracking mood is also an opportunity to do an emotional self-check. Depression can sneak up on a person, Sarah W. has found, even after a lifetime of living with the condition. She has learned to recognize the signs in herself. “When I stop listening to music,” is one. “It’s important to me … I connect to emotional and spiritual stuff through it. That’s not good, when it doesn’t feel like it means anything.” Some mood log apps include spots to record other information, like diet and medications, activities, weather, and more. Identify patterns and it may be possible to name depression more quickly.
Keeping a Journal
Tracking mood alone is keeping a very simple form of journal, but once you’re in that habit, you can expand it; this is an opportunity to process some of those emotions using a keyboard or pen.
EXERCISE 
In order for a journal to be a useful tool, you need to trust that whatever you write won’t be used against you. Otherwise, you may hold back and miss out on the potential for healing and growth that should be available. Whether you write entries on paper, save them in a file on a computer, or post them to a blog, these words are intended to be private and it’s okay to protect them. Here are some suggestions:
- Silence: If no one knows that you keep a journal, no one is going to look for it. Keeping silent about the existence of your journal is a simple form of protection, but it’s only easy if you can keep a secret.
- Letters: If you know a different form of writing, use it. This could be a language like Tagalog, different letters like the Theban script, a technical system like the international phonetic alphabet, or an ancient writing system such as ogham that’s been transliterated into the English alphabet. I remember meeting a senior citizen once who took notes in shorthand years after retirement, not because it’s faster, but because no one else could decipher them. If it’s something you will not forget how to read, consider using it. This may be only a thin layer of protection, if the people who share your home also share your background or interests.
- Safekeeping: You can store your journal in a file cabinet, lock-box, or safe for which only you have the key. Add symbols of invisibility or protection inside the container to give the lock a boost. If your journal is electronic, learn how to make strong passwords and look into using a password manager app so you don’t have to memorize it.
- Warning: You can make it plain that reading your journal has consequences. “You who hold this book, beware: if you did not write the words within, then you bring harm to the writer and our relationship by reading any further. If you violate this sacred trust, what comes next will be entirely your responsibility.” I put this inside the cover because I try to keep silent about my journal.
- Misdirection: Don’t put your moods or intimate thoughts in a leather-bound tome with the word “journal” embossed on the cover. Instead, make it look like something much less interesting, like an algebra notebook or business travel deductions. What’s boring does not generate curiosity.
- Honesty: Tell the people who might come across this book that it is your journal, and that you use it to process emotions. It’s not secret, but it is private, because you are not ready to share these thoughts with other people yet. This is a good move if you’re unlikely to be able to keep your journal a secret or hidden from them. Ask them to respect your healing process.
- Spellfire: An alternative approach used by one of my early teachers was to write out a spell on the inside cover, one that called upon the universe—for the good of all and according to the free will of all—to protect this book by taking all the harm that might befall you if someone were to read the book, and have it befall the reader instead. The next step, I recall my teacher explaining, was to “tell everyone about the spell.”
Medication
I’ve touched upon prescription medication within “Your Relationship with Depression,” in part one of this book, but it’s worth rehashing just a bit. Psych medications alter brain chemistry. They are powerful tools, which may open up doors to healing never imagined possible. These drugs also have a variety of potential side effects, including changes to psychic perception. The right “med for your head” is life-changing, because it will allow the patient to get to a point where healing is finally possible. Unfortunately, medicine isn’t advanced enough for doctors to be able to guarantee that the first one tried is going to do the trick. If it’s been suggested to you that a doctor-supervised medication should be part of your treatment plan for depression, take that advice seriously. Ask about potential side effects of the drug you’re being asked to take. Understand how long it will take to know if it’s helping, and commit to tracking your moods to keep a more objective measure of any changes. If you agree to take a prescription drug for depression, don’t alter the dose or stop taking it without talking to your doctor first—changing a drug like this is a time when the patient should be under close supervision.
“Medication is a tricky subject,” said Raven Kaldera. “I never tell a client to go off their meds in favor of my [shamanic] ceremonies. If dissatisfaction with their provider comes up in the reading or the counseling session, I might encourage them to find someone they like better. If they are having trouble with their meds, I encourage them to talk to their provider, and perhaps find a more responsive one. If it comes up in a reading that medication would do them good, I start by asking them how they feel about it, rather than giving it as advice. If they are resistant, I might ask, 'What would you do if you learned that this definitely had a strong chemical component? I’m not saying I’m sure that’s so, I’m just asking what you’d do,’ and go from there.”
Joshua Tenpenny was first given a prescription at the age of fifteen, but the doctor didn’t warn that it could have sexual side effects—because it was assumed a teenager wouldn’t be sexually active. After some failed attempts, Tenpenny was prescribed a medicine that has worked well, and has become an important part of how the condition is managed. “I get lots of advice, but without the meds none of it worked. On meds, I try and they work. I need to do the things, I can do the things, and they help.”
Medication is intended to treat the brain and body, but side effects can bleed over into the non-physical aspects of self. “The shamans in our tradition, as well as spirit-workers in other traditions, have exchanged a fair amount of hard-won information about what psychiatric medications do to innate psychic gifts,” said Kaldera. “The general consensus, after some personal experiences and some observed ones, is that while some meds may cut down on psychic sensitivity at first for some people, if it’s a good med for your head, psychic gifts will slowly return over a period of half a year or so. This means that if you’ve been on a med for more than a year and your gifts are still blocked, your body is not happy with that med, and you should look into that for many reasons, but telling a newly-medicated client that the potential blockage is normal, and might just pass with time, can be very helpful.”
In addition to side effects, not every drug is going to be useful in the long run. “In my work as a mental health therapist, I’ve noticed that sometimes people experience very encouraging initial results with medications, only to have those taper off and become more moderate as the body adjusts,” Anthony Rella said. “This is particularly painful for those who see a glimpse of a life that the sufferer couldn’t have imagined before, and allow themselves to hope, only to feel crushed when things even out.” Adjusting to a new medication is a time when it might be particularly useful to track one’s moods throughout the day, so that these data can be shared with a therapist or psychiatrist. Memory of one’s own moods is not to be trusted, and writing it down in the moment yields a more useful record.
Prescription drugs can mean the difference between life and death—or between life and a shadow of life—if the medicine is a good fit. Not everyone is going to be comfortable taking a pill, and not everyone who does will find the best match on the first try because there’s a lot we still do not know about how these pills even work. This is an important decision, one that should be made with as much information as possible, and ideally while consulting with family members or trusted loved ones.
JOURNAL EXERCISE 
You’ll need to set a series of reminders for this exercise. If you have a phone or other personal device that supports multiple alarms, then before bed set thirteen reminders for tomorrow. Space them out during the time you should be awake, and schedule them for oddball times like 10:54 and 3:27. If you only have a simpler system like a basic alarm clock or a kitchen timer, each time it goes off restart it to sound again in 36 minutes, until you’ve reached 13 times total; increase or decrease that 36 minutes to make sure you’ll be awake each time it goes off.
Keep your journal within reach for the entire day. When the alert sounds, name the first emotion that comes to mind and write it down, along with the time. Do not second-guess your answer: write down the very first emotion that comes into your mind, and close your journal.
This will give you a clearer picture of how you felt throughout the day.