Depression: When Darkness Comes Over Us

Depression is a pain that grips us and becomes our shadow. Many times it comes with a dangerous friend: anxiety. They generate fear within us and darken our emotions. They create harmful thoughts and undermine our self-concept, which creates problems for our self-esteem.

Our mood depends a lot on what we say to ourselves and how we behave. In other words , our thoughts, feelings and actions are involved in a form of feedback. In a way, this dictates our well-being.

As we will now see, it is unusual to maintain a healthy state of mind at all times. Anxiety and depression are not the only consequences of having a pattern of harmful thoughts, feelings and behaviors. There are several different degrees of problems and diseases that can occur.

The bus metaphor

There is a metaphor that is very well used in contextual therapy. It can help us understand the importance of the personality triangle that makes up our thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. Let’s take a closer look at this:

Imagine that you are driving a bus filled with many passengers. The passengers are thoughts, feelings, memories and everything you have experienced in life. It is a bus with a single door. Some of the passengers look very dangerous.

When you drive the bus, some of the passengers start threatening you. They start telling you what to do, where to go. Now turn right, drive faster, etc. They also insult you. You are a bad driver, a failure, no one loves you… You feel terrible and you do almost everything they ask for so that they should be quiet. Just so they can get back on the bus for a while and let you drive in peace.

One day you get tired of their threats and want to throw them all off the bus. But you can not. So you confront them. Without realizing it, the first thing you do is stop the bus. Now it’s not going anywhere. And the passengers are also very strong. They resist and you can not get them off the bus. So you give up, you go back to your place and drive where they want to be satisfied.

So that they do not disturb you and so that you do not feel bad, start doing everything they ask for. You drive the bus where they want so you do not have to mess with them or even look at them. You do what they say and faster every time, and you think about how to get them out of your life. Very soon, without you even noticing, they do not even have to tell you to turn left. You will turn left to avoid the passengers throwing themselves at you and threatening you.

This way, it will not take long before you start justifying your actions. You start to think that they are no longer on the bus. You are trying to convince yourself that you are driving the bus along the only possible road available. The power of these passengers is based on threats. “If you do not do as we say, we will come forward and make you look at us and make you feel bad.” But that’s all they can do.

It is true that when these passengers arrive, very negative thoughts and feelings, it seems that they can do a lot of damage. And therefore you accept their way and do what they want you to do. You do all this to keep them safe. To get them to go back into the bus where you can not see them. 

To keep your passengers under control, you have actually lost control of the bus! They do not steer and they do not have control over the brakes. They also do not control where your bus stops. You’re the driver. Do not let your passengers make these decisions for you.

We must be aware of the fact that these problems are not easy to deal with. Nor is it a sign of weakness. Therefore, we should always keep in mind the following points about depression and anxiety:

• They do not define us.
• They should not be seen as wrong with us.
• They must be understood based on the relationship we establish.

We should remove the concept of people with anxiety and depression problems as vulnerable and weak individuals. We must stop thinking that we are the culprits.

People who have these problems require care and understanding. They require an opportunity to contact professional help so that they can deal with these emotions that haunt them.