The Round Table

At the head of the round table sits the wise one.  She is brave, strong, beautiful, smart…everything I wish to believe about myself.  At her right hand sits the logical one.  She knows that logically I could have all of those qualities, but she has some issues of her own.  

The logical one knows facts, but she also sits next to the anxious one who is constantly going on about how, in the right conditions, lots of things can be logical.  The logical one acknowledges that there is some logic in the anxious one’s reasoning, but this leads to the logical one making some bad calls for me sometimes.  

For example, she may logic that I am smart, but the anxious one knows that I am not the smartest.  They present this logic to the logical one, who confirms that is probably true.  Then the anxious one gets confirmation that the logic behind the anxiety is legitimate and begins to worry even more about how dumb I will feel if I am in a room with other smart people. 

On the flip side of that though, the logical one can also logic things like “everyone has value”, and she can further that thought by logicing that me, being a part of everyone, also has value of some kind.

This is how I began to come out of one of my many depression slumps.  I had had many slumps before, and have still had a lot of slumps since.  The difference in the slumps since then though has been that I have unlocked the equation…if everyone=valuable, and me=everyone, then me=valuable.  Every time I would go into my slump, I would do my automatic shut down and isolate routine, but I was also getting a little more fed up with my situation each time as well. 

Speaking of depression, to the left of the wise one sits the caring one.  She is emotional and kind and cares about everyone and everything.  Unfortunately for me, she cares about everyone else and everything else a little bit more than she does me.  She sits next to the lonely one.  The lonely one feels like we’ve been abandoned by a lot of people over the years and reminds her that I must not be worth caring about.  They know the caring one cares about them though, so they cling to her and feed her their ideas.  

Across from the wise one sits the responsible one.  You would think they would be a pretty good one, right? Taking responsibility for actions and decisions and outcomes is a very emotionally mature act.  But the responsible one is a little too on point.  They believe I and therefore we are responsible for everything…..like everything.  They whisper into the lonely one’s ear that we are responsible for everyone that has left us feeling this way.  They shout at the anxious one that we are doing everything wrong and we are responsible for any outcome that I have involved myself in regardless of the circumstances. Like that time I happened to be present when my grandma passed away from cancer, and I had been trying to wake her up from her naps because I felt like something was wrong.  Obviously I was responsible for her dying, they scream. 

As you can imagine, this is very distressing for anxiety who explains to the logical one that this must be true because the equation me=responsible for everything is true.  The lonely one takes this news in stride because they already know we are responsible for everyone leaving.  So they just give a nice little reminder of that to the caring one who cares about everyone who has ever left.  This all contributes to another slump.  

So what do I do?  Like I said, there was a little fed up piece.  A piece that had been shoved down and excluded because the caring one cares too much to risk hurting someone by being angry, and the lonely one feels like no one would care about us being angry, and the logical one knows that being angry is not a productive feeling, and the anxious one fears the reactions of anyone who I may be angry with.  But it is still there, that piece, and it has been growing.  The wise one has been feeding scraps to it underneath the table this whole time. 

She remembers the equation. If everyone=valuable, and fed up piece=everyone, then fed up piece=valuable.  The only uncertainty is what kind of value it holds.

I think the fed up piece is most valuable when I am in a depression slump.  It is absolutely fed up with feeling worthless, feeling abandoned, feeling stupid and weak.  With the energy it gets from the table scraps, it rises above the table and yells.  It doesn’t have to be this way.  It knows something the others do not.  It knows that multiple conflicting things can feel and/or be true at the same time.  It knows that if everyone in the room=smart, then me=probably not the smartest, and me=still pretty smart can both be true.  If two opposing things can be true, then it can be true that I feel responsible for my grandma dying, and also true that I am not responsible.  If two opposing things can be true, then me feeling worthless and depressed is true, and me being valuable and capable of not being depressed is also true.  

Wise one

Logical one      Caring one

Anxious one                        Lonely one

Responsible one