What do you do when someone you love doesn’t want to live? When they hate living? When they don’t love themselves? When the pressure of life is too heavy? It’s something we don’t talk about enough. We learn in school the most random things, but we never touch on the subject of how to handle our emotions. How to process them. Why don’t we talk about it more? We live in a masculine society where it isn’t appropriate to express emotion, where it is looked down upon to cry, where we have to stay strong. Who are we staying strong for if the entire world is broken? We all feel the same emotions, yet we cover them up to look like we have it all together. We have to keep the role of the parent, the older sister, the business owner, the teacher, the leader.
Depression is one of those subjects that really suck to talk about, because the pain is so deep. Second hand depression is like second hand smoking. You're not the one experiencing it, but it affects you just as badly. To see someone sleep all day, to not be able to do anything about it, to have no control or influence over how she feels, to watch her hit rock bottom. She has no motivation to leave her bed. She doesn’t see the point in living. She feels hopeless. She doesn’t feel worthy. She doesn’t feel accomplished. Yet she doesn’t do enough activity to experience positive emotions. She doesn’t know what makes her happy anymore. She never puts herself in situations to meet people giving her loving feelings. She never tries anything new to give herself positive feelings. She has no energy to workout. It’s a crazy spiral of one thing leading to another while the medication numbs her emotion to keep her dependent on the external. Keeps her from processing the emotion. Keeps her from really tackling the source of the sadness. No questions asked. Just a pill in hand. Why is this the common practice? Why isn’t there more? Why does it stop here? Maybe a pill is necessary and helpful for a while, but at some point, there has to be more. At some point there has to be another way. Maybe it’s a therapist, maybe it’s a coach, maybe it’s a discovery of a passion through a circumstance, maybe it’s an internal conversation during a 10 day meditation, maybe it’s an experience through repeated body movement, maybe it’s a forced trek up a mountain top for days on end fueling intense physical movement.
Part of the reason I coach is to help women overcome this intense lifeless spiral. I am a product of second hand depression which has fueled this course in life. I love helping women step into their purpose and get in touch with intuition, but I am deeply fueled by the pain in the dark depth of the feminine, the hurt that isn’t spoken about. You are seen. I see you. I am walking with you. You aren’t alone.