Picture this:
Sicility, 1928.
Kidding. But I appreciate those of you who get the reference.
Altoona, Pennsylvania - 2005.
I was 28 years old, working three jobs, and managing a household alone, as my partner at the time was stationed in Kuwait for the entire year.
I’d been battling depression on and off for years by this point, though I'd not been formally diagnosed yet.
I managed to get out of bed every day, and take a shower and brush my teeth. I didn't function at a high level, but I showed up for life. I had periods of melancholy that sometimes lasted for two weeks; sometimes for two months. All along though, I kept showing up and doing the bare minimum.
But I struggled to maintain any type of focus. At tthis point in my life, I'd already started and left two different graduate programs in two different fields. I told myself that the reasons were external - life was getting in the way, I wasn't a good enough writer, I didn't like New Mexico (my second graduate program), yada, yada, yada.
You tell yourself a lot of things when you're depressed. But you don’t realize - you can’t see - you can’t fully understand that depression lies.
I was, and still am, a victim of analysis paralysis, especially when I'm depressed - I will analyze something to the bones and become so exhausted by my thoughts that I can’t take any action. I will follow this thought pattern all day long. For days, for weeks - for years.
It was around this time in my life though, that I was working with a trusted therapist, and she asked me directly if I would consider taking medication for my depression.
“It’s just a funk,” I said.
“How’s that working for you?” she asked.
I’m managing.
She asked a second time.
"And how's that working for you?"
It wasn't a complicated question. I hemmed and hawed. "I'm managing," I said, again.
She looked at me, and in the heavy silence that hung between us, I finally came face to face with a truth I’d been avoiding for so many years.
"It's not."
The words came out of my mouth before I had a chance to filter them. I tried to back track but there was no point. I'd answered the question honestly. I was closing in on 30 years old and doing none of the things I wanted to be doing in my life or with my life. I had to admit that my approach wasn't working.
But those two words - that shockingly stark truth finally opened the door for me to make the change I needed.
In the case of treating my depression, it meant trying medication, which was a difficult process in and of itself. You try one, and four weeks later find it's not working, so you try another. Eventually I found the right one, and I believe for me, the medication helped get me to a better, more focused place.* Within six months, I'd quit my job, moved from Pennsylvania to Boston, and within a year, I'd enrolled in a graduate program that was the right fit for me. And I finished it.
This question has come up again in part of my training for my Precision Nutrition Certification, because it's so valuable. It’s disarming. I found that I couldn’t answer this question from an intellectual perspective. I couldn't talk about what I was thinking. I had to say what was actually happening.
What I was feeling.
So my proposal for you today is to ask this question of yourself about an area that you're thinking about changing in your life.
You've gone paleo.
How's that working for you?
You're on a juice cleanse.
How's that working for you?
For me this question highlighted what wasn't working for me. But it might also highlight what IS working for you.
I started eliminating screen time for two hours leading up to bed.
How's that working for you?
Great! I find that I'm falling asleep faster than I did before that.
Maybe it's good. Maybe it's not. But either way, the question is worth asking, whether it's about nutrition, or fitness, or some other aspect of your life.
*I could write an entire post on my battle with depression, and I know so many others who could as well. Medication works for some, not for others. My main point here is that I made the change I needed for me.