Last week, I did a piece called "The Bottom of the Well," which was an allegorical story about the effect that a mental illness, specifically depression, can have on relationships. Up until the death of beloved comedian Robin Williams, depression has often been overlooked due to the fact that it mimics other emotions almost perfectly. It differs vastly from your everyday dose of the blues, but many people do not recognize that. In fact, it can even lead to people going undiagnosed for long periods of time.
Let's start with the biological chemistry of depression. This mental illness is linked to low levels of the neurotransmitters dopamine, norepinephrine, and serotonin, although it is hard to pinpoint or measure neurotransmitters. Part of the reason that I believe that many prescribed antidepressants do not work the same for everyone (and why some do not work at all) is that they target the wrong neurotransmitters. Dopamine is directly involved in the sense of pleasure as well as other senses such as movement, motivation, and reward; norepinephrine helps direct how our bodies respond to stressful situations; serotonin is involved in regulating a whole host of physiological activities such as eating, sleeping, aggression, sex, and mood. Insufficient levels of any of these are contributors to the chemical imbalances that may cause the kind of depression that is hard to bounce back from without medical intervention. That is why it is not best to ignore someone with the symptoms of depression or tell them to "just get over it." Think of it this way: if your brain controls everything you do and messes up, what is left to convince it to get things right?
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The symptoms of clinical depression, otherwise known as major depressive disorder, can vary, but in general, it is defined as an overwhelming feeling of sadness and hopelessness that persists for longer than two weeks. Individuals who have suffered from this form of depression for a long time may learn to adapt and not exhibit it while still feeling the effects. In fact, studies have shown that many sufferers of clinical depression tend to be much more sociable, genuine (ironically), and may seem visibly happier (also ironically). They may enjoy making others laugh and go out of their way to do things for other people, sometimes at the risk of their own emotional health. This is primarily due to a sense of enhanced empathy in which the individual fears that someone else may be suffering as they do and try not to have that happen. This explains why much of the time when a person suffering from depression is driven to suicide, it seems to come out of nowhere. It was lingering all along behind that seemingly unbroken smile. The mental strain that comes along with depression and these enhanced feelings of empathy may be intensified when combined with any of the forms of anxiety. It is actually very common for people with longstanding depression to also develop social anxiety. Consider then the concept of a well: dark and deep, with a chance of never escaping.
Now how does this translate into relationships? Consider the example of the individual at the bottom of the well - the well-dweller - who is always looking up at the sky from the bottom. A depressive person is aware of happy things but is unable to respond to them genuinely in the same way that the person at the bottom of the well can see the outside world but cannot experience it. Just then, another person comes by and looks into the well: a helper. The well-dweller calls out for help. When entering relationships (if he or she feels confident enough to enter them at all), a depressed person may become emotionally dependent on an individual with whom they build a connection, whether this connection is platonic or romantic. They may eventually expect this person to become some sort of salvation, or that person may offer to take that role. The well-dweller asks a total of three times for assistance, and each aid given is symbolic of the treatment given to those suffering from clinical depression.
The first is that the helper tells the well-dweller to climb up the sides of the well. This is akin to someone telling a depressed person to "get over it." He or she is told that the situation is not as bad as it may seem from the perspective of the individual who is not in the well. A person who is not suffering from mental illness may not understand that the sufferer is already aware of the situation but is unable to respond to it due to the illness.
The second is that the helper lowers a rope into the well; the well-dweller then comments that he or she is unable to climb it. This is representative of one who prompts the depressed individual to enter situations that, while intended to help, may actually aggravate the condition. It may seem as though forcing the sufferer into "happier" situations may change the circumstaces, but this is not always the case. When it does not work, the helper may become unhappy and belligerent.
The third is that the helper tells a story about how he or she, too, had once been in the well and tries to persuade the well-dweller that the outside world is much nicer than the conditions in the well. The well-dweller is happy to hear this, but asks for help another time. This represents when others try to empathize directly with a sufferer by using the sentence "I know how you feel." As individuals, we can never truly know how each person feels, and when mental illness is involved, especially one that masks itself as a common emotion, it can be nearly impossible. In fact, it can make the situation worse. It does not take into consideration what the sufferer has already been through, as the end of the story illustrates.
At the end, after the helper has left, the well-dweller reveals that he or she has already tried so hard to escape the well that his or her limbs are worn down, having made it impossible to get out by any of the means given by the helper; the helper's inability to see into the well causes them to misconstrue the situation. For many who suffer from depression and/or anxiety, they find ways to cope and often desperately try to make themselves feel better, only to bear witness as their interests fade into apathy and their well-beings slowly disintegrate. They struggle to maintain relationships with family, friends, and/or significant others, but this inability of others to comprehend and sympathize correctly can wear them down and make them feel as though their illness is a burden more to others than even to themselves. We sit at the bottom of that well, unable to do anything but enjoy the colors of the distant sky, and blame ourselves for not being able to reach out properly to others or get ourselves out of that well, regardless of whether or not we can. Some of us might even blame our helpers.
Overall, we struggle to survive, and those who enter relationships with others who suffer from this form of mental illness must take these things into account. If you wish to help someone out of that well, it might take more than standing on the outside: you might have to get down into that well and pull them out. For us, it might take climbing up on our stumps. All we know is that when the storm comes, we do not want to continue sitting at the bottom of that well.
