Does Depression Take Away Awareness Too? (WE-48)
But what does awareness have to do with the mind?
Depression can be defined as a lack of vitality. Lack of aliveness.
Depression takes away everything that makes us a human being, and turns us into zombies, no?
But, does depression take away our ability to be aware as well?
It feels like too much of any emotion or a complete lack of it makes it nearly impossible for 'me' to be aware of it.
Although, this does not make complete sense in the case of awareness.
What has ‘awareness’ to do with emotions? Awareness does not originate from the mind, right?
But, some neuroscientists, like Jaak Panksepp, have said-:
"Emotions are the foundation of consciousness, not the other way around."
So there is a possibility that the mind can cloud the awareness, right? Like the stones at the bottom of the river are not visible when the flow of the water is turbulent.
So, when the mind is agitated or depressed or angry or melancholy it will naturally be difficult to be aware, right?
But I've heard some Masters/Teachers say that it is possible to be completely aware even when one is depressed or agitated.
Here is what Jon Kabat-Zinn had said-:
"When you’re depressed, you don’t need to add anything extra. You need to learn to allow things to be as they are without trying to push them away."
Pema Chödrön-:
"Rather than letting our negativity get the better of us, we could acknowledge that right now we feel like a piece of shit and not be squeamish about taking a good look."
And Thich Nhat Hanh-:
Life is both dreadful and wonderful...How can I smile when I am filled with so much sorrow? It is natural--you need to smile to your sorrow because you are more than your sorrow.
But it’s so difficult to practise, right?
What my personal experience says
My personal experience says otherwise.
I went through the D phase twice in my life. And each lasted for four to six months. It was intense.
Forget about being aware, I found it difficult to even figure out what is happening to me. What's more interesting was when the D phase came for the second time.
I still could not figure out what was happening to me although I had experienced something similar before.
How can someone expect me to meditate when my emotional and mental life is falling apart?
Just making it through the day somehow and getting to sleep feels like a battle won. Meditation or mindfulness never crossed my mind.
How can a person starving to death think of meditating? Depression is like dying of starvation, right?
What does your experience say
Were you able to practice mindfulness when angry or depressed, fellow Explorers?
Or, like me, you were depressed about being depressed and felt like doing nothing but just lying in bed all the time?
Dissociation becomes such an on-going part of the experience while dealing with depression so yes I can relate to this - in those moments it felt like it took away awareness too
I think you can be mindful of your depressed state if you are willing to engage it and not expect to be something other than what you are at that time. My experience is that I am usually hyper-aware if that makes sense, but not happy about it. Of course, you wish to not be depressed so the tendency is to try to move yourself out of that state and that would definitely interfere with your acceptance, your mindfulness of the moment. If only there were a way to take the negative label off I think that would help. Getting the help you need and allowing yourself time to heal can make it easier to accept. Thank you for sharing this.