When You Have the World at Your Feet - REBT and feeling OK

Delilah Types shares some thoughts about depression. It was prompted by recent media reports about swim Olympian Grant Hackett and his ongoing struggle with his mental health. 'Delilah' has had her own challenges which she has shared with us in her blog.

Some reports seem to express surprise that someone so talented and gifted and who presumably has substantial material wealth could possibly fall victim to depression. Others will say that depression will strike anyone any time no matter what their personal circumstances, material or otherwise. When the world is (seemingly) at their feet!

Dr. Albert Ellis (creator of Rational Emotive Behaviour Therapy) said that as constructivists we actively create our own habits of thinking. He maintains that our personal beliefs (knowledge) about ourselves, others and life (our personal philosophies) in general will affect how we respond emotionally and behaviourally to challenging events.

If we accept this theory then we can argue that any 2 people who have e.g. performed badly at a job interview, will experience the situation differently.

Event:

Poor interview performance

Thinking reaction:

Person 1: That was a shit interview. I'm a hopeless twat. What's the point!

Person 2: That didn't go so well. I may have to lift my game. Back to the drawing board.

Feelings/behaviour reaction:

Person 1: Depressed, angry and ashamed - excessive drinking, self harming

Person 2: Disappointed, annoyed - life as usual, review past performance and refine, fine tune

The same event is experienced differently by these two people. Why? Because they have constructed different 'belief rules,'  i.e. personal philosophies that are linked to how they feel and how they behave in response to life's happenings.

I don't know Grant Hackett but I can suggest an explanation as to why he may be feeling depressed and angry according to REBT.

He has been conditioned from an early age to hone and develop his athletic capacities to an elite level. He has learnt that his worth is linked to his and others high expectations of him. He has learnt to expect nothing less than his best times and performances and he believes that people rely on his prowess and achievements to feel good about themselves. He doesn't want to let them down. Their view of him becomes his main motivation for his drive to be consistently excellent. He doesn't just desire others approval he needs it. He will as a fallible human being fall short of his own high expectations and it is how he responds to these disappointments which is key to his well being.

Unconditional self acceptance is the antidote to self downing and feelings associated with low self worth. The hallmark of the perfectionist is to put all her self worth eggs in the same self worth basket which puts her on track to be the proverbial basket case! (I must do well. People should always think well of me). 

Developing and cultivating unconditional self acceptance is the goal. It can be a long road to wellness but it can be achieved by working hard at it.

In a sense we are the architects of our own depression; no one or nothing makes us feel as low as we get. It is how we estimate our worth as human beings that determines how we respond to failure. Can we be good? Can we be bad? Are not being and doing different? What's the difference between I am bad and I've done badly? If I am not what I do how can I be a failure for not doing well at that interview? Or If I am what I do then failing at an interview will mean I am a failure (I am what I have done ie a failure)!

These are the philosophical questions that we can choose to engage with because only in doing this will we be able the challenge and change those unrealistic and irrational ideas about ourselves and consequently we will feel better and act more self helpfully.

It's My Privilege To Be a Teacher

It's been been a while since the last post and life continues to unfold often as planned and anticipated and at other times in a tangential manner. We seem to have a trajectory in mind, a vision how things might pan out, a virtual template to guide us on our way. Things don't (why should they?) always go as imagined but ain't that the spice of life? The odd happenstance from left field (where did that come from?) will issue forth a challenge to meet and negotiate, an invitation perhaps to reach beyond yourself. Or indeed it may be an unanticipated delight that stops you in your tracks and lays a subtle smile across your hitherto sullen (feels that way) countenance.  The odd curve ball that's hard to lay a bat on and strikes you out before making a play! The tee off goes awry and your 4th golf ball goes off into the rough never to be seen again and it's only hole 2 of 18! Shut up already with your sporting analogies I can hear some say. OK I hear you!

So you've decided to feel miserable and resent that today is a day where you don't want to go to work but you have to! You know the joke where the mother is trying to get her child to get out of bed? You know where she says you have to go to school because 'You're the teacher!' That kind of day.

Then you arrive at school and automatically you start to do the intuitive things that have made up your routine forever it seems. And you are soon in the groove and you control what you can and your only expectation is to expect anything. Ain't that the way of schools? Of teaching? Of learning? Of life? Of course it is and why should it be otherwise I ask? To do so might suggest a view that perhaps all should or indeed can go the way I want it to go i.e. My Way! Now that rings a bell ...

But it is folly to assume that all will be fine. I recall my dad telling me of the ass you and me become when we make assumptions about how things should be.

Then you begin to take in the sights and sounds and feel of the place as you stroll along the corridors and poke your head into the classrooms and engage with colleagues and students and slowly you are reminded why it is you get out of bed in the morning.

You see:

• Students skipping to greet their school mates in the yard as they discard their school bag somewhere approximate to where they line up
• The teachers in a shared unit with other helpers and volunteers preparing breakfast for all children, especially for those that have had none
• The parent/carer who has to rise in the wee hours to get her child who has special needs ready for school and who offers a big smile as she drops her off at school and hurries on to work
• The students who spontaneously hug their teachers in a genuine gesture of affection and respect
• The smiles exchanged between students and their peers and between teachers and their students
• The teachers who meet to talk about the day, to share ideas - readying themselves for teaching and learning
• The teachers who treat the child who seems not to be able to shake off those persistent nits in her hair or who showers and dresses the child who has slept in the same clothes for several nights
• The teachers who put a food hamper together every week for struggling families and who will deliver it after hours if need be
• The teacher who has spent 3 hours after school has ended on the phone to authorities to get support for a child who is at risk going home
• The student through silent tears who trusts you enough to tell you of the heartbreak and pain of missing his dad who suicided only two years ago and how he has resolved to be the best he can be
• The child who starts crying because she is reminded she won't see her dad for a while because he is in jail and how her mum will go into the bathroom and sobs on the bathroom floor (and she cries again) whilst big sister makes tea
• The teacher who says 'I'm getting through to this child at last. She's beginning to smile again!'
• The child who as a five year old would bang his head on the floor to articulate the pain of abuse and who two years later smiles more often than not
• The child who begins to understand that he isn't bad for doing bad but is always worthwhile

As the day unfolds we engage with students in many ways in different situations and as it ends we are reminded why it is we get out of bed in the morning. Because what teachers do matters to our young charges. We are challenged to respond to their needs at every level and in doing so they teach us more than we can ever teach them. It is a privilege to be a teacher and to be accepted into their young lives.

This is a note I received today from a student and teachers get many such gifts in the course of their teaching careers. These words in a note of appreciation from this young person is one major reason why I get out of bed in the morning and it prompted me to write this.