Work depression can be a Messenger

‘You don’t drown by falling in the water, you drown by staying there.’ Edwin Louis Cole

I learned the term ‘work depression’ in relation to job hunting. Being out of work for an extended time can deliver a giant dose of work depression, leaving you hopeless and without energy to keep going, which is why many people give up – often too soon.

A work depression can be triggered by many different factors. It might be a toxic work environment, a boss that continually undermines you, colleagues that are unpleasant and backbiting, being ignored at work by those whose support you need, getting no recognition for your contribution, unreasonable work pressure that never lets up, a gruelling travel schedule and the loneliness that comes with it, working odd and crazy hours that cause chaos with your natural energy rhythm, or being in a career that is absolutely wrong for you. 

But there are factors that top the list; being underutilised and having a bad relationship with your boss. Being underutilised doesn’t mean you aren’t busy. But you are not reaching anywhere near your potential. You only need half of your energy and half of your intellectual capacity to keep this job alive. Clients call it unfulfilled, not busy enough, not busy with the right things, not making any progress, not making a difference, not learning anything new, going nowhere slowly, or simply bored. And bad relationships in the workplace, as in life, take huge chunks of energy.

A work depression should be clearly distinguished from a clinical depression, which is way beyond the scope of my work and should be treated by a medical professional. Nevertheless, I have experienced and seen how easily they can spill over into each other. A clinical depression can be fuelled by work concerns, just as a clinical depression can severely impact your engagement and performance at work. Both need treatment, but you can’t cure clinical depression with a job change, and you can’t cure work depression with medical treatment, on its own.

Depression in its many forms is an illness of our time, so if you are struggling you are not alone. But not everyone wants to admit they have a problem, or know they have one – I was one of them. It took me many years to understand my genetic predisposition to depression, and to make sense of what I could control and what I couldn’t.

Identify what is not working

Rodney Lowman in his book The Clinical Practice of Career Assessment says: ‘We have vastly underestimated the subtly disguised physical and mental issues associated with career concerns.’

Here is a list of things that may be triggering work depression for you in the workplace.

1. You don’t have work, or not enough work if you are self-employed.
2. You are constantly under financial pressure, even though you work your ‘butt off’.
3. You have a crazy workload that never lets up.
4. You have a gruelling travel schedule that is affecting your health and your relationships.
5. Your job requires you to be always available and responsive, whether on mobile or email.
6. You are underutilised at work; you are working hard but not using your skills and abilities or realising your potential.
7. You feel like you are wasting your time and not going anywhere in your career and your life.
8. You work in a toxic work environment fraught with politics, negativity, and gossip.
9. You feel unappreciated and disconnected from the people around you.
10. You have a bad relationship with your boss.
11. Your business is falling apart, and you see no light at the end of the tunnel.
12. You are exhausted by constant change and increasing levels of uncertainty at work.
13. You are feeling stuck in your career and have no idea how to get out of it.
14. You are dealing with personal grief, or a tough personal life and it’s affecting your ability to concentrate or perform in your job as you should.
15. You are struggling with a clinical depression that makes it difficult to make any headway in your career or your life.
16. You are feeling down and increasingly anxious, with absolutely no idea why.
17. You keep putting off your goals, justifying them with how busy you are, but are increasingly frustrated you are not getting things done that are important to you.
18. You are disorganised and end up going round in circles, unable to get a handle on yourself.
19. You are mentally and emotionally exhausted, and it’s time for a real break.
20. You are retired, but feeling bored and aimless.
21. Add whatever else is affecting your wellbeing at work.

A partner in healing

I believe if we are to beat depression, in any form, we need to get mad with it! We need to resolve to become an active partner in beating it, one day at a time.

You can’t solve a clinical depression with self-help tips. But you also can’t expect to solve a depression with medication only when it requires you to make some changes.

I went to see a physiotherapist with severe muscular pain I had unsuccessfully tried to treat on my own. She worked me hard in the consultation but stressed it would take consistent exercise between sessions to make any progress. She remarked how many patients only did the exercises in paid sessions. ‘Imagine’ she said, ‘how many times they will need to see me before they see an improvement.’

I have seen too many clients who are depressed and hopeless who are waiting for their next therapy session before they take any action. ‘I’ll start when I feel better’ is the line. Now of course you want to feel better, we all do, but very often feeling better starts with doing something differently.

Get busy

My friend Wimpie has a famous line when things are not going well in his business. ‘Raak besig!’ he will say. (Translated: ‘Get busy!’) That’s often the best advice in town.

The famous psychologist, Albert Ellis, who developed cognitive behaviour therapy, said: ‘The trouble with most therapy is that it helps you feel better. But you don’t get better. You have to back it up with action, action, action.’

Now, that doesn’t mean you have to fill your day with unrelenting activity, pushing yourself beyond your ability, taking on things you simply don’t have the stamina to do. But you do need to take action and work with those things you do have control over.

We all have a need to have some control over our lives. When we lose control over the small things, we also lose control over the big things, and our self-esteem and belief in ourselves goes down with it.

Here are some very ordinary things that will help you take control again, so you can be an active partner in your healing.

• See your doctor to make sure you are not suffering from an illness or a clinical problem that needs treatment.

• Sleep is your superpower, so get as regular a sleeping pattern as you can. Give up late nights, movies till 2am, and going to bed at irregular hours. Depression seriously messes with your sleep pattern, so this may not be easy. But if you know it’s critical you can work on it, one day at time. If you didn’t do too well yesterday, you can start again today.

• When you wake up, get up! Lying in bed thinking and ruminating simply pushes up your anxiety and it gets more difficult to get up with every passing minute. If you are struggling, you can’t afford this. And having another nap later may be spot on, but don’t stay in bed simply because it’s too much effort. So, swing your legs out and bed and get up. If you have difficulty doing this, use the ‘counting back from five’ method suggested by Mel Robbins. Start at 5, not at 1, and get up when you get to zero.

• Have a basic morning routine you follow every day, even when you don’t feel like it. Have a shower, do your basic grooming no matter how you feel, get dressed, look good and smell good, wear real shoes, not socks or slippers. Staying in pyjamas looking like yesterday will do nothing for you. And if you need to lie down later, on your made bed, you only need to take your shoes off.

• Manage your physical environment. When you get up, open the curtains, make your bed, put your clothes in the wash basket. A messy and unmanaged physical environment can mirror the chaos in your head and leave you feeling out of control. You don’t have to spring clean the whole house, just the basics. Every day. And once you have done that, you can take on the next thing. It’s all about taking control of your life again, one towel at a time.

• Eat a nourishing breakfast and lay the table so it’s inviting rather than eating last night’s pizza out of the box, standing at the fridge.

• If your energy is low, or comes and goes, try time chunking. Only do an hours work at a time before taking a break. And when you take a break, get outside into natural light. A few focused chunks of work can be more productive than slaving for hours with a flat battery. And the same goes for spending time on your mobile to avoid scrolling aimlessly for hours at a time.

• Make an afternoon nap a standard part of your day, even if you need to find an empty meeting room to lie down. Yes, you think you will sleep for hours, and sometimes you can. But a 30-minute nap with an alarm clock is always possible. Don’t give it up entirely because you want sleep marathons. You can do both.

• Drink more water; you don’t need a giant jug of water staring ominously at you, just have a glass of water before other drinks or meals. Before you pooh-pooh this, read the book ‘You’re not sick, you’re thirsty’ by F. Batmanghelidj MD, who points that allergies, arthritis, hypertension, depression, headaches, and other common western illnesses are caused by persistent dehydration. You have nothing to lose and it’s not addictive or in short supply.

• Expect some days that don’t work, where you seem to have made progress now you are back where you started. You are not back where you started, you have new insights, new progress. Up and down is how it works, till you realise your average is going up. Be kind to yourself, and as you do what you can. And when you can’t treat yourself like your best friend, have some tea, have a rest, then do what you can.

• Get into the sunshine and open air as often as you can, it gives you space to breathe and focus outside of yourself. Get out of your room, out of the house, and see the sky. Exercise is a great way to improve your perspective. You don’t have to join a gym, a short walk each day is a great way to start and end the day.

• Make a gratefulness list, every day. Dr Martin Seligman, the father of positive psychology, who struggled with depression himself, says that if at the end of each day you write down three good things that happened during the today, you will see a marked increase in your happiness and wellbeing. This is easy to do and immensely helpful. You don’t need to buy a leather-bound journal and an expensive pen. Whatever you have on hand is just fine. But do it everyday morning or evening, whatever works for you. Then take it one step further and send a hand-written thank you note to someone who has helped you at any time in your life. It will take some effort, but you will be richly rewarded in energy for doing so.

• Making a to-do list is a common denominator for people that get things done. But a to-do list is not a guilt-trip list. It simply gives you the chance to set a few priorities for the day, which in turn makes sure you don’t waft around the day wondering what to do, then at end the day say you’ve wasted another day. You also get to notice when you get to achieve something, no matter how small. Even one small task is better than aiming big and not getting to it.

• Limit your time on social media and the internet, they have been shown to increase depression. But do a good movie or a documentary each day as your time out. And cut out screen time at least an hour before your new regular bedtime.

• Avoid becoming a recluse. You don’t have to become a social butterfly but connect with people you like and that don’t rob you of energy. And find out how they are. An eye that only looks inwards is sick, so be interested in the wellbeing of other people. Ask more questions about their lives than expect to only talk about yours. There are more people struggling that we realise, maybe they need help your today more than you need theirs.

• Talk to someone who can help you, you don’t have to do this alone. You can’t solve this all on google. Talk to someone real. And be careful of alienating the people that care about you and are willing to help. That doesn’t mean telling everyone at work or sharing it all over social media, but don’t cut out the people close to you that can support you. If you can afford it, see a professional who can guide you.  

• Make a list of what you are good at, what your strengths are and what you have achieved in your life. It easy, when you are down in the dumps to believe you are worth nothing, have achieved nothing of value, and have nothing to offer. Start with what you have achieved and what you do have to work with.

• Stay loose about the way forward. Rather than decide what you want to do next, decide five things you may want to do next. Rather than decide what business you will open, design five business cards. Rather than decide what job you want, consider five different kinds of jobs.

• Join some people activities in your area. A walking group, a sports club, a writing group, a book club, something where you get to do something with other people. You don’t have to fill your diary and be out every evening, but one or two activities with people can do more than many more hours on your own.

• Consider learning something new. A craft, playing the piano, gardening, art, training dogs, or anything you can dedicate an hour a day towards. Here is time to aim low and start anywhere. You don’t have to display your art at an exhibition. You don’t have to become a concert pianist, just learning to play scales is progress and certainly more energising and helpful than scrolling on your phone.

• Get a job if you don’t have one. Do anything you can, no matter what it pays or doesn’t or how temporary or part-time it might be. It doesn’t have to be your dream job and you don’t have to stay there forever. If you are self-employed, contact an old client and ask if you can help or do some follow up work for them. You never know where that might lead. Anything is better than sitting around focusing on yourself. It will get you moving and give you some positive energy. And once you start moving, you can move again.

• Start reading again. Trawl online bookstores and see what’s out there. You can certainly include a few novels in your search, but you should also be looking for books that inspire and inform the next part of your journey. Dolly Parton has said: ‘If you can read, you can learn anything.’ Indeed, we can. Your local second-hand bookstore may have just the book you are looking for, so go snooping. If online is your style, you can include Podcasts and Ted Talks, or follow thinkers that inspire you on YouTube. 

• Take bite size chunks out of the overwhelming thing you want or need to fix. Make one call. Research one new piece of information. Visit one place. Have one conversation. Write one page in your journal. Speak to someone about it. ‘Oh, but that will make no difference’ you may be tempted to say. Firstly, how do you know? And secondly, its 100% more than if you’d done nothing, that’s a big leap. And as you do one thing, you will do another, and another. That’s how anything starts up.

• Listen to music. Music has a language of its own and can raise the spirt in it’s own very special way. Hans Christian Anderson said: ‘When words fail, music speaks.’

• There is always something you can do, so get busy and don’t wait to feel bright and chirpy before you do. And if you can’t get out of bed, you know what to do… 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 and swing your legs.

The blame-game

The blame-game is a dangerous game to play if you are battling depression.

I love the workplace, and I believe our careers are a great source of energy and fulfilment in life. But it is unreasonable to expect your job to meet all your personal needs by keeping you fulfilled, stimulated, well paid, and surrounded by great people every step of the way. You can’t blame your work for everything. You may just as easily be battling a clinical problem, dealing with loss in your life, or facing your own personal or career crisis.

Give up blaming your genetics for your behaviour choices. Just because you learned it from your family doesn’t make it genetic, some family members are warnings rather than examples. Your passivity, inability to say no, giving up as soon as the road gets tough, you can learn to do better – that’s what personal development is all about. Reject behaviours you don’t want to be part of your life going forward and get some help changing them.

Give up blaming your family for your constant exhaustion and lack of focus. It may be time to start setting some boundaries, taking some time out, doing things that are important for you. And if you think your marriage will fall apart if you disappear for a few days, it probably already has. And if your partner can’t cook a meal without you, unless they are on life support, they can learn to put something together. And there’s also YouTube where you can learn to make almost anything.

Give up blaming your past like it was a life sentence. We all have a past and things we might have wanted to be different. But our parents and our initial upbringing we had no choice about.  It can be hard to let go of deep hurts and abuse, so find someone to help you make sense of that if it’s creating havoc in your life and career.

Give up blaming yourself. When you are depressed, you can be your own worst enemy. You don’t need anyone else to criticise you, you are your own worst critic. There may be many things you wished you’d done differently. But now that you know better, you can do better. Start by being kind to yourself. Accept that whatever you have done till now you probably did with the best you knew how. And even if your primary goal was self-destruction, you survived to tell the tale and start again.

Consider that you behaviour choices may be sabotaging you every step of the way. If you suspect you need to start doing things differently, read the blog ‘How you drive’. You don’t have to change who you are; you can simply change what you do.

Give up blaming the people in your life for not supporting you, for not getting you up in the morning, for not motivating you, and for not pushing you all the way. This is your life, not theirs. Even the cheapest phone has an alarm clock. And no-one can motivate you. Other people can encourage, guide and support you, but motivation is an inside job. And no one can change you, only you can do that.

Depression can be an alarm clock

Stress and depression can be an alarm clock, a wake-up call if you like. I believe it can serve us well if we befriend and manage it rather than ignore or wish it away. I think it warns us when we are burning out, when we are making decisions that are not good for us, and when we are ignoring things that are stealing energy from us.

Depression has robbed me of productive time in my life. Yet when I look at those times, they have helped me redirect my life in many ways. They say a certain darkness is needed to see the stars, and sometimes that is true. In times of grappling with depression I have also had the gift of slowing down, re-evaluating what I am doing and hearing my soul say ‘not this way but that…’

My son Sam and I were talking about this on the way to school one day. I was saying that sometimes depression can be a gift.

“Pretty lousy gift!” he said.

“Well,’ I continued, “sometimes it’s an illness that must be fixed, but other times it’s a signal that something is not OK for you, you are straying too far from your mission, or it’s time to take action. You still have to treat the illness, but you don’t want to miss the message.”

“In other words Dad, what you are saying is Don’t kill the messenger!”

I couldn’t have said it better.

If the messenger is on time for you, I wish you the courage to make some new choices and take action.

And remember, you don’t have to fix it all at once, just one day at a time.

What can you do, today?

©Andrew Bramley, Jan 2023.