The Link Between Depression and Futility

Depression has a special relationship with powerlessness. Wherever one is, the other is sure to follow. They’re inseparable. They’re like best friends whose toxicities embolden each other.

And woe be unto you if you’re their target.

One grinds you into the earth, letting you think that you’re dead. The other ties your hands behind your back, ties up your feet and cuts out your tongue. To wrestle yourself free and to scream are efforts in futility, so you eventually learn to stop. You’ll try to escape, but you’ll be left a whimpering mess because, despite your best efforts, nothing is working out.

As a result, two things happen.

Your company are the bones of those who were also buried alive. The one thing you can do is to try to ignore the skeletons and the stench. Maybe a dog will stumble on the fresh patch of dirt and get curious.

But also, you can hear the hustle and bustle of the surface world; the world of the free. They’re making moves, they get to experience night and day and all the seasons. Things are changing. However, life underground is remarkably stagnant except for the seeds that germinate into saplings that eventually leave you to see the outside world too.

Actually, there is one other thing that happens, and based on how this is approached, it could spell the end or be a reprieve. You know deep down that this isn’t right. Something is amiss. You want to throw in the towel, or maybe you already have. But it doesn’t change the fact that the depression and accompanying powerlessness are symptoms of something more primordial, more basic.

Who would’ve thought it? Depression is the symptom of something else?

You see the worms wiggling around you. You think to yourself that you could do that, even if it meant hearing that earworm of a Jason Derulo song. But this is good. You have a path out of here. The question is, are you going to take it?

Seems like an obvious yes, but unfortunately, it isn’t. This is no different than when they tie a baby elephant to a stake in the ground. She grows up to be big and strong enough to yank out such a flimsy prison. But the conditioning is complete. As far as she knows, she can’t escape it. She tried, remember? And the pain of trying again is something that she cannot bear.

Herein lies the linchpin: futility.

History tends to be written by the victors, but not when it comes to human psychology. The victims get just as many manuscript pages. I’ll share some of my own.

After being well liked at school, there came a point where a teacher assumed I was a bad egg, ready to stink up the classroom. I tried everything I could to get on her good side. Answered questions, got good grades, was quiet, didn’t matter. Her mind was made up.

She ignored my answers, questioned my results and issued death stares that were more than flesh wounds but less than fatal. They might as well have been.

As a nine-year-old, I didn’t know how to deal with this. If I give you what you want and you still hate me, then my efforts are futile. I should just honor my lack of power in this moment and accept that I am not liked.

Or… I could keep trying. I could make it so that she questions herself. I could ignore her, do whatever I wanted in class, give her her stupid assignments and make her regret treating me like a wet fart wafting through the air.

I didn’t know it at the time, but this was the beginning of depression. This new stunt didn’t work either. To make matters worse, I got suspended for a joke I made that was deemed to be in bad taste. And that was the beginning of powerlessness because no matter what I tried, the last thing that I wanted to happen happened.

As a kid, you have a lot of distractions. As a teen and as an adult, you will continue to have distractions, but it gets a lot harder to outrun as the initial problem festers into pus-filled psychological sores.

Depression found its way in the moment I rejected futility. In hindsight, it was a bit arrogant of me to dictate how my teacher ought to respond to me. And the more people I encountered who just wouldn’t or couldn’t work for a win-win situation, the more futile things felt and the more depressed and powerless I felt.

Life kept reflecting my initial problem back at me but I couldn’t see it. I just kept arguing, crying and failing.

I’m stunned I’ve accomplished anything considering how chronic this issue has been. There have been a number of times that I thought I kicked depression and powerlessness both to the curb. They were playing dead, waiting for an accumulation of more feelings of futility.

It came full circle several hours ago, but I was learning how to wiggle.

By finally embracing the futility of what happened to me as a kid, I was able to see that futility is just a fact of life. Some things cannot happen, and that’s okay. That doesn’t mean that you cannot get your needs met. It just means they cannot be met in a specific way.

There are some people who cannot give you love or patience or help. There are some activities and enterprises that will not work out but could serve as lessons. There are some thoughts that will be proven wrong.

But you can still go forward for what you want to achieve and experience in life. As much as people might say it, no one is really in control of what happens to them or how they’re perceived.

What’s important is being able to honor what is going on in your life. Humans always want to improve things; that’s our strength. But it can prove to be a great weakness too when we hate on the reality that some things will not budge, no matter what you do.

Everyone has a different journey. Maybe futility isn’t your linchpin or maybe it is playing a role.

However, if you can embrace this, I think you’ll have a shot at leaving the dirt-pile and returning to life above ground before you slap an epitaph on your psyche.

It’s important to remember that if there was a way in, there must be a way out.

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This post was previously published on medium.com.

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