Quicksand: Our Minds’ Attempt to Reason Its Way Through Mental Illness
As with most of what I write, this topic has been on my mind for a while, mostly while I chuckle at myself for continuing to attempt to use intellect or reasoning to deal with anxiety and depression. A fool’s errand if ever there was one.
There are a number of different analogies that I’m sure could work here, and as I am want to do, I may use a couple and/or mix a few, but mostly what I keep coming back to is quicksand. From the Google, “Quicksand is a colloid consisting of fine granular material and water. It forms in saturated loose sand when the sand is suddenly agitated. Officials advise people not to struggle if they find themselves caught in quicksand. People should keep their arm movements controlled and small, as motion can cause the sand to liquefy further, making it harder to escape.” If ever there was an accurate description of what it is like to be in my head at times.
I joke because I have to find humor in the ongoing battle, or I am quite certain I will go completely insane. Something I would truly like to avoid.
Even that last statement amuses me because the whole point is we don’t really have a choice and this is NOT something we can control, at least not completely. We can do things that we know help our mental state, everything from eating better, trying to stick to a sleep schedule that works best for us, meditation, exercise, and if need be, take medication as prescribed. With all of these things that we know, or are aware, can help our mental state to some extent, we have to try hard to not let our minds talk us out of them, or talk us into less helpful behaviors. “I’ll just stay up a little longer.” “A little ice cream won’t hurt.” “I don’t need to run today.” And on and on and on.
It has been said often of late, life is HARD!! Or maybe I’m just finally hearing it. Life is that much harder for the millions of people who suffer one or more forms of mental illness, and yes, they do usually come as a matched set. Does being anxious make one depressed or does being depressed make one anxious? I don’t know the answer to this question or many others, and as one who used to have an analytical mind, I really would like to know the answer. It typically bugs me a great deal to not know the answer to things, but that also then feeds into the quagmire that is my mind’s attempt to understand, and fix, my psyche.
Getting back to the quicksand for a minute. I am fairly certain that the first time I became aware of quicksand, and the difficulties of extracting oneself from such a predicament, was on an episode of Gilligan’s Island. I am not certain, but I think that was my first knowledge of liquifying sand. Now that I think about it, this analogy is even more amusing because I was a Civil Engineering major in school and worked in the field when I first got out and thus studied the behavior of sandy and silty soils once upon a time. They can be just as dangerous, or even more so, for buildings and bridges and whatever other structure might sit above them as they are for humans or animals that mistakenly wander into them.
Ultimately, the point is a pretty simple one. Just as experts tell us that moving around and attempting to work ourselves free from quicksand almost always makes the situation worse, the same can be said for our minds attempting to reason their way out of being anxious, depressed, or whatever else we are feeling. And just like moving around in quicksand, focusing on the anxiety or depression while we are feeling that way ALWAYS makes it worse. Writing about it can help because in an odd way, we are getting it out of us. I know some people who will write about their feelings and then actually burn the paper they wrote on as a way to send the feelings into the universe. Talking to people we trust can also help, as I have written now many times before because it can make us feel less like we are going through all of this alone, although at times only slightly less.
The reality is that Mental Illness is NOT a choice we make, we cannot simply choose to have it go away, we can’t wish it away, and tomorrow we will not wake up and have things be suddenly better, we can simply do the things we know help, and listen to those we have confided in and whom we trust, ideally professionals in the field, and then maybe most of all, try to be patient with ourselves.
We as a society, a global entity, are dealing with an unprecedented level of Mental Illness, some would say a Mental Health Crisis. We had the COVID pandemic and the isolation and in many cases the loss that came with that. Many people lost their jobs. Many others chose to leave their jobs as priorities shifted. We have several global conflicts going on at one time and in the United States we have a monumental divide, that some have worked to widen rather than fix. OK, I won’t go any further down that path, I’ll leave it for another day.
Please be good to yourselves, and to others. Please do your best to try and let people know what you are going through, even just a little. Please listen to one another and if you are the friend, sibling, parent, etc. of someone that you know, or even suspect, is struggling, please ask, inquire, nudge, or maybe just hug!!
And lastly, we can’t think, reason, our way out of this one, no matter how good we may have been at doing this for ourselves and other people all our lives. We have to work through it, talk about it, write about it, and manage it as best we can, and when our minds are either trying really hard in a not-so-fun iterative loop to reason its way out or trying its best to talk us out of patiently working our way down the path, distract it with something healthy. Go for a walk, make a phone call, read your favorite book, or maybe just sit down and write about how you feel and then burn it.
