The Black Dog: 3 Unexpected Experiences of Depression

When describing anxiety to someone unfamiliar with the feeling, I sometimes tell them it’s like a black crow. Sharp, harsh, cunning. It knows how to pick locks and find hidden morsels in tender places. It can be startling and unsettling, and it can loom. Menacing. A murder of anxieties.

Years ago, I sat with a friend battling with depression. When I struggled to understand what she was going through, she shared the video I had a black dog, his name was depression produced by the World Health Organization (WHO). She said it was the most accurate description of the feeling of depression she’d ever seen. It helped me, who had only peripheral encounters with depression, to understand her experience. And it gave us a shorthand: “How is the black dog today?” Whether you’ve ever had depression or not, I hope you’ll watch it.

My image of the black crow of anxiety – with whom I’ve had an ongoing relationship -- is a riff on the image of depression’s black dog – who I’d barely even met.

Until a couple of months ago.

Early this summer, the black dog came and sat on my chest.

He isn’t there all the time. But when he is, my life goes into a shadowed eclipse. There are aspects of depression that I recognize and don’t surprise me: a lack of cheerfulness, a joylessness about things that I usually love, challenges with eating and sleeping.

But a few things surprised me.

Let’s be clear: I’m not a mental health expert in any way. As I said, I don’t even have a long history with depression. I am receiving therapeutic support to discern what I’m feeling as depression from overwhelm, burnout and trauma response. I am considering pharmaceuticals depending on how therapy goes. My intention in writing this is not to give any kind of medical advice whatsoever but rather to highlight and normalize symptoms and experiences that we might not recognize as depression. My intention is to encourage anyone suffering from any kind of dis-ease – mental or otherwise – to get the appropriate treatment and compassionate support that is right for them. Please see below for resources.*

So while I would have said I knew the basic signs of depression, some elements of these depressive episodes are unexpected. Here are three things that happen sometimes that I have to remind myself are part of depression’s black dog.

1. Utter loss of concentration and focus

Even in the best of times, I don’t have the best focus in the world. I often live in the myth of multitasking, much to the bemusement of my beloved. But when the black dog is around, I can stand in front of a recipe and stare at it. I can look at the lists and piles on my desk and just...look at them. For a long time. It is a feeling beyond brain fog that verges on brain blankness. For a get ‘er done woman, the feeling is unfamiliar, disconcerting and alarming.

2. Out of nowhere

Depression doesn’t always have an obvious cause. Like an unexpected cloud bank, it can swoop in and block the sun out of nowhere, for no apparent reason. This incomprehensibility can make it difficult to communicate to others – and to myself – about what is happening. The black dog’s sudden appearance with no causal backstory can be destabilizing and isolating. Don’t let the out of nowhere feeling delegitimize how you’re feeling and stop you from getting support.

3. Seductive “quick sand”

Depression feels terrible. My chest often feels heavy, my body feels drained of energy, and I sometimes feel like I want to cry but can’t. It’s wretched. And yet I didn’t expect the seductive “quick sand”** quality of the black dog. As terrible as it feels, I feel an insidious pull that invites giving up and sinking in. It’s not pleasurable by any stretch but can feel easier to give in than to fight against it. My experience is that the black dog wanders away and then wanders back again so occasionally succumbing to the pull isn’t the end of the world. Sometimes, I’m just having a day. Some folks, however, have chronic and long-lasting depression for whom the seduction can be truly dangerous. Either way, noticing what’s happening is important.

Depression is a serious disease, and everybody is different. You might not experience what I do and we can still both have depression. There are lots of kinds of therapy because there’s no one way that helps people. Drugs work for some people and absolutely do not for others. The things that are surprising to me, might not be to someone else.

Please pay attention to whatever is happening for you and as soon as you can, reach out for the help that you need. Maddeningly, depression can make asking for help feel difficult or even impossible. Which augurs toward talking to your people – friends, family and therapists – about the black dog when you are not feeling depressed so you can easily toss up a flag to get help when you really need it. It helps me to be able to say, “I’m struggling with the black dog today” to my folks and have them know what I mean.

If you notice these or other symptoms in yourself or someone you love, remember that it’s not intentional, it’s not a character flaw, and “just cheer up” is not helpful. One of the most healing things you can do is to be open to what you/they need and have capacity for.

Please know that we want you living and thriving in the world with us. So if the black dog (or the black crow or any other creature of darkness) is sitting on your chest, seek the care that you need from whatever team of people support you best. Together we can give it a biscuit and get it on a leash.

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*To find more details about depression and its symptoms, please go here and to get help, please go here.

** Remember the decades when everybody in movies and on TV seemed to be falling into quicksand? What was going on with that?

Unlike the campy depictions of quicksand on the screen, the pull of depression is seriously concerning and needs to be addressed. Actual quicksand, though, you can stop worrying about.

Hope & Fear

Hope is as hollow as fear. ~ Tao Te Ching, Verse 13 (translation by Stephen Mitchell, 1995)

For many years, I was in a small meditation group. We met once a week to sit together and to talk through Buddhist teachings. One of our favorite teachers was (and is!) Buddhist nun, Pema Chödrön. Her work is so profound and deep that we would often read just a couple of pages and then talk for an hour to try to sort it out.

In her seminal book, When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times, Ani Pema writes

“If we’re willing to give up hope that insecurity and pain can be exterminated, then we can have the courage to relax with the groundlessness of our situation. This is the first step on the path.”

We talked about this idea for a long time: that hope and fear are two sides of a not-very-helpful coin. Fear is aversion, pushing away something we don’t want. Hope is grasping something we do. Neither state is conducive to peace. Intellectually, we all agreed with this. But “hopelessness”? That seemed like a hard place to land.

As a nod to all those conversations, one holiday season I gave those four friends little fridge magnets that said:

Abandon Hope.

They were not universally well-received. One woman’s husband upon seeing it tossed it directly into the trash.

Modern culture – particularly in advertising, marketing and politics – uses fear to push us to do or buy something. In a recent interview, former Representative Adam Kinzinger said

“...things like fear and division raises money for political campaigns. And so [the press and politicians have] abused people that way. And the media has abused people to keep them hooked. Starting with, you know, most namely Rush Limbaugh and then Fox News and then now these, Right Side Broadcasting, Newsmax all these that are competing to get people angrier and angrier.”

I know I feel this heightened anger in myself and in the people around me. And it’s not only about politics.

“No one will like you if you have bad breath! Buy this mouthwash!” “If you don’t get electrolytes, you’ll get dehydrated! Buy this sugary sports drink!” “This country is a hellscape and only I can save you! Vote for me!”

In this context, hope seems like a much better approach.

And yet, I remember when I realized that campaigns of hope were really doing the same thing as campaigns of fear only on the sunnier, less swampy side of the street.

I’m not a huge fan of organized religion, in part, because they often dangle the lure of hope in front of vulnerable folks. Your life may be full of suffering now, they say from many a pulpit, but do as we say and the afterlife will be all sunshine and rainbows in the clouds with The Man himself! Hope is the illusion of certainty that things will work out the way we want.

In a recent episode of her Gathering Room podcast, Martha Beck points out that both hope and fear reside in the future and are both rungs on a shaky ladder. She quotes the Tao Te Ching:

Whether you go up the ladder or down it,
your position is shaky.
When you stand with your two feet on the ground,
you will always keep your balance.

By planting our feet in the present on the solid foundation of mindfulness and equanimity, we can let go of the shaky ladder of fear and hope.

As this intense presidential election unfolds, I keep watching my internal experience. Am I feeling the grip of fear and its attendant anger? (Um, yes, pretty much every day.) Am I feeling the surge and pull of hope? (Some days, sure.) Every time I feel myself recoil from what I’m afraid of or lean in toward what I want, I remind myself that hope and fear are two sides of the future – and that is a shaky ladder to stand on.

I do my best to let go of fear...and hope. I do my best to use mindfulness and equanimity to relax into the present where I can actually take wise, skillful action. As Pema says,

“Without giving up hope—that there's somewhere better to be, that there's someone better to be—we will never relax with where we are or who we are.”

I know, I know, it’s a tall order. I get it. The question I keep asking myself is how can I stay with my feet planted in the ground of mindfulness and equanimity while recognizing the truth of the unpredictable groundlessness that is human life?

I don’t expect the “Abandon Hope” fridge magnet to ever be a big seller. I get why one went straight into the garbage. But as challenging as it is to let go of the hope of hope, I see that it’s really no better than living in the fire of fear and anger.

Antidotes to Anxiety

Phoenix, like my anxiety, demands attention. (Photo: Rebecca George Photography)

“Hard times require furious dancing." ~ Alice Walker

Anxiety has been my companion for about as long as I can remember.* It doesn’t matter what’s going on – a mistake in my work, a bump in a relationship, a party I’m planning, an unprecedented presidential election – whatever it is, I get anxious about it.

My anxiety feels like one big messy thought spin cycle.

Anxiety, as Jud Brewer points out is different from fear. In the Happier blog this week, he writes:

in contrast to fear, which is an instantaneous response that originates from very old parts of the brain (evolutionarily speaking), anxiety affects the prefrontal cortex, or PFC, a newer part of the brain that helps us to think and plan for the future. The PFC works well when there’s enough information to make a good prediction, but when information is lacking, our PFC can spin out endless versions of what might happen and what you should do. Eventually, the PFC might shut down entirely, creating the conditions for panic.

And these days, information is lacking like crazy. There are pundits, polls and predictions but who are we kidding? We all know that nobody really knows what’s going to happen in the next few minutes, let alone the next few weeks, months or years. Everything feels like a bonkers, bananas mess.

Which creates for many of us, an internal landscape rife with anxiety.

One helpful approach is to look at the thoughts, emotions and behaviors that sprout from anxiety. Dr. Luana Marques, clinical psychologist and researcher at Harvard, invites us to ask, “Okay, what thoughts am I thinking? How do they make me feel? What do they make me do?"

For me, just asking these questions is huge since when I’m caught in the anxiety spin, I forget that my thoughts, emotions and habits around them are all real but they don’t necessarily reflect reality. That is, it’s true and real that I’m thinking and feeling what I am but very often they are not based on what is actually happening right now (aka reality).

So yes, looking at anxiety as a habit, as something we can build a different relationship with is helpful. To look objectively at what I’m thinking, how those thoughts feel and what behaviors they fuel, is a way of disentangling myself and at least slowing down the spin.

And yet, these days things feel particularly chaotic, unsettled and frightening. The world is turned up to 11.

And in times like these, my years of teaching have shown me three other things help shift anxiety: movement, community and action.

1. Movement

Anxious thoughts, feelings and actions all show up in my body as tension. My stomach grips, my shoulders freeze, my chest tightens. So any kind of movement – ANY KIND – helps release that tension. Shaking or bouncing works great, but so do walking or yoga or smashing the bejeezus out of a pickleball. It doesn’t have to be fancy. It doesn’t have to be formal. And you don’t have to do it for long. When anxiety clamps down, take a breath and move yourself any way you can.

2. Community

Anxiety makes me feel alone. When I’m anxious, I tend to fold in on myself (even more so if there is some depression woven in there – and that’s a post for another day). I tend to think I’m the only one panicking at the headlines, obsessing about the mistakes I made, worrying about the weather. Connecting with other people can soften the edges of my pointy black crow of anxiety. Either in real life or on the phone/Zoom (texts and writing are good, too, but I find that the humanity of in-person or voice-to-voice works best), even one other person, even a stranger on the walking trail or in the check-out line, reminds me that I really am not alone.

3. Action

Campaigns will tell you that canvassing, phone banking and other volunteering are actions that will soften your anxiety. I’m all for putting your own elbow grease into causes that you care about (I’m surprised to tell you that I enjoy phone banking more than I expected and have a whole set of blue markers for post card writing). These aren’t the only actions I mean, though. Weeding your garden, making a meal for yourself and/or others, holding the door for a stranger, saying hello to someone who looks like they are having a grim day are all actions that can ease – even for a few moments – my anxious spinning self. **

Buddhist nun Pema Chödrön teaches that “things are as bad and as good as they seem. There's no need to add anything extra.”

My anxiety is “extra.” Finding ways to develop a different relationship with it both internally (thoughts, feelings & behaviors/habits) and externally (movement, community & action) is a way of shedding the extra and being with everything as it is.

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* When I was about 11, my sweet Mum gave me a Worry Stone, a smooth, flat, pink stone with a divot for your thumb to rub. I carried it in my pocket for a long time, until I broke it in half from rubbing it so much. That, friends, is some worry.

** And if you’re looking for a way to do all three, join us for

Move for Kamala: A Fundraiser for Harris/Walz on Saturday, Sept 28 from 3-6pm at *** NEW LOCATION *** the Charlottesville Jazzercise Studio in Downtown Charlottesville behind Cville Coffee. In addition to three different kinds of movement (salsa, dance cardio & Nourishing Movement), there will be snacks and art and other goodness to enjoy. Come play all afternoon, come hang out and eat cupcakes, come with friends or come to make a new friend. Just come. No movement experience needed. All bodies welcome.

Facebook ~ Move for Kamala: A Fundraiser for Harris/Walz in 3 Movements

Register today!

Invite a friend!

Share in your network!

Summer Reads 2024

One of the great things of being on the road this summer was I got to read a ton of books (it’s true! Not just news and politics!)! Ever the English major, I love me a book report; but as a reader, I’m not a fan of knowing too much before I open the cover.

Here’s my summer reading list with NO SPOILERS but what I’m hoping is just enough to tell you if you want to put it on hold at the library for yourself.

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Push Off From Here by Laura McKowen
Ostensibly about recovery, the nine points in this book apply to most of us in some way. But if you struggle at all with your relationship to substance or any kind of addiction (and honestly, we all have our things), this is an important read.

Symphony of Secrets by Brendan Slocum
Fascinating and thrilling musical page turner that offers insights into discrimination around race, gender and neurodivergence in the early 20th century and now.

The Importance of Being Furnished: Four Bachelors At Home by R. Tripp Evans

I'm not an art historian, a gay man or a lover of furniture and decorative interiors AND I loved this book. Written with intelligence, clever humor (I mean, the title!!) and an obvious love of the subject, Evans weaves four detailed and delightful tales about these men. Honestly, Evans’ writing is so good — I wish other nonfiction writers would take note! Yes yes yes, the main characters are all entitled, sexist, rich, white men but they all were also breaking the norms of their day in one way or another. Their idiosyncrasies are at once endearing and exasperating, their excesses both fascinating and flabbergasting. And yet just under the surface of their flamboyance, we see the isolation, rejection, and pain of being gay (and different) in their families and societies. It's just good: the coffee table book you didn't know you needed.

Come Together by Emily Nagoski

An insightful look into sex in a long term relationship that covers everything from why (and if) sex is important to what we want when we want sex (a question that prompted rich conversation in my own relationship). Nagoski looks at trauma, healing, the gender binary (and the mess it makes), pleasure and magic (really? Yeah, kinda really.). Nagoski has, for me, the perfect blend of science delivered with lightness, inclusivity and humor.

The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry by Gabrielle Zevin

Framed by descriptions of short stories, this love story of a curmudgeonly book store owner on a New England island is tender and sweet. Great dialog and some unexpected twists made it a delightful read. Especially recommended for writers and book and short story lovers.

You Could Make This Place Beautiful by Maggie Smith

A tender and honest story of the end of a marriage and in particular, the marital gender differences in even modern, progressive families. Written in short, almost prose poetry chapters, Smith unfolds the undoing of her relationship like gently pulling the petals from a flower.

All Fours by Miranda July

A strange and sexy experiment which explores what happens when an almost middle-aged woman almost in menopause goes on an almost-road trip and has an almost-affair. She delves into luxury and pleasure, aging and libido, bioidentical hormones, strength training (for both external and internal motivations), variations on monogamy in marriage, fetal-maternal hemorrhage, parenting a non-binary child, and lots and lots of sex.

Look Again: The Power of Noticing What Was Already There by Tali Sharot and Cass R. Sunstein

An exploration of various aspects of habituation and dishabituation, how they work in our brains and how to use them to enhance our lives. To be honest, the book wasn't what I'd expected, but it was full of interesting science about habituation and dishabituation.

If you’d like to get a sampling of the ideas in the book you can also listen to this interview on the Ten Percent Happier podcast with co-author Tali Sharot!

The Bookbinder by Pip Williams

Twin sisters Peggy & Maude work in the Oxford Press bindery during WWI. It is a story of longing for what society prohibits, about love in wartime, about duty and work and failure. It's about finding another way. Particularly interesting to read about suffragettes in the midst of a woman's run for president. Who says we can't?

The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store: A Novel by James McBride

The story of a Jewish theater owner and his wife in early 20th Century Pennsylvania - navigating antisemitism, racism, sexism, ableism, all the-isms. NOTE: I was excited to read this book on the recommendation of lots of people. I waited for weeks for it at the library. But I struggled with all the characters and the rambling writing style. I was about 1/3 of the way through and I lost access to the book in a Kindle snafu! If you read this, did you love it or not and what did you love or not?

The Great Believers by Rebecca Makkai

A braided novel of a group of gay men in Chicago in 1985-1992 during the AIDS epidemic and the surviving characters in 2015 in Paris. Beautifully written with complex characters, it is a story about messy relationships and devastating grief in both blood and chosen families. NOTE: I was living in Boston during the AIDS crisis and felt Makkai captured the feeling of community fear, rage and support. If you remember this time, where were you? What stands out for you?

Harlem Shuffle by Colton Whitehead

Raymond Carney sells furniture in Harlem. Most of it is not stolen. Set in late 50s - 60s New York City, this fast-paced story offers both Harlem history and the struggles of a mostly not-crooked guy. Genius writing! No wonder Whitehead won the Pulitzer … twice. I haven’t finished it yet so TELL ME NOTHING about the last third!

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Your turn! What did you read this summer that you recommend (or not)? Please leave a comment below and please support your local booksellers and libraries!

5 Ways To Untangle from Intrusive Thoughts

In Google Maps, you can just hit a button to "re-center." My mind is a different story.

On our big road trip this summer, Frank did the bulk of the driving. I was generally in charge of podcasts, music, snacks and navigation. Which takes some skills, let me tell you what.

For example, I often had both our ancient, not-always-accurate Garmin and Google Maps going at the same time. In Google Maps, you can drag the route to see what's ahead. When you've seen what you want to see, you can hit "re-center" to go back to where you actually are.

As an anxious person, I have a tendency to think about what may or may not happen in the future (borderline constantly). I also think about what I may or may not have messed up in the past (also mostly all the time). Both of these things can loop and loop in my head like a skipping record that increases in intensity every time around. It is sickening. And maddening.

When I get tangled and trapped in the intrusive thought loop, I want a button to push to "re-center" like Google Maps.

After years of struggle, particularly in recent months, I've found that it is possible to untangle from (or at least loosen the strangle hold of) relentless, obsessive, painful thoughts. It’s important to note that I am not a mental health or medical professional. These are strategies that are helpful to me. If you are struggling with intrusive or obsessive thoughts that are negatively impacting your life, please seek professional support.

5 Steps for Untangling from Intrusive Thoughts

These steps have been helpful to me and are inspired by Josh Korda's DharmaPunx podcast on this topic from May 13, 2024. They are my "re-center" button.

1. Acknowledge, even welcome the thought. Trying not to think the thought just backfires.

Dan Wegner’s Harvard Polar Bear study (with the genius title You Can’t Always Think What You Want) shows that the attempt to stop thinking about something increases cognitive load. In the study, he instructed participants not to think of a white bear. Try it right now: do not think about a polar bear. How’d that go? Pretty much everybody immediately thinks of what they are trying not to think. His research went on to show that the harder we try not to think a thought, the more persistent it becomes.

Not resisting the thought, accepting and even saying hello to the thought shifts its meaning. The research of Jeffrey Schwartz at UCLA suggests that using the 4 steps of Relabel, Reframe, Refocus and Revalue shifts our experience of persistent thoughts and urges and loosens their grip.

For those more poetically and less research-inclined, another way to understand this is Rumi’s poem, The Guest House which imagines all our thoughts and feelings as unexpected visitors.

The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing,
and invite them in.

2. Expand awareness. Once acknowledged, it helps me to then expand my awareness in three ways.

2.1 Allow awareness to expand to the world around you.  Maybe look out the window and see the sky. Give the thought more space.

2.2 Expand awareness to the sensation of the thought in your body. All thoughts and emotions have physical sensations. I notice what sensations come up when I’m thinking the thought. Maybe my heart feels tight or I feel a weight in my stomach. If I can feel a sensation, I then do something to soothe, soften or discharge the sensation. I might put my hand on my heart or breathe into my stomach or gently shake my whole body.

2.3 Expand your awareness to your body in general. Beyond the sensation of the thought, your body is always providing you information about your surroundings. Maybe I notice my butt on the chair, my feet on the floor, the temperature of my skin, or the clothes on my body. You can also take a tour of your five senses: feel your skin, listen to sound, smell whatever scents are nearby, look out the window, at colors or something natural, lick your lips and swallow.

3. Unhook the story. When I’m tangled in an intrusive thought, I also have a story about where it came from, what it means about me and/or where it is going to take me. There is nothing wrong with the story, but when the endless spiral of intrusive thoughts is spinning, the story is not the way to get out of the spin. Separate from the story and focus on the sensation. Watch what it does. Notice that it is not solid but always changing. If unhooking the story in my mind isn't working, I grab a pen and write out the whole stream of thoughts in long hand without editing. Better out than in!

4. Reflect on any other topic. Shift gears to another thought. Something rewarding, grounding, calming or delightful. I often imagine my cat in my lap or my nieces and nibling snuggled against me. In Dan Wegner’s study, he had folks think about a red Volkswagen. Whatever works for you. For extra support, I often tuck a blanket around me or a squeeze a pillow. Breathe and stay with the feeling of the replacement thought.

5. Go back to what helps. If (and when) the intrusive thought comes back, go back to any of the steps that feel most helpful. There is nothing magic about doing them in a particular order. See what works for you in different situations.

Intrusive thoughts can feel like something you don’t want being stuck on repeat in your own head. These 5 steps aren’t exactly as immediate as hitting the Re-Center button in Google Maps but help me let go of the tight hold they can have and allow me to direct my attention somewhere more helpful.

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From the National Institute of Mental Health: f you’re unsure where to get help, a health care provider is an excellent place to start. They can refer you to a qualified mental health professional who has experience treating OCD and can evaluate your symptoms. You can learn more about getting help and finding a health care provider on the NIMH website. The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration has an online treatment locator  to help you find mental health services in your area.