When Depression And A Need To Escape Become Self-Destructive: SelfWork #150
The SelfWork Podcast
Margaret Robinson Rutherford PhD
4.8 • 1.3K Ratings
🗓️ 11 October 2019
⏱️ 28 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Happy 150th Episode!! This is the last of the series on aspects of depression and today, we're talking about self-destructive habits and patterns. Depression is innately painful. It’s lonely. It’s dark. Sometimes you lose hope that you can find your way out. So, you can easily turn to self-destructive behaviors to gain some form of perceived control or escape.
Our focus will be on six, although we're completely leaving out substance abuse, which of course, is huge. Those six are: spending/shopping, bingeing and purging, restricting food/dieting/compulsive exercise, cutting, having an affair, and overly rigid compartmentalization. I’ll offer stories from my own patients and how they began to change their thinking about the escape routes they’d come to count on. And I’ll offer the question that I’ve used to help people begin to understand what function these behaviors are serving.
The listener email is from someone who believes her husband has PHD (perfectly hidden depression). But she asks, "Since he’s highly perfectionistic, how can I approach him?"
You can hear more about depression and many other topics by listening to my podcast, SelfWork with Dr. Margaret Rutherford. Subscribe to my website and receive one weekly newsletter including my weekly blog post and podcast! If you’d like to join my FaceBook closed group, then click here and answer the membership questions! Welcome!
My new book entitled Perfectly Hidden Depression will be arriving November 1, 2019 and you can pre-order here! Its message is specifically for those with a struggle with strong perfectionism which acts to mask underlying emotional pain. But the many self-help techniques described can be used by everyone who chooses to begin to address emotions long hidden away that are clouding and sabotaging your current life.
And there’s a new way to send me a message! You can record by clicking below and ask your question or make a comment. You’ll have 90 seconds to do so and that time goes quickly. By recording, you’re giving SelfWork (and me) permission to use your voice on the podcast. I’ll look forward to hearing from you!
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This is self-work and I'm Dr. Margaret Rutherford. |
| 0:13.0 | At self-work we'll discuss psychological and emotional issues common in today's world |
| 0:19.0 | and what to do about them. |
| 0:20.0 | I'm Dr. Margaret and self-work is a podcast dedicated to you taking just a few minutes today for your own self-work |
| 0:29.2 | Hello and welcome to the 150th episode of Self- Work. I cannot believe we're there. I actually |
| 0:36.3 | looked it up. It's a siska centennial event. But happy 150th episode. I couldn't find any traditional ways of celebrating 150 so a few sound effects will have to do |
| 1:06.1 | And it's all about you. So thank you for being here. And if you've listened to all 150, just wow, whatever your native language, thank you. This past week in my Facebook closed group, someone posted a graphic where the writer asked if I inflict pain |
| 1:11.2 | on myself, isn't it just as valid? |
| 1:14.1 | It was and is an interesting question. |
| 1:17.1 | Since this is the last of the series on aspects of depression, I began wondering what might |
| 1:22.2 | be the common thread of behaviors that are considered ways to escape pain. |
| 1:27.0 | Depression is innately painful, it's lonely, it's dark. |
| 1:31.0 | Sometimes you lose hope, then you can find your way out. So some turn to self-destructive |
| 1:36.4 | behaviors to gain some form of perceived control or escape. And that's what we're going to be talking about today. Very diverse self-destructive |
| 1:45.9 | behaviors. Not very celebratory, I guess. But I think very important. I'll offer stories from my own patients and how they began to change their thinking about |
| 1:56.6 | the escape routes that come to count on and to learn the skill of self-soothing that so many struggle to adopt because that's the answer |
| 2:05.2 | to self-destructiveness is self-soothing. |
| 2:09.0 | And I'll offer the question that I've used to help people begin to understand what function these behaviors are serving. |
| 2:16.2 | This will become more clear, I hope, when we get to the examples. |
| 2:20.0 | The listener email is from someone who believes her husband experiences perfectly hidden |
| 2:24.3 | depression, but since he's highly perfectionistic, how could she approach him with a concern about |
| 2:30.0 | it that he could perhaps tolerate. |
... |
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