I'm Not OK Game

NOTE: Trying to fight the beast when your depression level is too high will be discouraging and most likely, ineffective unless you have group support or an active therapist trained in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. Medication is usually indicated for these levels of depression. Fighting the beast is more effective when depression is mild. If you’re in full remission, fighting the Beast helps extend periods of remission.

Many people have asked why I refer to depression as “The Beast.” Personally I find it a way to separate myself from my disorder. I am not a “depressive;” I’m a person who suffers from a depressive disorder. I would rather see my depression as an external beast rather than a part of who I am.

In order to capture the Beast in the act, we need to understand the games he plays. Referring to it as a “game” points out there are two players (you and the beast) with unconscious rules that are followed. When someone knows the rules of the game (making the unconscious—conscious), the Beast is easier to identify and defeat or at least soften his advances. I publish one game at a time.

A way of knowing you’re dealing with the Beast is to become aware of your emotions. Simply put, if you have feelings that are extreme and destructive, you’ve been listening to the Beast. Each game of the Beast will produce a particular emotion, and each game will have a common irrational flaw. Your feelings will help you discover what game he is being playing against you.


I'm Not OK

The Emotion:  Worthlessness

The Message: To get us feeling unworthy, the Beast will try to convince us  we are utterly worthless. However, this is not the entire message. The beast not only tells us how terrible we are; he proves his rhetoric by connecting our worthlessness to a specific action or inaction. The Beast convinces us that our worth depends on our behavior. With this line of reasoning, since no one is perfect, our worth goes up and down like a busy elevator at Macy’s. When we do well, we can feel worthwhile. When we inevitably fail, our worth plummets. By accepting the Beast’s premise that worth is determined by our behavior we are forced into a position of perfectionism in order to avoid the painful feelings of worthlessness. This denies us the opportunity of learning and growing from our mistakes and misdeeds.

This is a difficult game to deal with because it has been drummed in the minds of most. We are what we do. We continually evaluate other people’s behavior. We tend to do this along five different dimensions: Wealth, Education, Power, Fame, and Beauty.

The Beast takes full advantage of this sick concept. To fight the beast in this game is to swim upstream. We not only have to fight the Beast, but the harmful, self-defeating cultural values we see in much of the world.

The Flaw:  Our worth does not depend on what we achieve and it does not depend on our behavior. Simply because each of us are unique and alive we have infinite worth. No matter how much we screw things up we are infinitely worthwhile 24/7. There is nothing we can do about our worth… it just simply is.

It’s hard to deeply accept this concept. But we get glimpses of its truth at times. Mother’s get a glimpse when they look upon their newborn baby. What good is a baby? A baby certainly has no education, wealth, power, fame, etc. What does a baby do other than eat, poop, pee, cry, sleep, smile and crawl around? Yet most of us can see the worth a baby has.

When the beast has convinced us we are lousy, rotten and because we did something wrong, we need to remember the flaw in this game. We can tell ourselves we really regret having done something wrong, but this has nothing to do with our worth. “Regret” is taking responsibility for a wrong decision, leading to growth. Guilt and worthlessness leads to defeat.

Babies do stupid things all the time, yet do we question their worth?

 

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