September 2020 – Futility: The Whats and Hows (Depression Primer #3)

I’m continuing on here with the idea that there are certain core elements or phenomenon in depression that would really behoove every depressive to know about. And this month’s focus, futility, is dead center in what depression is about. Not that ever knowing these “depression axioms” will be the cure itself; depression requires work and training (link), but it also needs a good theoretical understanding.

May you be staying safe, but also using this difficult time to learn and grow.

Futility: The Whats and Hows (Depression Primer #3)

Depression isn’t just a blob of grey nothing, although it pretends to be. It’s a bit like the Wizard of Oz, if the Wizard was a dirty cloud of fog surrounding you, saying stuff like, “What’s the point? Why bother? It’s all going to fail anyway, right?” But when you get a glimpse through the murk, or when diligent effort clarifies you night-vision, you will see the elaborate machinery that we, in very over-simplified terminology, call “depression.”

So, concisely: Depression is what happens when we cannot let go of goals (and attachments) which we see (or believe) are futile. Or, as Beck and Bredemeier (2016) put it, “depression can be viewed as an adaptation to conserve energy after the perceived loss of an investment in a vital resource such as a relationship, group identity, or personal asset.” Basically, when we’ve lost something we have an investment in, we have to let go of the desire for it, which means the often painful process of grieving, letting our system adapt to a world in which that goal is now futile. That’s hard. With some things, for different reasons, we’re unwilling or unable to do that. Depression is the thing that evolution gave us to cut off the energy drain that would otherwise destroy us, if we kept exerting ourselves towards a goal that can’t happen.

Also concisely: Futility is a state in which a goal cannot be realized given the existing circumstances of reality. (See these links for fuller explanations: audio podcast, “Ungrieved Futility”, “Futility”, “Futility and Acceptance” .) This “state” can both be an actual condition of reality (our loved one has actually passed away and we are powerless to change that), or a perceived state of reality (we are sure that we can never learn the guitar, whereas that’s actually a belief rather than an objective fact). Regardless, when we hold a goal or attachment to something—be it a person, desire, or outcome of something—it takes energy to maintain it. That’s not a problem if there’s a return on that investment—our partner loves us, a desire is fulfilled and we experience pleasure, or we get the job promotion. But when the goal is impossible, there cannot be a return, and in that situation, if we don’t drop the goal our system will be depleted, the end of which is death. Imagine running a race and not being willing to accept that the heat exhaustion is telling you to stop. Depression is built to make you stop if you’re not going to do it willingly. Thus, depression’s various Wizard of Oz pronouncements are simply ways of getting you to stop running, and they all come after depression’s recognition of futility (whether objective fact, or subjective belief). Futility is the primary pivot point.

Why is this so important? For one, it points to depression as a protective mechanism, a bit like how the body heats up to deal with an infection. It feels miserable, of course, but it is trying to protect, not harm, you. Therefore, rather than seeing it as an infliction, you can start relating to it as an important part of yourself, and listen to its message about needing to stop holding on to what’s futile.

When you recognize that the core issue with depression is futility, you can then ask yourself what that is exactly in your own life. Sometimes it’s more obvious than others what futile goal we’re clinging to (“Oh, right, I’m trying to pretend the relationship is not over”), but even so, this understanding of futility as that which is pointed to by the fact of depression, gives us a clue about what to look for, in order to unspring the depression. “I’m not sure what it is, but if I’m depressed, I must be, somewhere, somehow, holding onto something that already is gone.” Although depression is indeed a multi-dimensional machine, in which many factors are at work, knowing that one’s depression is anchored to a need to let go and grieve some kind of loss itself can open up a sense of curiosity and agency, which otherwise is lost in the sense of the impossibility of action. There’s something impossible (futile) afoot, but it’s not you and it’s not the world and it’s not the potential to heal.