The Rose Garden, Chapter 14 – The Inner Critic

Depression, Source https://pixaby.com, Author pixaby user GDJ, (Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication)

“Why are you cast down, O my soul?  And why are you disquieted within me?…” (Ps. 42:11).

I first began experiencing depression, another of the scars of child abuse, in my teens.

Depression is a thought disorder.  It results when the brain does not deliver chemical messages (known as “neurotransmitters”) correctly, thereby interfering with accurate communication between one cell and another.

The connection between child abuse and depression has been clearly established [1].  I can trace the condition’s origins directly to that moment in the course of the abuse when I abandoned hope.

Depression has been a frequent presence in my life.  To varying extent, I can feel the snare daily, but will not give in to it.  To do so would be to let darkness conquer.

For me, chiefly the triggers for depression are situations in which I feel powerless, and failures at love.  These evoke the emotions of the molestation with devastating impact.

When depression is at its worst, the self-contempt is unbearable.  The internal dialogue can be vicious.  What a worthless piece of trash I am!  No wonder my life has been pointless.  This useless heart of mine would be better off torn from my chest.

Workaholism

Workaholism was for many years my defense against depression.  I worked sixty to eighty hour weeks on a sustained basis — more hours than that when on trial.  I knew the evening cleaning staff at every office, and more than once sat in railroad stations at midnight waiting for my train home.

And workaholism was effective.  It fueled my professional success.  It allowed me to avoid dealing with other issues.  It, also, deprived me of a full and balanced life.  Everything but work was secondary.  There was no room for anything else.

Workaholism served to shore up my ego.  I could view myself as dedicated when actually, at a deeper level, I believed myself inadequate.  A normal person could afford to slack off, once in awhile.  I could not.  I had to make up for my deficiencies, or so I believed.

A child subjected to sexual abuse feels worthless.  He or she is used as an object for the gratification of the parent, guardian, or adult who, by all rights, should protect and treasure him or her.  No child is too young to be aware of this.

Children, however, see themselves as the center of the world and responsible for all that goes on.  Consequently, they take on the guilt of the abuser.

That guilt is, or course, misplaced.  Regardless of the conditions under which they are molested, children are incapable of informed consent.  Moreover, abusers are notoriously manipulative.

Nonetheless, children molested by a parent will defend the parent at all costs.  At an emotional level, it is easier for children to believe themselves defective, than think the parent might be.

The connection to a self-critical inner voice is easy to see.  It remains difficult for me to be kind to myself.  I can still be my own harshest critic.

Thankfully, Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing Therapy (EMDR) has helped greatly with this in recent years [2].  Unfortunately, it does not work for everyone.

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[1]  National Institutes of Health, National Library of Congress, National Biotechnology Information Center, “Childhood Trauma and Its Relation to Chronic Depression in Adulthood” by Alexa Negele, et al, 11/29/15, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4677006/.

[2]  Cleveland Clinic, “EMDR Therapy”, 3/29/22, https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/treatments/22641-emdr-therapy.

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