The Messy Truth

Human beings like to problem solve. Whenever we're faced with a challenge, we like to figure out how to address it and tie it off with a nice tidy bow. This is an adaptive response to challenges that we've developed over the centuries and, generally speaking, it serves us quite well.

Sometimes where we can get tripped up is when life gets complicated and we're faced with shades of grey, contradictory truths, or unsolvable unknowns - those situations where nothing seems like the right answer or we can't quite determine what's causing the issue.

I'm describing these experiences in our daily lives, but I've witnessed these challenges in the therapy room as well. It's natural for clients to want to figure out what's bothering them and resolve the issue. It's even natural for me as a therapist to want to my clients to be able to get that resolution. And sometimes it really can be this straightforward. Sometimes a certain coping strategy, a new perspective, or a supportive conversation can make a big difference. However, as with most of life, usually things aren't so simple.

For example, when someone is coping with depressive symptoms, we may naturally want to pinpoint what "caused" it. It could be a painful past experience, a loss, a current stressor, poor self-care habits, or a myriad of other situations. And what about how we learned to think from our caregivers? Or what about our genetic makeup? Identifying one or more causes can sometimes be a helpful place to start. Having an explanation is comforting for the problem-solving part of our brain which wants that clear  explanation of why we're feeling what we're feeling. Unfortunately more often than not, we don't get that clear cut explanation we're seeking. Sometimes, we may have simply felt different one day without an explanation we can pinpoint. In all likelihood, some of the factors at play in our day-to-day are beyond our awareness anyways - such as hormone fluctuations or fighting off a mild virus we didn't realize we'd picked up. Often there is more than one factor that may have contributed to those depressive symptoms being sparked and often they tend to impact one another without a clear distinction between cause and effect.

Another consideration is how to address the symptoms now. Is better sleep or nutrition the answer? Perhaps we're addressing a chemical imbalance that needs medication? What about thinking differently about the situation? Maybe we could take a behavioural approach and schedule fitness activities to help build up energy again? We're just scratching the surface with the approaches we could take here, but you get the idea.

Again, often there is no magic bullet to resolve these symptoms. Just as initial causes are likely multiple and interdependent, so to are the ways to address it. This means therapy work usually takes time and steady changes to various components of one's life in order to experience big shifts in mood or perspective.

Despite the fact that this complex, messy truth fails to wrap up a therapy solution into a tidy package, this could in fact be good news for us.

First of all, this means that picking away at small changes can amount to a big impact over time. It allows us to start with the "low hanging fruit" and build from there, knowing all of it will likely have a positive impact we can build on. This approach is far more manageable and sustainable than trying to make a big change all at once.

Secondly, this can be of great benefit to our resilience long-term. After all, if we required one particular magic bullet to "fix" our mental health, that means we're dependent on that one factor to stay in a healthy place. But if it takes a collection of factors to negatively impact one's mental health, that means that chipping away to improve each of these factors in turn will lead to greater resiliency overall. By diversifying the factors that can help our mental health, we can handle losing one or two for at time without it having such a big impact on us. We're able to manage setbacks while still keeping ourselves afloat. It means we always have protective factors available to us - even during the harder times.

If you would like to begin making positive changes to your mental health, please consider talking with a therapist.