Longfellow’s poem ‘The Three Silences of Molinos’ states “Three Silences there are: the first of speech, the second of desire, the third of thought;..”, could have been easily written to describe depression.
Depression is a thief of the soul, depriving the individual of the words that they could communicate their feelings, their fears and their anxieties; robbing them of the desire to engage with the world around that seems intent on burdening them further; blocking all thought of hope, of well-being.
The three combine to make the perfect silence. The tragedy of silence in depression is that, as nature abhors a vacuum, our depressed brain abhors the silence and very soon is filled with inner voices that bring discomfort and dis-ease. Self destructive words of failure, hopelessness and self loathing ruminate like toxic mind-worms, hammers at the chisels of needle stuck criticism holding us to ransom like a puppet on strings.
The perfect silence isolates us from the one thing that we need, interactions with others, those moments that break the dominance of that silence and brings in other voices other sounds. Voices of friends, of colleagues, family and even total strangers that for however long brings us into a different and more positive space.
The voices need not talk about the problem, they may talk about all sorts of things, voices that might just reignite our own voice and to help lift the dark clouds.
Those voices can be as therapeautic as any counsellor or therapist, providing that they bring a sense of hope, of belonging, of life being life affirming. Voices that aren’t patronising, judging or too professionally wise.
We all need those voices sometimes, we just need to be available to be one.
