If you closely look at what takes people down and how they go from pure joy to deep sorrow, you can discern a series of steps that mostly involve emotion.
As a human being who has taken more than my share of trips to the emotional underground, I have identified five definite steps on this frequent trip to the emotional basement. Actually, I don’t go down these stairs as often as I used to do when I was a war refugee at the Liberian Refugee Camp in Ghana.
Step 1: Disappointment. Something happens that is completely different from or opposite to what you expected. Somebody, a group, a company, an organization or the government fail to come through. You feel betrayed, deserted or even stabbed in the back. You feel let down. Disappointed.
Step 2: Discouragement. The feeling of being let down leads to fear. You begin to get scared. You are afraid. You begin to doubt. You become timid. You prepare to be very careful, opting only for calculated steps. Bravery leaves, and courage flees. The umph within you goes into hiding. Discouraged. That’s what you are.
Step 3: Distress. This is worse than being stressed out. Stress is often due to being overactive, being too busy, doing too much. But distress is stress without busyness, without hyperactivity, often without much activity. You feel the wind knocked out of your sail, though you did not have the strength to sail in the first place. If stress is caused by busyness; distress comes from boredom. You are distressed when you are UNDER stress. Stress is now on top of you. It feels like being pinned down. It is as if life has turned into a giant gorilla, and the monster is standing right on top of you, on top of your heart, with one foot against your throat. Distressed.
Step 4: Dejection. Rejection is when other people actually don’t want you or don’t what you have to offer. Dejection is when you feel like others don’t want you, and therefore you don’t want you. When you are rejected, “they” don’t want you. When you feel dejected, you don’t want yourself. Dejection is self-rejection. Now you’re really beginning to feel like human trash, garbage, rubbish, like a piece of flesh, and nothing more. Dejected.
Step 5: Depression. You’ve reached the lowest level of negative emotion. This is as deep as you can sink with your breath still in you, and still be conscious of who you are. It is all the previous four rungs of the downward spiraling ladder plus worse. You are disappointed, discouraged, distressed, dejected and depressed. Any emotional level lower than the depressed state is either coma or death. It is here that thoughts of suicide begin to take over one’s mind. Dangerous place to be; it’s right on the brink of death, a foretaste of the grave without the stench or ghost.
Does one downward emotional step have to lead to the other? No. One sets him/herself up to sink lower only when s/he fails to rise up and bounce back. You can recover from being disappointed and get back to your emotional norm. But if you linger too long in disappointment, you are likely to step lower into discouragement, and if you remain discouraged for long, you may sink to the distress/despair level, and so on.
As a human being who has taken more than my share of trips to the emotional underground, I have identified five definite steps on this frequent trip to the emotional basement. Actually, I don’t go down these stairs as often as I used to do when I was a war refugee at the Liberian Refugee Camp in Ghana.
Step 1: Disappointment. Something happens that is completely different from or opposite to what you expected. Somebody, a group, a company, an organization or the government fail to come through. You feel betrayed, deserted or even stabbed in the back. You feel let down. Disappointed.
Step 2: Discouragement. The feeling of being let down leads to fear. You begin to get scared. You are afraid. You begin to doubt. You become timid. You prepare to be very careful, opting only for calculated steps. Bravery leaves, and courage flees. The umph within you goes into hiding. Discouraged. That’s what you are.
Step 3: Distress. This is worse than being stressed out. Stress is often due to being overactive, being too busy, doing too much. But distress is stress without busyness, without hyperactivity, often without much activity. You feel the wind knocked out of your sail, though you did not have the strength to sail in the first place. If stress is caused by busyness; distress comes from boredom. You are distressed when you are UNDER stress. Stress is now on top of you. It feels like being pinned down. It is as if life has turned into a giant gorilla, and the monster is standing right on top of you, on top of your heart, with one foot against your throat. Distressed.
Step 4: Dejection. Rejection is when other people actually don’t want you or don’t what you have to offer. Dejection is when you feel like others don’t want you, and therefore you don’t want you. When you are rejected, “they” don’t want you. When you feel dejected, you don’t want yourself. Dejection is self-rejection. Now you’re really beginning to feel like human trash, garbage, rubbish, like a piece of flesh, and nothing more. Dejected.
Step 5: Depression. You’ve reached the lowest level of negative emotion. This is as deep as you can sink with your breath still in you, and still be conscious of who you are. It is all the previous four rungs of the downward spiraling ladder plus worse. You are disappointed, discouraged, distressed, dejected and depressed. Any emotional level lower than the depressed state is either coma or death. It is here that thoughts of suicide begin to take over one’s mind. Dangerous place to be; it’s right on the brink of death, a foretaste of the grave without the stench or ghost.
Does one downward emotional step have to lead to the other? No. One sets him/herself up to sink lower only when s/he fails to rise up and bounce back. You can recover from being disappointed and get back to your emotional norm. But if you linger too long in disappointment, you are likely to step lower into discouragement, and if you remain discouraged for long, you may sink to the distress/despair level, and so on.
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