In those old good days, we Iranian considered depression being a luxury illness. This was a common shared belief that many of us may agree that we had or still have. We perceived depression being a rich man problem, people who were tired of all the privileges in life and did not know what to do next.
Depression for me at least was a type of illness that the upper middle class would catch.
Now, we do realize how this assumption was defective and incorrect.
With today research and vast knowledge about depression we could extend our understanding about this illness as it has biological, social, and psychological reasons behind.
Depression in our current world is an everyday problem and it happens to anyone despite race, class, ethnicity, status, and gender.
I do not intend to go to the scientific model of depression. It is important for us Iranian to understand psychology within the framework of our own culture and our own reality.
I do not recall anyone talking about depression in our average type of family lives. People kept busy and searched for meaning in various ways. Those who had mental health issues were being kept away from others or send to institutions away from families and away from any love. We have heard stories of the crazy home or psychiatry institutions or places distanced from communities with minimal social interactions. Those were horrible scary stories that today belong to Halloween nights. Nevertheless, many individuals have the experience of having lived in those scary places.
We Iranian use the expression that some one died of a broken heart or degh kardan, meaning she or he carried excessive amount of sadness that made the person die.
This is certainly one area that researchers have confirmed that you can die of a broken heart, this information is public. All the studies of people with excessive amount of grief have helped the research world to understand what happens physiologically and psychologically and why it result to dead. I do not mean to get into this discussion either.
With no intention for generalizing, we can agree that the use of language in our Iranian culture or any culture explain the implicit realities. Let use the liberty for using the metaphors in order to get to the basis of this issue. We just want to play with words that are deep rooted in our Iranian culture. In doing this we can explore the underlying issues of eating ghosse or being upset.
In any average Iranian family life there are conversations about how some one is eating ghosse, meaning that the person is deeply upset, depressed, or sad about a real crisis. We could also be distressed because we are aware of some qualities that make us unsuccessful or unhappy. However, we do not like to acknowledge those issues. Instead we keep thinking about what is missing and keep eating ghosse.
We could eat ghosse because we are in grief over something, or we are having financial problems, or we are being in family conflict, divorcing husband, separations, and various disruptions to our regular life. Due to these disturbances or turbulences we feel a sense of heartache and sorrow while we express our feelings by saying that we are eating ghosse. The situation is the same when we have health problems, parenting issues or if we lose jobs or we are unable to find jobs, these are all circumstances that we can get upset about or eat ghosse.
A number of times we let go of our rights to be happy and cling into areas where makes us really angry, sad, upset, unhappy, and dissatisfied. For some people eating ghosse or worrying about life in general is a real daily habit, a circumstance they can not live without.
Sometimes it is easier to be angry and upset than happy and energetic. Perhaps from time to time we permit ourselves for being depressed. Maybe we sometimes let go of taking care of ourselves because we do feel guilty or shameful for many reasons. There are certainly many cultural reasons when we are forced to be upset or we let old stories become our daily issue.
Now, take a moment to think literally what it means to eat ghosse,
that we swallow the grief, that we internalize the sorrow that we carry the loss with us to the most deepest and darkest places inside our soul that we let ourselves feel angry and hurt that we see ourselves being helpless, isolated and fearful, that we are in shock and denial that we have lost our sense of safety that we have lost ourselves that we do not have the support we need that we are violated physically, emotionally, psychologically, or spiritually That we have many unexpressed concerns That we need to talk to someone
This list goes on and on.
When we eat ghosse, we physically take in the pain and the feelings meaning:
that we hide it inside that we culturally are raised to take in issues to ourselves and hide it from others that we have to pretend being strong and happy in order to keep the face of abero or grace that we accept the pain without resistance and without fight, that we suppress our emotions and we internalize the external cruelty and injustice
What happens then? After we have eaten all these ghosse or pain, we feel overwhelmed, we have no energy to fight, we can not focus on the everyday life tasks, and we can not be the person we want to be.
What can we do? Definitely talking to mental health professionals is a great help. In addition we need to let go of our negative emotions. Whatever has happened to us that make us sad, we can always talk about them.
Talking about feelings and unexpressed emotions help us to find peace within and among ourselves. This is not the regular talk we have at parties. This is a talk professional. This is why people in western cultures seek therapy.
We have to fight the culture of grief and substitute it with culture of happiness. We need to focus on our strengths and build upon that. Our culture of grief is sometimes complicated and does not let us breathe a fresh air.
Seek help and find ways to keep happy. From now on do not eat any ghosse. If you have issues to talk about, find the proper help and do not let depression take you. Depression means many things for us Iranian. We have to be brave to explore that.
Poran Poregbal, Vancouver, B.C.
January 26, 2008
By: Poran Poregbal
© 2010 Depression Medicine
