Having experienced depression herself, as a PhD researcher, Rhoda was inspired to explore the effectiveness of Mindfulness-Based Compassionate Living as a follow-up to Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy in adults with recurrent depression. She also presented on mindfulness, compassion, meditation and healthy lifestyle at the Mind, Body Unity Conference, the International Conference on Mindfulness, the Omega Institute, and Mind and Life Europe.
This short edited excerpt of Rhoda’s interview turns from exploring the origins of her own depression, to her PhD research and Compassion Training. Listen to her full interview on The Gifts of Trauma.
I cannot stay on the surface of life. I find it impossible not to go deep.
When I graduated as a mindfulness teacher, I had a lovely dinner with my proud family to celebrate. I thanked my parents for giving me ‘the sweet spot of trauma’: Enough to be inspired and motivated, but not enough to stop me from being an effective healer. They were dubious about this praise, but for me it was true.
Before I started teaching, I was a mindfulness student. I took my first class when I was 29 and my life had fallen apart. I’d quit my job, my boyfriend, my house, my city, and moved back in with my mother, unsure of what to do next. One day my aunt, a psychotherapist who’s well versed in Buddhist practices, told me, “A new thing called mindfulness has arrived in the Netherlands and you’re going to do it.” I’m forever grateful to her, as that was a big turning point for me.
I started down the road to depression when I was 11 or 12. I don’t have many happy memories but I do recall a lot of confusion and self hatred. I was at the age when my horizon had begun to broaden. The gap between how I was being and who I truly was got so big, I felt like it was killing me. I was so somber. I cried so much. And my vulnerability led to a few bad experiences that expanded my self hatred. By the time I was 16 or 17, I had so much self hatred I would actually hit myself in the face. A voice kept telling me how stupid and worthless I was. I felt that way before I went to bed or early in the morning, then I would go to school, see friends, and actually have a good time. But when I got home, there would be more feelings of worthlessness… all of these diverse emotions coexisted.
I feel a slight wonderment now, about how I was back then. I can see so clearly that there was nothing wrong with me, that it’s very human for teenagers to have these feelings. Maybe not to the extent that I felt them, but other teenagers feel them.
I don’t have all the answers about what set me up for depression. I’m still working on that. But I believe my upbringing played a role. When I was four, my parents divorced and my dad left. We saw him every two weeks but we rarely took holidays together. He was a very private person who didn’t talk easily about his feelings. He seemed to want to do everything perfectly, was very hard on himself and taught us to be hard on ourselves too. We learned that if we wanted something, we had to pursue it ourselves, as we weren’t going to get any help. My sisters and I became very self-reliant, but when you’re young, self-reliance can feel very lonely.
My mother wasn’t like that, but she had a low tolerance for certain feelings. We could not express anger, as we’d get harshly rejected for doing so, which felt very unsafe. This had something to do with our mother’s family. If someone hurt them, rather than dealing with their emotions or conflicts, they’d cut that person out of their life, until enough time had passed. Then they reconnected, without ever resolving the original conflict.
Two other things are probably important. I’m the youngest sister, by five and eight years, respectively, so I was often told, “No, you’re too small for that.” I’d want to do something, and they’d decide to do something else. What I thought, wanted or felt was so consistently ignored and set aside, I believed I wasn’t important.
And by the age of 11 or 12, I was convinced my opinions and feelings didn’t matter, which led me into loads of trouble.
The last thing, and I always feel shy about saying this… I’m a bright person, highly sensitive or perhaps gifted, and I can pick up on interpersonal vibes between people. As a child, I would often feel a vibe that others didn’t acknowledge. I’d go under the surface and ask awkward or ill timed questions about how people were feeling. When they said, “Oh we’re fine.” I wouldn’t let it go. “But you don’t look fine.” Or, “That’s a lie.” Authenticity is a hugely important value for me, and I could see they weren’t telling the truth. I got angry with them for lying and for being uncomfortable with their own feelings. “Why can’t everybody truthfully say how they feel? Why is that a bad thing?” As a child, being constantly told that I’d got it wrong made me feel that there was something wrong with me.
As a result I stayed on my toes, mindful of what I said and how I acted, constantly trying to prove I was worthy of attention, worthy of love, but convinced that I always fell short.
I wanted to talk to someone. I remember trying to talk to people, including my mom, but she said my emotions were too difficult… that she didn’t understand me. When I was 13 she sent me to a therapist, which made me think she didn’t want to understand me, which was painful. I talked to the therapist but (for once) stayed on the surface as it either felt too unsafe or I was too fearful to talk about what was really going on. My upbringing was vastly better than my mother’s, and I know that what she did came from the best intentions, but for me, it fell short.
When I was at university, I was depressed for most of my 20s. It was very difficult to be happy. And at 29, when I hit rock bottom and quit everything, I remember thinking, “Oh, come on, this cannot be the way to live life. There must be something I’m not getting.” Mindfulness and Buddhist practices showed me a different way. It’s not perfect. Everything is not magically better, but it’s much more authentic, and that’s important, because my biggest struggle was that my life was not authentic.
The Gifts of Trauma is a weekly podcast that features personal stories of trauma, transformation, healing, and the gifts revealed on the path to authenticity. Listen to the interview, and if you like it, please subscribe, leave a rating or review, and share it with others in your community.
