The Emotional Bermuda Triangle

There is a popular legend about an area of the Atlantic Ocean where airplanes and ships have supposedly been mysteriously disappearing for years, making it a dangerous place to sail or fly over. Many explanations, both convincing and far-out, have been given for what happens in this area, but I'll leave that for others to explain. My purpose here is to explain how I occasionally use concept this as a therapeutic metaphor.

My use of the phrase "emotional Bermuda triangle" refers to a risky psychological area that people can get themselves into but don't always easily escape. This area is bounded by depression on one side, anxiety on another and obsession on the third. Here's how it works:

We all get sad, but sometimes people fall into depressive funks that cause them to interpret the events of their life in a consistently negative way. When they struggle to escape this depressive outlook it unfortunately sometimes comes at the high cost of increasing their sense of anxiety. I've known some people who were so anxious it made them depressed and other people so depressed it made them anxious, but in either case it's a profound one-two punch.

As if that's not hard enough to deal with, it's the third leg of the stool that can really trap a person in a never-ending cycle. Obsessive-compulsive tendencies can serve as a way for a person to manage his or her anxiety or sadness. When you're always thinking, planning, reviewing and acting in a compulsive manner it's hard to notice the pervasive sadness and anxiety that's lurking close by.

This is the emotional Bermuda triangle: to avoid depression a person stays obsessively occupied in mind or body (or both) until eventually anxiety becomes an inevitable byproduct, eventually tumbling back into depression, and on and on. When efforts to decrease one of these three symptoms causes an increase in either of the other two, that may be one way to keep floating but it's sure not a pleasure cruise.

I find that counseling can help a person to increase awareness of this emotional danger zone and navigate forward in life without excessively suffering from any of these three difficulties. If you find yourself consistently paddling in these treacherous waters I hope you will take steps to find someone to help guide you to smoother sailing.

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