Attorneys: How Does Smiling Depression Creep Up on a Lawyer?

In the United States, one out of every ten individuals suffers from depression. In the ranks of the legal profession, however, the rate of depression increases. One out of every four attorneys is depressed.

The old stigma of a depressed person walking around moping, looking down all of the time and in many cases bedridden is an inaccurate description of most people who are depressed. Certainly most lawyers who are depressed are not bedridden. They are at their firms billing hours every day despite personal or outside pressures. They can display an assortment of countenances such as grumpy, irritable, angry, detached and there are the many attorneys who smile despite feeling depressed all of the time.

You can ask, how can these mostly high-performing men and women struggle with depression on a daily basis? It might be interesting to note that many of these lawyers who suffer from depression don’t even identify themselves as depressed. They might be among the lawyers who experience Smiling Depression.

Samantha Smiles

Samantha describes her day, “I look as if I have it all. As I put on my makeup in the morning, I also fix a smile on my face. I take my medication, drink a couple of cups of coffee for energy just to get out of the door and then head to Starbucks for a strong dose of caffeine. When I arrive at work, my smile is pasted on my face but inside I feel like I am dying inside.

I close my door and bury myself in my work, billing as much as I can to make myself feel somehow worthwhile. I feel like an inadequate human being. I wonder why I am so unhappy because I have every reason to be happy. Despite these painful inner dialogues, I keep smiling until I can get home and let my hair down.”

What is Smiling Depression?

Smiling Depression is: appearing happy to others, literally smiling, while internally suffering from depressive symptoms. Smiling Depression often goes undetected. Those suffering often discount their own feelings and brush them aside. They might not even be aware of their depression, or certainly don’t want to acknowledge their symptoms due to a fear of being considered “weak.”

The characteristic of Smiling Depression is sadness, sorrow, grief, unhappiness, melancholy or gloom. Despite these hopeless feelings that never go away, or if these feelings leave temporarily, they return with a vengeance. The smile is the external façade, a defense mechanism, and an attempt to hide true feelings.

Phil Smiles

Phil, a successful litigator I worked with summed up Smiling Depression, “Pamela I just kept smiling while I was depressed. That truly sums up my life. I have a successful law practice, a loving wife, and children that make me proud. I worked hard every day, and I smiled and laughed with everyone but deep down inside, I hated myself.

At home, I have a few drinks to stop my brain from accusing me. I can only sleep a few hours at a time. My thoughts center on self-loathing. No one could ever imagine how I feel about myself.” (read more)

One of the things I have my clients perform during our two-session, a total of four-hour intake, is to have the attorney draw the first house they lived in before the age of seven-years-old. Then the lawyer and I can discover how and when their major coping mechanisms were developed. I call this these coping mechanisms the Basic Operating Principle. This gives us a foundation to address current and ongoing problems.

Phil and I discovered that a lot of his self-loathing stemmed from a poor childhood image he gained with a father who demanded much more from Phil than he could deliver. Phil describes, “I could never get it right. Even on his deathbed my father said in so many words that I was a loser despite the fact that I was Order of the Coif in law school. My mother ignored me and spent all of her energy on my sister.”

Once we walked through Phil’s first house, his depression and self-hatred made sense. We were able to address these misconstrued self-images and allow Phil to overcome his Smiling Depression that really began at a young age. Fortunately, Phil used achievement to combat the cruel words of his father. It is important to note that Phil was not consciously aware that these messages from his youth affected his ongoing depression as an adult. Once consciously aware, my clients can quickly address their issues of depression.

Causes of Smiling Depression

A person could be experiencing sadness about many things such as:

• Losing important cases (questioning their competence)
  Burnout
• Pressure to maintain billable hours
• Overwhelm from workload
• Unresolved mental or emotional issues
• Lacking self-esteem or self-worth for a variety of reasons
• Loss of a purpose to life
• Unexplainable sadness but something doesn’t feel right
• Loneliness, feeling no love or appreciation anywhere at work or at home
• A failed relationship, divorce, miserable marriage
• Crisis at home with troubled children
• Feeling at a loss with nowhere to turn

Although most individuals who suffer from Smiling Depression manage their day-to-day law practice, they are always smiling and in some cases, even the life of the party.

Robin Williams, the comedian, was a classic example of someone who suffered from Smiling Depression. As an Academy Award-winning actor, with worldwide acclaim, which is the kind of success in a career that most could only dream. He had a wife and children than loved him yet he was mostly depressed. “I go through periods of intense self-loathing,” Williams said.

Williams is one of a long line of funny men and women who have battled depression. These include Stephen Fry, Ruby Wax, and Lenny Henry and, perhaps most famously, Tony Hancock, who committed suicide, aged 44.

These comedians chose to mask their inner torment with a ‘happy’ public persona — and experts believe millions of Britons are doing the same, victims of what they call ‘Smiling Depression.’
Robin Williams had battled his demons with alcoholism and indeed conquered that. However, illness and hopelessness had him take his life. Smiling Depression is real and is not something to sweep underneath a rug.

According to the National Institute of Mental Health, approximately 10% of the United States population is suffering from depression, which is ten times more than those suffering from bipolar disorder (1%) and schizophrenia (1%). Please note that if the general population suffers at a rate of one in ten, the legal profession with one in four is indeed a crisis that must be addressed. During the process of discovery and assessment of depression, it is important that we are aware that everyone neither experiences or manifests, depression in the same way.

Smiling Depression and the Law Profession

High achievers are far more subject to smiling or at least ignoring their depression. Most high achievers look at depression as a weakness instead of an illness. If someone had an illness like Graves Disease, (which is a thyroid condition) there are symptoms that reveal itself such as a racing thyroid, increased heartbeat, and blood tests that indicate the problem. The Graves Disease can affect the eye tissue, and the individual’s eyes can bulge.

But, with depression, there is no blood test to determine this condition. There are no outward signs, like bulging eyes, but undiagnosed depression is as crippling as many diseases. Again, I emphasize the fact that lawyers, as one of the largest populations of depressed professionals, is an epidemic that must not be ignored.

How Can Lawyers Confront This Epidemic?

1. Put your pride and ego aside and admit to yourself that you have a problem.
2. Don’t discount your feelings or brush them aside. Admit to yourself that depression is a real affliction and seek professional help.
3. Stop using alcohol and pills to cope with your depression. It is like having a gangrenous sore and covering it with a bandage each day.
4. Cease thinking of depression as a weakness and call it what it truly is, “AN ILLNESS.”
5. Check yourself if you constantly suffer from any of the following:

a.  Anxiety
b.  Fear
c.  Anger
d.  Chronic fatigue
e.  Irritability at home and work
f.  Hopelessness, and despair
i.  Insomnia or other sleeping problems
j.  A lack of enjoyment in pleasurable activities
k.  A loss of libido
l.  Suicidal tendencies

Having the Ability to Smile During Difficulties Means Nothing

Just because you have the ability to smile, display a chipper day-to-day façade, and that you can function at the office; don’t discount your depression. While you can appear to be happy, literally smiling, while internally suffering from depressive symptoms, don’t let your Smiling Depression go undetected. Stop discounting your feelings and brushing them aside.

You Deserve to Feel Happy

I have found that many depressed lawyers who discount their depression believe that how they feel is unimportant. While having the ability to surmount human feelings is the hallmark of a good attorney, this can be a HUGE detriment to a lawyer on a personal level. You are in the helping profession so don’t spend all of your energy helping others while feeling miserable or even worse discounting and ignoring your personal torment. Some lawyers feel that they don’t deserve to be happy or that it is impossible to feel content. These are erroneous concepts, and everyone deserves a decent chance to wake up each morning feeling hopeful, encouraged and content.

The disease of depression puts a dark veil on everything in sight, and the internal dialogue that comes from a sufferer of depression is malignant and spreads putting a dark veil on everything you see. There is a better way. Seek help and so that, at the very least, you can make these feelings and outlooks manageable.

Loss and grief are a natural part of life, and these feelings must be recognized. In the real world lawyers lose loved ones, marriages are destroyed, bad health knocks on their door and severe family problems occur. There are losses of large cases that attorneys may have invested months if not years trying to win. It is normal at some point to suffer grief for someone (or something) we’ve lost. Each of us will process those sorrowful feelings differently and deal with them as best we can. It will manifest itself different ways; it may fade over time. But if it never goes away, this has now become a serious problem.

I emphasize to lawyers, judges and others in the demanding and stressful legal profession to stop continually undermining your emotions. Ignoring your mental and emotional health is not only detrimental to you personally which includes your physical health, but also your law practice will ultimately suffer as well. Links below.

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Links:

Thousands of us are hiding our misery behind a happy mask. Could YOU be a victim of smiling depression?
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2044877/Could-YOU-victim-smiling-depression.html#ixzz3sJhJvV3p

Smiling Depression
Nothing to smile about
Posted Nov 12, 2014
https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-guest-room/201411/smiling-depression