Wednesday, January 6, 2010

Bonne Année

Greetings, ducks, and Happy New Year. It's been a while, I know. And I'm fine, mostly, now. But I wasn't before.

We don't like to talk about depression much as a culture, although to some degree we've destigmatized it: I mean, here in the Great American Metropolis, everyone jokes about being in therapy or on antidepressants. Jokes are made; sticom plots revolve around a character's mental health; and we wonder if Ziggy had some Prozac if his life would improve and he'd finally buy some pants.

But we don't talk about it, or when we do, when we really sit down and talk about it, all the old stigmas come back. People will whisper about someone being really depressed; there's an uneasiness around the whole subject, a certain trepidation about approaching them, a certain, well, fear: of driving them to suicide? Of catching it yourself? I don't know.

What happened to me is that the chronic low-grade depression I've carried with me since before puberty flared up, as it does sometimes: but first it just gradually began to increase, helped along, no doubt, by my decision to go off antidepressants over the summer. Sure, I got worse, but gradually, gradually, and I couldn't tell how badly I was slipping, until I came back from San Francisco without a steady source of income for the first time in something like six years. And even then, I was doing OK, because I had a line on a job that wasn't ideal but would hold me while I retrenched. And I really thought I was going to get the job. Until I went up and had a horrible series of interviews.

And then I decidedly wasn't OK anymore.

Some of what happened next you no doubt can glean from my BTB post last week: I went to the psych ER, after a series of humiliations I got some meds that my insurance will actually cover, and if I'm not out of the woods, I can at least see the trees thinning out. And tomorrow I start a gig that while not ideal, will at least hold me while I retrench. (And keep working from home.)

But I was going to talk about my depression...and that's just it. It's so hard to talk about: if you don't have it, it's hard to understand. It's nothing like being sad, except when it is; it's nothing like feeling listless, except when it is; it's nothing like feeling hopeless, except when it is--and most of the time you feel at least some of those symptoms all at once. William Styron called it a "brain storm" and that comes close, except in my case there isn't a feeling of storm like violence: just a hopelessness, a feeling that everything I do is futile, that everything is just too hard for me to accomplish and that if I were lucky, I'd just not wake up in the morning. And sometimes, sometimes you just want the pain and hopelessness to go away so badly that you think about making sure you won't wake up in the morning.

I think until you can contemplate the idea of destroying yourself--of making a permanent end to all your problems--and think it a good thing, a sensible thing, to no longer care about the pain you would inflict on others, just so long as your own would go away--until you've hit that point, then no, you don't know what depression really feels like. I've had some sort of suicidal ideation around once a month since I was at least ten years old. And I almost never think seriously about it; when I do, when I get really serious in my own mind, that's when I know to go down to a doctor and do something about it. And I'm lucky: most of the time, there is something to be done, and something I can access to help me. Not everyone is so lucky.

Yet strangely enough, I don't want this post itself to be depressing. Dawn is breaking on my battered mental landscape; my Significant Other of Variable and Often Fabulous Gender spent the weekend with me, and cheered me up. I have a source of income again, and believe it or not, a line on some more interviews.

I'm writing again. And that's a light all of its own.

6 comments:

  1. I know nothing about depression. Maybe this will help a little, probably not. But here goes. Over to the right you will see under your "Friends of the Blog" section, noted and blogged's most recent post is "Don't hate me because I'm beautiful." Well, you're just as beautiful as Sandyshoes. See http://capriceglob.blogspot.com/2010/01/im-beautiful-blogger.html

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  2. I know so well what you mean and I think you've described depression just perfectly. I'm really glad that the sunlight is coming through again and I wish you all the best for continued sunlight! :)

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  3. What Emily said. And I'm so glad you had a chance to see L.

    Love, Donna

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  4. I'm glad to here that things are looking up for you. Also, kudos on the incredibly brave post. It can be really powerful to talk honestly and openly about depression, but wow can it be hard. All the best to you.

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  5. I'm amazed at how similar a territory we just trod in the past few months. I also quit my meds this fall. And then lost a contract I was counting on, and hit the worst financial snag I've had in years. And then after spiralling down slowly, spiralled down really, really fast.

    I went to the emerg too. And even stayed in the hospital for a few days. My Canuck insurance doesn't cover the meds, but it did cover the hospital stay. I'm very happy that the help was available when I needed it.

    I'm still pretty fragile. The trees are thinning out, but so slowly.

    Depression of this ilk... Yeah, it's not just feeling sad or hopeless. It's being in excruciating pain, except the pain is happening to your mind, instead of a body part. The sadness and despair are so intense, they are not feelings any more, they are the air - toxic air.

    I'm glad you are better. And somehow it makes me feel better that someone else knows this experience and can talk about it. I can't talk about it as openly. I tried to, and then deleted the post.

    -- Spatula

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  6. Fashionably late to the comment party I realise, still, this resonated. Depression is fuckawful and I'm a great admirer of depressed bloggers or anyone that channels creative energy whilst suffering from depression because it makes you feel so much smaller, so much less significant than your problems and saps at the confidence necessary to get your art out there. I'm lucky to live in Britain where prescriptions for medication are heavily subsidised (the American healthcare system makes me so very, very angy) but for an array of complex reasons I don't partake myself. Still, I've been there; the awkward conversations in the work place where you feel like you're coming out in some respect when you have to eventually admit you suffer from depression, the anxiety, the hopelessness and in my case bouts of self-destructive rage where I'm just so angry with myself for not working "properly" and just want to be content like everyone else seems to be.

    The pain doesn't stop, you just learn to cope better. Keep on keeping on. It seems that you're doing a pretty good job.

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