this one’s about the big “D”

When I first started sliding into my depression, I noticed my partner trying to cheer me up after I casually mentioned something I considered to be a matter of fact. I would give a simple summary of some phenomenon in a way that usually combined and explained some far-reaching problems with society and it’s functions and he would look at me as if I were standing on the edge of a cliff ready to jump. He would answer with “yeah, but it’s not all bad” or “what if things go right?” His statements so thoroughly confused me. I was not feeling worried or sad about it, I only felt like I was seeing things clearly. What do you mean if they go right? This is how they are going. After his response I’d think that maybe he did not see things like I did and I was once again alone in the universe. Its so quick, I don’t even get to the “will it?” part of my response. Who exactly is working on these issues if they can’t even exist outside my head?

I think that’s whats most misunderstood about my depression. It’s not always sadness, sometimes it’s an uncomfortable level of realism with the nature of things. There is terrible shit in the world. Really awful things happen every day and I have to just exist here knowing that really awful things are happening and I can do very little about them. I sit and bitch about my shitty coffee maker knowing there are people who won’t get to eat today. That’s a fact of life.

My life feels a little more in control when I remember that others don’t have the blessing of food and drink at the ready. I like being steered by gratitude. I wish I could be grateful without the comparison, but I’m an American and in my experience gratitude is comparison-based. I find myself stuck in “you have nothing to be sad about” and as a result I feel nothing for my own broken heart. At least I’m not hungry. I have two roofs over my head; one that comes stocked with indulgent purchases from HomeGoods! I made the choices that led me here. I need to ride it out.

Lately though things feel darker than usual. I don’t want to end my life or anything like that. I know that’s what everyone worries about. There is no need for you to intervene. I honestly don’t even know how to write about what it is that I am feeling. It’s so much nothing.

I remember driving through the southwest when we embarked on our cross-country road trip a couple summers ago. I remember thinking that exact thought about the landscape. There is so much nothing. We drove the Sugaboo for hours across miles and miles of dry, brown land covered by blue sky and massive, fluffy, white clouds. As we were driving I felt a sense of wonder at the space. I marveled at all the life that still somehow existed there by careful use of resources and recognition of the climate as a truth rather than a problem. But here inside myself, I feel like the great, big nothing is who I really am: a void of any earnest emotion. A black hole just sucking and sucking the content of the universe trying to fill myself with ideas of love from other people. How does it feel for you? Maybe I can seek inside myself a mirror image. I grow angrier after each failed search. Why can’t I feel it, too? Then I remembered my comparisons. I selfishly burned fossil fuels in a poorly planned attempt to cure my mind of it’s truth. There are people who have lost their homes to wildfire and I bought a second one just to drive around! I took part in the destruction of the planet with my frivolity. I deserve to feel like a hole. At least for a little while.

I forgive myself for taking that trip. You have to be able to forgive yourself. I had to see. I had to achieve a dream to trust it could be done. The trip taught me a lot about myself: Who I am and who I am not; The way pain builds over time; That there is no way to unsee once you have seen. On the trip I realized I was suffering. My mental chatter was at eleven. Mania is what I think they would call it, but it felt like euphoria. I felt limitless. For my doctors, mania has a negative spin and so the two ideas didn’t match up in my brain. I understand now that the manic state is very taxing on my biology and so it’s best to avoid it if possible. The trip was where I first recognized myself in one of these manic states. And I did feel euphoric. I felt unstoppable. I felt like a goddess. And because I thought I was, I became. Its a difficult feeling to give up.

It was a long road home.

During our family’s dash from coast to coast, I observed myself under massive amounts of variance and unknowns and I found I could operate without almost any personal needs at all. I ate when I fed the kids but I never felt hungry. I drove when he needed a break. In fact, it felt incredibly unnatural to take any time for myself on the road, even though none of my family was asking anything of me. However, because I had set up a ritual to care for myself at home, I kept that habit as best I could on the road. The result was an explosion of art and writing that I will cherish my whole life.

But there’s always a flip side, isn’t there? What goes up, must come down. As above, so below. I learned that I do, in fact, have limits. I am a fallible being. Reality remained as it was when we returned home from our adventure. It was then that my heart started it’s slow disintegration, but I didn’t know it yet. I still thought it was everything else. If I could just…

My heart is broken and I can’t find replacements for the parts that malfunctioned and so I’m just walking around with a broken typewriter in my chest. A heavy case holding a jumble of letters and keys. Its a rare model and so parts are specialized. I’m embarrassed that I don’t understand them well enough to get it going again. I’m humiliated that it’s taking me sooo long. (Of course, how much time is appropriate given the scale of the thing? Should I have it all grieved and ready in a couple of months?) I feel like such a burden to everyone around me. That’s one reason I spend so much time alone. I can let my black cloud hang without ruining someone else’s day. I can also be recklessly happy not caring about anything but myself in that moment and not feel judged as a selfish asshole.

I am going through the motions and I know it. I am reminding myself of my values and making decisions based on them. I am trusting that love and joy will return. I trust I will feel passion and optimism someday. But in quiet moments I’m afraid I will never love properly again, I’m scared I’ve forgotten what it means. What if my children see me fail to love? What if I let them down?