you may listen to this chapter here: the unbearable weight of things
When you’re down, everything seems hard. I know this sounds like whining, but it’s something deeper. My silence usually means one thing. SAD. Not specifically seasonal affect disorder, but bummed the fuck out.
It’s a bit more than sadness pulling me under. It was a bit more than sadness that changed the marriage to my kid’s mom as well. And before I get the pushback about depression just being a weakness of character or laziness, let me clarify what I’m talking about.
You know the sinking feeling in your body when the flu is taking out your immune system?
Depression is kind of like that feeling, except you don’t have any outward signs of illness beyond your refusal to do things that bring you pleasure. But it’s not like hiding what’s going on when you’re depressed. It’s more like a death that’s happening right inside you. You’re still breathing, living, trying to find a laugh or a light. There is simply no pleasure to be found. It’s as if the hope molecules have been completely depleted from your body.
My homemade depression self-assessment comes in the form of ice cream: If I can’t get excited about Ben and Jerry’s Coffee Toffee Crunch, then something is seriously out of whack.
The minute I feel it coming on, if I’m self-aware, I begin taking action to delay or avoid the storm. I try to exercise regardless of the ballast that’s already weighing down my back. I do my best to get enough sleep and healthy food. I try to keep talking to my loved ones. But sometimes, despite my best efforts, I fail and fall in to a period of silence.
The silence because I’m afraid of what I might share if I spoke.
My brain is not quiet, it’s on fire with bad ideas. Negative predictions. Catastrophic terminations of everything from my job, to my love life, to my life. And again, I want to stress this (especially now that I’m writing from the other side): depression is an illness like no other. The flu-like symptoms are mainly in your mind. And when I try to tough it out, it’s usually the sadness that wins.
I’m not giving up, either. I’m fighting like hell to maintain my outward appearance of normalcy, but it rarely works. In normal times I’m fairly loud and flamboyant. When I go quiet, everybody notices.
On this side of the darkness, I can look back, examine, plan, and talk about ideas that might help next time. When I’m a ZERO, there are almost no words that help.
Depression is exhausting for everyone. I will try to get you to save me, primarily by replaying my helplessness. But don’t give in. I’m not helpless, that’s the depression. My fight is against my own feelings of helplessness and hopelessness.
Happy times. Even ecstatic times. (Oh, but be careful about those, the term bipolar is bandied about too easily these days, but it must be taken into account.) Those of us with the deepest lows often spring back into hyper-highs. And without meaning to, we can rebound off the happy ceiling and blast right back into the sadness. It’s a vicious cycle, this cycling. Something must be done.
I’m trying to take simple steps back into the routine. I’m introducing my “big projects” back into my activity stream, but I’ve got to be watchful that I don’t blast off. Finally released of the flu-like hopelessness, you can only imagine how much I want to soar, and zoom back into ultra-productive hyper mode.
It’s not like depression is a release from those responsibilities, but I can delude myself that I am no longer capable. When you begin imagining yourself absent from the future consequences, because you simply won’t be alive, you can see how this too is avoidance. We learned avoidance when we were young. As a defense mechanism, it occasionally serves a purpose. As an adult coping mechanism, avoidance is the worst. I can’t say it’s the reason I fall off the wagon, but it’s one of the harbingers of doom.
Taking responsibility for all of my life requires some ramping up. From things like making a dentist appointment, getting the car into a service appointment, and even showing up at my daughter’s basketball games, is part of my responsibility. Just show the fuck up. It’s when I try to disappear that I realize I’m avoiding. Avoiding even my own life.
Today, as I’m writing, I am moderating my joy. I used to be proud of my understanding of this idea.
No one person can contain my sadness.
I thought that was the key to finding a new loving partner. What I learned with several of my long-term attempts was only discovered as I was escaping to the beach alone, again.
No one person can contain my happiness.
the one and the zero: > next | index
checkout the playlist for all audible chapters
