Hey y’all, this isn’t going to be a normal post.
Usually I like to use my blog as a pseudo-diary where I can work through things or cement them publicly to help hold me accountable. But, the only thing I have to say about writing, today, is this: the method I put forward last post to increase my productivity will work beautifully going forward. Getting four chapters done a week felt like it’ll be much easier, and having the freedom to take a day in the middle of the week — whether for relaxation or urgency — is liberating.
Having gotten that out of the way . . .
I want to talk about something much more personal, something I’ve decided to not discuss on my other socials as it requires too much explanation and Instagram isn’t really suited for an audience willing to read paragraphs of serious content. Today, I want to talk about the D-word: depression . . . I have it.
Now, I haven’t been clinically diagnosed, but I think going from top-of-the-world enthusiasm and happiness to hollow disparity despite one’s successes that leaves one bedridden and unable to feel anything qualifies as depression. Whether I have a condition or am simply more prone to neuroticism is something beyond me, but I know what I’ve felt, observed in myself, and heard from others, and I can confidently say that I battle depression.
It’s a little different for everyone — like most things — but my depression comes in waves. I’ll feel fine, even normal, for weeks or months and then my fight-or-flight slowly kicks in and stays at an eleven out of ten.
Anxiety — my hairs stand on end, my body says there’s danger in every corner, every noise and sudden change in light is the roar and shadow of a monster I need to run from or fight. All my primal instincts are screaming, “there’s a lion right there! It’s getting closer! Run or die! Run or die!” and no matter how much I know there’s no threat, no matter how many times I reason with and explain everything to myself in minute detail why there’s no danger, I can’t banish the feeling that I’ll be eaten alive.
Then comes the panic. Every sound becomes white noise, my heart pounds, my skin goes clammy, my only thought is, “get up and go. Just get out of here. Just make it stop.” but I can’t because it follows me. Panic comes when my depression is breathing down my neck, when it’s able to whisper my name, when it touches my shoulder and says it’s missed me. Panic comes when I retreat from the world — the noise and lights and people — and seclude myself in my room, or the bathroom, or the shower, or some tiny, uninhabited corner of the store, and I think I’ve found peace only to see depression peeking around something and waving at me.
Then comes the dread and sorrow. It may sound melodramatic to say “sorrow,” but “sadness” doesn’t cut it. That chill of dread that worms out and wraps my spine, twisting in my guts, chuckling as it tells me of all the horrible things to come, the despair I should feel for the coming doom. The burning shard of growing ice that wriggles in my chest — poking me however I wriggle to get away — and reaching for my face to drag me down, deep inside myself to grovel with the dark, to mewl, to tremble and shake as my ears ring with all the voices telling me the horrors to come. And the ice melts and comes out of my eyes, trialing down my cheeks until there’s nothing left inside but a hole where the sorrow had been.
Then comes the depression. It doesn’t stalk up to me — it doesn’t need to. It walks and sits beside me, resting its head on my lap, and says it can help me. It promises to take the pain away, to make the ache inside stop, to drown out the noise, the cold, the fear, the anxiety — it’ll swallow everything. And, in my shaken state, I believe it — like a fool, I believe it. I tell it to make the pain stop, to take it all away, and then it opens its mouth and swallows me.
Depression nestles me in its stomach and dissolves me. I become nothing. I am its food — all my molecules separate and spread around depression’s body until I’m no longer inside it, I’ve become part of it. It wears my skin and walks around in my body like the undead — cold, numb, eternally existing and not knowing why. It drives my body and determines my every choice.
“Don’t get up — the bed is still warm and today’s just going to be like yesterday.”
“But I have a lot to get done,” I’ll say.
“No, those things won’t matter. You can do them later. Besides, they weren’t any good anyway — you’d just make a fool of yourself or let someone down. Don’t do that. Stay here with me — I’m lonely.”
Sometimes I listen, and others I don’t. But even when I get up, it follows me, it drives me, it tells me how little it all matters, how unimportant everything is, how unimportant I am and that I should just sit here and exist. It says the world will pass me by anyways, so why bother trying to keep up?
Sometimes I listen, and sometimes I don’t.
And then the depression leaves. I never know how long it’ll stay — it’s like an unwanted uncle or cousin, like that, always popping up unannounced, always needing a place to stay, always asking for help or money, and we’re always too nice to say no. Even if we aren’t, they bug us anyway. Sometimes depression only pops in for a visit, other times, it keeps me company for days, weeks, or even months, and then it leaves. It leaves when it’s digested me and spat me back onto the floor. It leaves after I’ve lost all nutritional value. It leaves once it's toy isn’t fun to play with anymore.
I’m left on the floor, stinking, dirty, covered in filth and starving — a shadow of myself — and feeling everything. The pain, loneliness, ache, fear, sorrow, shame — it’s all back, and cold, and hungry for my attention. But so is my passion, my zeal, my love, desire, hope, trust, happiness, excitement — they’re all back, too, and they’re like little fires. They’re hot and friendly and wrap me up in the arms of my friends and family, in the kisses from my dogs, in the kind words from everyone I love — because I can love again, thank God — and they remind me just how good it is to feel. They remind me that, yes, pain is there, but so is gladness and I’d have no appreciation for what was sweet, if I’d never tasted something bitter.
Anyone who doesn’t have depression always mistakes it for sadness or grief — it’s the farthest thing in the world. Depression isn’t a ball of sadness that overwhelms you, its a bottomless hole — a human-shaped pit where every emotion falls in and never stops falling. Depression isn’t the presence of negative emotion, it’s the absence of every emotion. It isn’t sadness — I don’t care, so why should I mourn? It isn’t dread — I don’t care, so why should I fear? It isn’t pain — I feel nothing. It isn’t loneliness — I don’t care, so why should I want to be with people?
Depression is absence.
It scoops out your insides without anesthesia, sews the husk back together, and sends you on your way. You expect you’ll die, but you oddly don’t mind one way or the other. And then you live, and you keep on living even though you should be dead. You’re hollow and empty, cold and stagnant, you feel timeless, and at the same time you feel the weight of the ages. You’re aware of your immortal soul and your mortal body all at once . . . and you just can’t bring yourself to feel.
I’ve spun that little tail to say this — this month has seen me off with a two week long episode of depression. I don’t know what caused it — maybe my own overly self-critical nature latched onto the two days I had to take off for life-reasons and said, “you’re a failure, now.” — but it’s finally starting to lift. The beast is spitting me up, the unwanted uncle is packing his bags, the hole is beginning to spill my emotions back out and close.
And I’m relieved.
I haven’t had a long lasting depressive episode like this in a long time, and I hope to never have one again — unlikely as that is. It effected my life, my relationships, and my work. It’s why I’m making the first blog post of the month on the twenty-first, it’s why I haven’t bothered maintaining my socials, and it’s why I’ve hardly gotten any writing done this month. I have done some work, I have socialized, I have tried to live my life and not burden down everyone with this unspurred, pointless emptiness, but it’s all something of a half-measure. It was done, but not as much as it could’ve been. And that’s okay.
I’m not going to get done as much as I want when I’m depressed — in life, relationships, work, writing, family, fitness, in everything — and I’ve come to accept that. I can’t give up, but I can’t expect perfection either, so I work and I live and I learn to love what I can manage to do.
Like I said, this isn’t a normal blog post, but I felt like I should say this — I don’t know why, but I do. I hope none of you ever feel like this, but for those of you who do or ever have, remember that life doesn’t pass us by if we move with it. It may not bring us joy in the midst of depression, but it may bring joy to others and that means one less person who will ever feel emptiness like we do. Depression, like misery, loves company but deserves solitary confinement. Deny it the pleasure of depressing others. Deny it the pleasure of scooping out someone else’s insides. And, if you can, deny it any victory with yourself, no matter how small.
Remember that you’re loved by someone, that you love someone even if you don’t feel it, that the pain and sorrow don’t compare to the happiness and passion that you lose to depression. Life is cruel, but the starlight of joy and compassion — even if it’s a trillion lightyears away — is worth the living for. Give yourselves a reason to keep living, even if you don’t want to — dance, sing, work, make others smile, write, make a routine, keep your friends from crying or hold them if they do. There’s always a reason to keep going no matter how hard depression makes it to seem.
You are loved.
I love y’all.