self-understanding

Marking Time

~ storm257 ~ 1 Comment

Another year. Today, like last year on this date, I reflect on where I have been and where I am now.

Last year, however, I was in California facing the real possibility that a person I love and admire would lose her life to cancer. It felt completely unfair, because disease does not care about fairness, and that piece of her experience, discussed in private moments, over tea and toast with Marmite, that part of us that wants there to be reason and rationale for the horrible things that occur, struck me then, and now, as the element of my own path with depression (oh, and life generally) with which I struggle.

Deep gratitude to my family, my partner, and most of all my friends, who have listened and helped me through the darkest moments, or the times when I was stuck in a loop of pointless thinking, unable to get out of my own way, unable to release worries that cannot serve me. Deep gratitude to my therapist, who has seen me through times when I could not articulate complete thoughts, through blind rage, tears that do not stop, and sees me now, as we move into a new place where I may actually find some understanding, not of my reactions to various things (we work on that all the damn time), but what is at the root.

What I know about myself is that I do believe there are reasons for most things in our lives. I don’t mean in a transcendent sense, though perhaps that too, but in that sense that we all have things we choose not to or cannot face, and those experiences, relationships, or memories, do impact how we live. Maybe you are someone for whom this does not apply, however, I’ve yet to meet someone with that much clarity or unity to their life. We’re all imperfect and life gives us some scary shit to bear. Leonard Cohen said it best, ” There is a crack, a crack in everything (there is a crack in everything), / That’s how the light gets in” I feel I am ready to look at those cracks a bit closer and maybe find where they begin.

This last year has held so much change and letting go. I am not living the life I thought I would be; I’ve had to accept that some things will not be. I have pushed boundaries for myself. I have been intolerant and patient. I have been angry and have felt my heart open in unexpected and welcome ways. I have faced moments when my mood has dictated my actions and others where I have exercised control. Most importantly, I have felt all of these things and faced my life with strength that I did not possess two years ago.

This is me today:

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Is it me?

~ storm257 ~ 1 Comment

It has been a year since I sat on the couch (most of the day, everyday), a pattern broken only by  the arrival of a mental health worker coming to make sure that, while I waited to be assigned a therapist, I didn’t harm myself.

It has been a year since I felt too shattered to be humiliated by the acquiescence of this ritual; the surrender in waiting for something that I was only receiving now because I had been deemed too sick to be left to my own devices, but not quite sick enough for an in-patient program. I had tried to avoid being in that place, where I was not advocating for myself because I no longer saw the value in that fight. I had tried and not succeeded for many months. For better or worse, these daily check-ins with my Diversions counselor were moving me toward something I was not able to do on my own. The value of this is not lost to me.

In this year I have worked to let go of many things. I have fought my way out from the hole where depression put me. I have battled against the snares and dark seduction of believing I would lose.

In this year, I have accepted, sometimes bitterly, that medication does help, that I am more productive, that I do not feel paralyzed as I did. I have accepted that many of my feelings of powerlessness and alienation are directly related to my “mood” and not my character.

This latter part is a daily struggle.

I ask myself, “Is it me?” I search my memory for a time when there was something definitive, when I truly knew what I wanted, what I am capable of, could answer questions about desires and dreams. I’ve lost a good deal of memory over the years. Sometimes it is hard to recall who I once was, before I felt like this. Sometimes it is difficult to believe I every felt another way. So that’s the me part.

Today my therapist asked me if I think perhaps that I feel so lost, so incapable of finding purpose, something I want to do with myself, not because this is always who I’ve been but due to depression. It is hard to know, if there is a line, where that line can be drawn.

I know because I have had this conversation with other people who suffer depression that this is a common question. There are many of us who try to find the place where we begin, authentically, and where disease ends. Sometimes it is impossibly unclear. Sometimes it feels that there is no separation.

I don’t have any answers. I can only look at where I am today and know that this is a better place than where I was last year. Being here is better, and I have brought myself here.

Try to celebrate the small victories when possible. This is me today: FullSizeRender(11).jpg

Reminder: Love

~ storm257 ~ 1 Comment

I have been trying to put pen to paper since I learned the hard truth of what is happening in your life right now. When I picture you it is always your kindness I recall first, and your beautiful smile, and what a good friend you were to me almost twenty years ago when we first met. You were brave then, and like me, growing braver, as you learned to manage and release the things which had made it necessary to be brave, early in life.

So I know that you are brave now and I know that you are strong. But when you are not, please know that you are always loved — and within that love — you are brave and strong when you cannot be.

Life gives us reminders sometimes, with difficulty and heartache, which help us to see that there is more to be thankful for, in drawing breath, in shedding tears, in grief and love, because we are given another opportunity. The chance to feel again, and more.

Depression takes away the awe that these momentary reminders inspire by removing the variation, robbing one of the grief or gratitude, greying the love and dulling the joys.

A year ago, had I received news of a friend’s battle with cancer, I don’t know that I would have been able to feel everything that I feel now. I am not sure I would have been able to rise out of the dark void depression created, to feel fear, and shock, and deep gratitude for the community we have cultivated these last two decades.

The fact that I can feel now, and that these feelings come in waves and are true, and hard, makes this living I am doing very precious. I will take this welling and difficulty all day long.

Recognition

~ storm257 ~ 1 Comment

I’d asked her to hang out for a few minutes to talk. She had bolted the first time, but seemed willing to wait for me to talk with some other students, for which I was thankful.

Normally a thoughtful student, she’d stopped participating in discussions and had neglected homework as well as a paper, which was now a couple weeks overdue. I’m not strict about deadlines (obviously), but I try to make sure my students are aware that I do expect updates on their progress, if not actual assignments turned in, or some idea of when I might expect to see writing.

She was clearly nervous, which I anticipated. After apologizing, she hinted that things are home were standing in the way of her completing the work for her classes. She left this statement hanging in the air between us, so I pressed a little.

“Are you alright? Can I help to clarify what is expected for the essay you are still missing? Can I help at all?”

The deep breath and barely suppressed tears were too familiar.

“I’m having a hard time. I have bi-polar depression…” A searching glance assessing me for judgment. I held her eyes. I nodded.

“I understand how hard it is to be unwell. Overwhelming.”

Surprise and then release. “Yes. Being a full-time student is a lot. I thought I could handle it…I wasn’t sure how to tell you.”

“I know how difficult finding a balance can be, but you are an insightful person and I know you are trying. If you need more time, I can work with you.” It isn’t more than I would say to any other student, but, at the same time, this was much more.

We talked for several minutes. She thanked me for understanding, for not misunderstanding her struggle, for offering to help and accommodating her needs. Without giving more information than the situation allowed, I was able to let her see that what she described was not strange to me; her struggle was familiar, and more than that, not in any way a reason for her to feel she should give up being the smart, thoughtful person she clearly is, regardless of what she feels presently. She was relieved and I, I was elated.

The mirror we can provide for those around us, learning to articulate what it is like to live with mental illness, is powerful. At twenty-three, I do not know that I could have been as honest as my student, but at thirty-eight, I no longer have any confusion about the necessity of clarity. We cannot live in the shadows, though illness makes us feel we should. Life wants us to be brave and ask for acknowledgement, even when what we request is compassion. Perhaps, especially then. The way out of feeling buried by the loneliness and invisibility that mental illness creates in our lives is through moments of recognition. “I see you. You are not alone.”

If there is one gift I am granted by disease, which otherwise causes me exhaustion and confusion, it is this ability to see this shared need, and speak in order to break through. If I can do this once, and experience the power contained within this recognition, I can nurture a light which offers comfort. And I can do this again. That’s hope.

This is me just after talking to my student yesterday:

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Stepping Back

~ storm257 ~ 2 Comments

I spent the last week with my family in a Girl Scout camp in central Maine. There was rain and mosquitoes, laughter and tears, warmth and comforts only found with the people one can count on not to judge too harshly, because they know, my silence and my inability to explain well the deep and constant weight of emptiness depression creates.

I found myself alone in a canoe Friday morning with my little dog, tears streaming down my face because the grey stillness of early morning Maine perfections – the calm water, the unbearable green treeline, the unearthly, pure air breathed into my lungs – did not bring me joy. Or more to the point, joy was there, but I could not experience the emotion which I have had in abundance so many time before because I am still here behind this wall. I see, I smell, I taste the same things I have hundreds of times, but just now, they are out of reach.

It isn’t easy to articulate this gulf. It isn’t pleasant to stand at this place and to know there are things to feel just beyond my grasp. However, the knowledge that I can remember feeling joy and awe, while causing discomfort, also moves me to want the path back to be again within reach.

I held my infant nephew many times this past week and was comforted by his simple love. His responses to smiling faces, to sweet voices, gentle touch, inspire me to take the small steps back to finding a place where simplicity can begin to bridge the void.

This is me on Friday:

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Feat

~ storm257 ~ 3 Comments

Some mornings I wake up and everything within me is full of rage. I am humiliated by my life – I am not in command of anything. Every action taken by those around me feels like an affront or an assault.

I don’t have the switch that some people seem to, which says: “This is out of your control.” “Let it go.” “Don’t take everything so personally.”

When one has emotions that are out of proportion to action – which I do pretty much all the time – those rational parts of the brain which respond to normal or even less than normal, but not actually directly harmful actions or behaviours, are not able to help me to see that I am angrier than I should be. That anger makes me feel ashamed of myself because I cannot let it go.

Everything when one is where I am currently feels bad. Everything feels intentional. The smallest slight, which for someone with a healthy brain may only trigger irritation, can throw me into a tailspin that I will obsess about for hours or days.

This is not better than feeling nothing. It is exhausting and embarrassing and eventually leads me back to the relative safety of feeling nothing. Because between the two, choosing the lack of emotion feels less bad.

This inability to regulate emotional response and the recovery it takes to finally let go – by retreating to the meaningless place where none of this matters is not good. This is the cycle of most of my days. Like many people with depression, I feel better as the day moves on. Which is helpful today, when I meet with a psychiatrist for the first time since I was hospitalized this afternoon.

Imagine if most of your days begin this way. This is me today:

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