Thinking about "Against Depression"
Often when adventuring around the internet I read things that I can relate to, experiences that I’ve experienced, feelings I’ve felt, fears I share. This is different.
“Every scrap of energy gets diverted to survival. Every fibre twitches: danger – fight or flight? It looks like sloth, but it feels like war.” These are not just experiences I recognise, they could have been written in my own blood.
I wanted to put down a few quick notes fo myself, but I know I’ll be thinking in more details about this for a long time.
“We want to hold on to depression’s associations with creativity and sensitivity.”
Fear of loosing my creativity/identity stands squarely between me and asking for meds. It’s a lie, because when I’m depressed I can’t write. Well. I can write. Pages and pages and pages. Scrawled across any piece of paper I can find. But nothing that anyone else would want to read and certainly nothing that I’m going to get paid for.
“A few months before. . . .I’d said yes to invitations.” The more depressed I am, the less likely I am to say yes to anything. I want to say yes.
“I felt like I would break, but only kind words cracked me.” When I was first together with my partner, I would cry all the time. Helpless and lost. I had no way to process the love I was being shown or that I felt. I didn’t have the tools.
“whatever it is you have to go through until you can be alone again with the voice that can be trusted.” Leaving my child alone for hours on end to amuse herself in an adjacent room on the pretext of chores.
“And the last thing this feels like is an illness. No, this monumental, world swallowing suckage sits outside you: it comes from the project, the job, the love affair, the city, the family, or the decade.” In the last few months/years/minutes I am variously convinced that all those things are to blame. Individually, severally. And in numerous combinations. I’m waiting for those things all to be right so I can feel alive again. So I can wake up rested. It’s a lie. I’m a liar.
Dervala compares becoming well with her recollection of having her sight corrected as a child. She describes how uplifting and exciting it was to regain those lost dimensions.
I have often imagined it as akin to one of those scenes in futuristic cloning movies. The ones where humans are grown in artificial wombs until adulthood. Wired to machines that keep them dumb and sedated, sustaining the minimum requirement of life support. Plumbed in and compliant. Waiting. Not living. Surrounded by murky liquid that gives lie to all I hear and see. Blocking out the light.
I’ve imagined ripping a knife through the rubbery uterus, the colossal waves of fluid crashing to the floor and choking into freedom. Some sort of alchemy that would bequeath my own thoughts to my brain. To pull the angry glob of mucus from my throat and be free to use my own voice. Gasping for clean air, clawing the membrane from my eyes. My heart taking its first independent beats.
Beginning to live in my life.
posted by dodo @ 4:48 pm
5 Comments:
that is a hell of a visual.
p.s. you are a fucking saint. I love you, you awesome, beautiful friend.
(and that's just for books (but what books!!) and chocolates (!!) and soaps and niceties for my child (!!!!!). just think how I'd react if you'd sent me, say, a portable Eddie Izzard. heh. I kid. I know how you really feel about that fella.)
p.s. hang in there, kitten. and you know I know this.
Wow. I'm speechless.
Just speechless.
Dodo, I'm so glad that post meant something to you. And I hope that you rip your way out of that cocoon. It sounds like you deserve some light.
-Dervala
Thanks for sharing.
wow. well, you seem to be seeing things for as they are. I assume that is the first step to wellness, yes? Great post.
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