What My Depression Feels Like

Depression first revisits like a sternly helpful Auntie, encouraging me to take that afternoon nap because I work so hard and there's no harm and the housework will wait. At the same time she admonishes me like so many Internet articles to take stock of my gratitudes and acknowledge so many who enduring real, life-threatening challenges. 

And so I rise, and I do.  

It works, for a while.  I celebrate surges of energy and well-being which bring warm golden filters to minutes and hours.  I ascribe malaise and exhaustion to so many long work days, typical for this time of year. And then I'm crying, which is hardly notable because I'm a crier since forever; I cry more when I'm premenstrual, so that's a convenient correlation.  a get teary because three stressors in a row, and because you ask me how I'm doing, and because you give me a hug.  And then I'm crying when I'm alone and I'm crying in the car and the shower and I'm crying for no reason other than the fact that depression has made its turn into more than a state of mind; it has invaded my body like an all-over ache. 

I don't even want wine.  I don't want cheese or chocolate.

Depression becomes a drone with x-ray vision that hovers over my household, taking inventory of every drawer and closet and cupboard, asking why I own so many things and asking when I will take charge of them, and asking how I can possibly manage the abstract stuff when I hardly have control of all that is material.  Depression points out that my children will inherit and have to clean out these drawers.  Depression wonders if I'm a hoarder, and Depression thinks it's an appropriate question to ask.  I have to agree.

Depression probes my heart like an MRI and knows I'm distracted and distant and impatient and counts the times I've let my children down, cataloging missed opportunities and sharp words. Depression, with its sidekick Anxiety, wakes me up at 2 or 3 AM and interrogates me.

Depression is a pit in my stomach and a lump in my throat and dry red eyes after so much sobbing. At some point no platitudes, no encouragement nor reassurance, no reminders of all I have, no pep talks, no faith, and no ultimata can lift my limbs or change the tide of overwhelm which presses on my chest and immobilizes me.  This is the advent of the breaking point, the nervous breakdown if you will, the hysteria, the really hot mess, the point at which something has to happen and it's not going to be talk therapy or yoga or a nice long walk or run.  It's not coffee with a friend or a massage or girls' night out.  

I recall the last time I felt this way, almost four years ago when I had an infant.  I watch in admiration and relief as my capable now-toddler dresses herself and straps herself into her carseat.  She exerts so much effort I don't presently have.  I remember that my former self, shortly after feeling like I presently do, left work in the middle of a very normal day to go crawl into bed because I Just Could Not Even.  I Just Could Not Even be too proud to walk away from my job, and into bed.  Crawling into bed was all I could do.  

So I know this is a pivotal point, that to continue on is to go deeper down, and I'm afraid. Something has to happen, and instead of ignoring my sister's call, I answer, and I cry unabashedly.  I know what's next after that, and then my father is on the phone.  That he takes charge is reassuring and but my dependency on him in this moment is also panic inducing. Someday my children might feel this way and need me, too, is painful to imagine.

Depression means every simple kindness brings an overwhelming rush of gratitude, like I feel for the doctor who calls me back after I hang up on the weekend office voicemail message.  

Her voice is calm and reassuring and patient.  

She asks me if I am feeling sad.  Yes.

She asks if I am feeling hopeless.  Yes.

I explain that I had a significant post-partum depression almost four years ago and that I am struggling again.

She asks if I am having thoughts of harming myself.  "Not serious," I share.  But I want to disappear, I admit to myself.  She will call in a prescription, the medication that was once the flashlight to guide me through darkest parts of the tunnel.  

Depression is a sea that temporarily parts with the tangible relief of enacting a solution.

I want the medication to work before I take it, but it doesn't.  My whole day and every part feels like too much, but we've got stuff to do, soccer games and lunch and drives on the freeway back and forth.  I rally.  Depression points to the parents on the sidelines, normal people chatting about normal things, not choking back tears, not hiding behind sunglasses and afraid to answer, "How are you?"  I observe them all, remembering a time as a child when I had the flu and couldn't remember what my body felt like when it didn't hurt.  

Depression and Anxiety love way-too early mornings, buzzing me awake with scrolling to-do lists and dread.  My limbs tingle, my heart pounds, and my stomach reacts to each new reminder like a loop or turn on a roller coaster.  I count backward from 100.  Too quickly.  By twos, then.  I breathe.  I want to stay in bed.  I imagine calling in sick.  I weigh the costs and benefits.  

I always get up.  But I force it.  

Depression yields to busy work days.  I act like Capable Me, surprising myself, responding attentively and ticking through tasks.  Stopping to analyze my head and body invites panic, so I persevere.  I avoid enumerating the rituals I must tend to at home, where my bed beckons:  pick up children.  Make dinner.  Clean kitchen.  Run baths.  Read books.  Ask questions.  Be present.  

Each day I feel a few more solid moments, a little more normalcy.  I want the medicine to work so badly I might be willing it to, but I'll accept a placebo effect, and I feel like the hazy filter applied in different degrees to my Instagram photos is relegated more and more to the edges.  Medication provides the energy for next phases of healing: therapy and exercise and other healthy practices which get sidelined during duress.  

I went off my medication without incident about a year and a half ago, after two-and-a-half years of prescription since my post-partum depression settled in.  I could blame that depression on hormones, while oddly grateful for an experience which deepened my empathy for those who suffer mental illness.

Now a deeper acknowledgment, a recognition of various symptoms signs over the past year, and a surrender to my own reality and fragility: 

I struggle with mental illness.  

Maybe someday I will refer to that struggle in past tense, but I no longer view that as an admirable goal.  I simply don't want to feel as I have, to live on the outskirts of deep despondence, and I am grateful for defenses and offenses against it.  

Grateful for moments of joy and bliss.  Grateful for tools to more ably face life's sadnesses and struggles.