The Great Depression

I have been depressed in some form for several months.  At the point that you feel no better, want no more, and could not care less, the timeframe like everything else is irrelevant.  My depression saps my will, steals my strength and jumbles my thoughts.  It lets me feel better for a few hours, a few days then hamstrings me on my way to happiness so I’m left crawling and unable to arrive.  Suddenly I realize I’ve not moved forward as far as I had hoped, if I had hoped anything.

Imagine somehow one finds oneself at the bottom of well or pit.  It is dark and cold and if any light trickles down, the colors of one’s surrounding have been leeched of depth and definition.  All one sees is a constant grey that simply reinforces one’s feelings of despair and anguish at one’s situation.  Once at the bottom of a chasm why would it matter our deep it is if you have no clue how to climb out.  The walls have no handholds or place to use.  The depth of the pit becomes a function of one’s depression; at times the top may seem only several feet away and others it appears a pinpoint of light far overhead.  The only true constant is the sense that you cannot reach the escape hatch.  If someone reaches in to help you at this point, they are so far away from you; you see no point in reaching up.

That is a slight description of how my depression feels.  Now imagine as is often proposed that life is a race.  That your speeding down the track has been relatively easy and any obstacles you have encountered you managed to overcome.  Eventually you discover that someone runs alongside you.  This person enjoys your company on the course and you enjoy theirs.  As you run, walk or pause, you find you love similar things along the way, relish the joys and sorrows, stop to take in panoramic vistas and discover in all this beauty the beauty of that person and yourself.  You are in love with this person, with life and at times with yourself.  The great adventure lies before you and the two of you are eager to take it on.

Then you trip, perhaps scrape your knee.  You brush yourself off and stand up and continue on, heedless of such a minor injury.  As you progress together, little breakdowns happen and you manage them with aplomb and take them as part of the journey.  You feel unstoppable until you do not notice a pothole and in your misstep, your ankle twists abruptly sending pain and shock up through you.  At first you think, potholes are nothing new; you’ve encountered such obstacles before.  You step lightly on the injured foot and your running partner slows to accommodate your pace.  You feel silly at the situation and apologize for not being more attentive to your surroundings.

Over time, the ankle loosens and feels better.  You believe it is better and you pick back up to your original stride.  You enjoy parties with friends, dinners out, a new job, your new love and return to the mindset of being indomitable.  Then when least expected, the old injury causes a new fall.  Another fall.  And who knows how old the injury is.  Was it the pothole or something from before?  You want to keep going and hobble along.  Your running mate gives you sympathy and love and holds your hand, lets you lean on them at times.

As you move along, the path begins to get rougher.  More holes and ruts, curves and hills of never-ending incline.  You stumble more and more.  You grow tired and irritable in your journey.  The adventure takes on new meaning as difficult and impossible.  You wonder if you’re capable of all this.  Any encouragement that you can do it is called into question.  Your love tells you how wonderful you are and given your incapability you wonder if that is true.  You recall similar times on the path and wonder how you made it out.  Were the good times a dream and this is actually reality?  Are you even worthy of such a great life?  This is more comfortable and painful and awful and it is what you believe you deserve.

Then you hit a slick patch and end up splayed on the road.  In the fall, you broke your leg, or both or who cares.  If one is broken that should be enough, but it is not.  You are broken, incomplete, and unlovable.  You lay in the middle of the road shocked by how this could have happened, how you ended up there.  Your partner realizes you’ve fallen and bends down to help you to your feet, but you cannot get up on damaged legs.  They attempt to soothe you and assure you through the insurmountable pain.  It actually helps to your surprise and you conclude if nothing else you can crawl or drag yourself along.

At this hellish pace, you feel every discomfort along your body as the obstacle-filled track scrapes, bruises, and cuts you.  The journey is not only feeling impossible but the energy it takes to move only a small distance saps you of your reserves.  You must keep moving but somehow you have to heal.  So you settle down and you see therapists, and get meds and take off from work.  Your partner helps you as they can, agonizing at seeing your pain and weakness and hoping it gets better.  Some days you make it a mile and not a foot and they believe you’re better than you are.  Then the next day it is inches and they are surprised but take it in stride.  Some days you make it to work and then find the anxiety overwhelms you.  You take more time off, take more pills, talk to your therapist, your partner who understands but does not.

You feel like road kill that has been trampled down by car after car.  Tires smashing you into rough pavement and you realize you’ve come to a standstill.  The agony of dragging yourself on is unbearable.  Encouragement to move on is heard as nagging, made worse by the fact of your condition.  Your lack of acceptance of the caring hurts the one trying to help and then you feel badly that you hurt them.  Then you find the strength to move again.

At first, successes are imperceptible.  You’re not sure because the scenery is still drab, washed out and you feel like the grey expanse has settled in your soul.  If you do move and your partner praises you, it seems condescending and the things that help you move are insufficient.  Your pace will never meet your dreams; you’re incapable of getting there so why try, why bother?

One day you go miles, the next again, you feel okay for a while, almost good and then the third day you are exhausted from your effort.  Your partner notices you’re down again and comes back to see if they can assist you.  They make suggestions that in your exhaustion you wonder how you’d ever do all that.  In your mind you already do things, have come up with your own ideas and have been doing them and they seem to help in varying amounts.  When you perform at what you think is your best, it is difficult to find you need to do more, try more.  Aren’t you trying?  Aren’t you?  It becomes apparent that your efforts are not enough, so why try, why bother?

You start to dream of the finish line.  Wonder how far away it is and how difficult it would be to bring it closer.  Then you realize at any time it is as close as you want it to be.  And what was once uplifting becomes a buzz that won’t let you rest, won’t let you think.  Why wouldn’t you?  Why can’t you?  And you think can you not see how exhausted I feel at this moment.  Then they get frustrated and down and you feel responsible and you cling to your unworthiness and lack of hope and fear they will leave you on the road and journey on without you.  Why should they not?  Why would you want them to stay stuck here with you?  The agony renews and you fall in what you thought was a pothole but was actually a pit.

You are in the same darkness as before or it never left.  You never moved.  You are paralyzed by fear and sadness.  Then you take another step.