I Am, In Fact, A Depressed American
My friend Katie recently went through a time of troubles. She was throwing up. She couldn’t breathe. She had headaches. She couldn’t sleep. She finally ended up in the hospital for tests and observation. When she was discharged, she told me that bananas would be part of her recovery.
Bananas? I was skeptical. She was serious. Among other things, Katie’s potassium was very low and she needed to build it back up. She was prescribed greens, chocolate milk…and bananas.
So simple. So sweet. So doable.
I’ve gone through my own times of troubles. Recently, for example, Kenny caught me crying in the hallway. Concerned, he asked me what was wrong.
“I don’t know, “I sobbed. “I just don’t know.â€
That was a lie. I DID know what was wrong. Well…I DID and I DIDN’T.
See, I am depressed. Certified, diagnosed and everything. I cry for no reason. I stay in bed for days. I endlessly obsess over whether or not I am getting better.
I’ve got a counselor…or two…or three.
And I can tell you what’s wrong with me.
I just can’t fix it.
I debated (and worried and cried and went back and forth and changed my mind and still am not sure) over even writing this entry. After all, aren’t I one of the most blessed people ever to walk the earth? Don’t I have food? And education? And shelter? And employment? Aren’t I American? Don’t I have hobbies? And friends? And a loving spouse and supportive family? What could I bring to this page other than “Poor pitiful mes†and a mile long list of “First World Problems�
But (unless I change my mind between now and time to post), writing this entry I am. Partially because the words have been circling in my head for months now without disappearing and my theory is that the only way to get them to leave is to write (er…type) them out. And second because, well, because just maybe these words will touch someone. Egotistical, I know, to think that a flighty, disorganized girl in tiny town, Kentucky, could write something powerful enough to connect with some random someone somewhere else, but there is, as they say, always a chance.
Yet, I worry. Depression can be, as it is in my case, tied to one’s upbringing. One’s upbringing is often tied to the people one dearly loves. The people I dearly love are very much alive and are quite capable of reading whatever it is I have to say about my childhood and adolescence (of which they were a part). So, when one is writing about one’s heart and soul, does one a) keep silent about the causes of their coming apart? b) speak only in the most academic and clinical of terms? c) make up stories about other people or d) just keep going, regardless of the relational consequences?
I, the flighty, disorganized girl in tiny town Kentucky, will probably choose from all of the options. Just know that if you are wounded by anything said here, the offense was unintentional. I have written and re written this. I love you. I wouldn’t hurt you for the world.
So, to the topic at hand:
First off, you need to know that some of this is from experience, some from what I’ve been told in my therapy sessions and some from the reading I do.
NONE of it is to be taken as absolute, one size fits all Gospel. This blog entry is slanted from MY experience, MY thoughts and MY feelings. I’m an extensive reader, but I am also, at times, an emotional wreck. I’ve been a teacher, a storyteller, a cat owner, a soloist, a student, a crybaby, a lover, a napper, a poet, a traveler and much more but I have NEVER been involved in medicine, mental or otherwise. Quote me, contact me, love me or vilify me, but please know that everyone’s experience is unique. My depression is not and cannot be your depression, neither can yours be mine. I cannot feel what you feel. I cannot see what you see. I cannot help you.
I can barely help myself.
I didn’t know that, of course, the not being able to help myself part, when depression first came into my life. I was an imaginative child who grew into a dreamy adolescent. My thoughts were of Princes (of the Charming variety) and my notebooks were full of poems concerning everything from chance encounters to fleeting smiles. Like Disney’s Belle, I was never without a book or two and most of those books were romantic in nature.
I was, in other words, ill-suited for high school. I was neither popular nor athletic. I was smart enough, but not particularly driven. I was given to pastels, to ribbons in my hair, to pretty earrings and pink fingernail polish. I could neither flirt nor dance and I was lacking in both grace and social skills.
Though I didn’t know it at the time, my life was not that much different than most of the students in my grade. I believe that this fact would have eventually dawned on me and that I would have found some kind of tenuous footing, had it not been for the clouds.
Ah yes, the clouds. The clouds have been my not infrequent companions for a couple of decades or more. When I was younger, I was too inexperienced to recognize them for what they were and they, combined with what we now know were severe migraines, had me entering daily diary entries about death and all its encumbrances. I thought that I was dying. By turns, I could not catch my breath, concentrate on what was going on around me, find solace in anything but deep sleep, communicate even the most simple of concepts without tears and so on and so forth. By themselves, save for maybe the migraines, each of these occurrences are a sign of nothing more than a change from childhood to a more adult physiology. Even the moodiness and the extra sleep, together with a couple of the other checkpoints listed are not necessarily long term causes for concern. I was a young woman, a very young woman, going through a growth that I had not as yet experienced.
But I was frightened. I was scared that I was losing my mind. At some points, I was convinced that I was dying.
I was not. I did not. And for a while, the clouds, along with their accompanying depression, lifted.
Only to return a few years later.
But this time, I was marginally better prepared. And when the weeping for no reason began, I was able to cling both to my bed and my journal and hope the storm would pass quickly.
It did not. And, as I have learned, in some cases, it will not.
Mine is such a case.
Depression, as you may have surmised, is an umbrella term. Some depressives are compulsive. Some are angry. Some weep. Some fixate on an event or person to the exclusion of all else going on around them. Some lose touch with reality and others refuse to leave the relative safety of their rooms.
Not any case is like another, though some, and, in fact, many, share similar backgrounds and characteristics.
My depression is mostly tri birthed.
The first prong is heredity.
The second is circumstances.
The third is chemical.
Some of you may see the word chemical and think “substancesâ€. Yes, stimulants, enhancers and other such lovely amusements are often used to retard and distract the noises in a depressed person’s head and the emptiness in their soul, but such is not the case with me. Barring the “real wine†that was served one Communion service when my family and I lived in South America and the fermented cough syrup my husband presented me with when we were newlyweds, I have never had a drink.
If you are an individual that believes in genes that carry certain pre dispositions, alcohol is in my bloodline. I’ve been cautioned not to start drinking because of the difficulty others in my family have had quitting once they began (part of the heredity I mentioned..along with artistry, we sometimes get migraines, anger and bouts of the crazies) , but, though I take this warning very seriously, it is only part of the reason for my decision not to partake.
I am, you see, a “crazy†girl. I sing too loudly, laugh too frantically, cry too frequently. Even in times when the clouds are not circling, my emotions are never far from the surface. I don’t need the aftermath of even one night of alcohol to add to my ever increasing shameful memory bank tempting the “Nobody loves me/everybody hates me/guess I’ll go eat some worms†tape to replay over and over.
No, I don’t mean “chemical†as in anything illicit. I mean wires, connections, sparks. Somewhere along the way, something in my brain got twisted and kinked and whatever fluid or juice was supposed to be humming smoothly along, helping me live in the land of sunshine and rainbows (or at least in the land of nice and normal) was diverted down the wrong pipe. Hence the easy tears, the days spent in the company of no one but my cats and my pillow, the feeling that life is too overwhelming to face and I’ll just stay in my room, thank you very much.
I do have help for these feelings. I take nice little pills every night to help regulate my existence. I am, as I have said, not alone in this. Depression as a phenomenon is not unique to me, the messy haired, messy lived girl in tiny town, Kentucky.
My background, however, is. I was born into a loving, generous family. I was (and am) a “Daddy’s girlâ€. I share a love of reading with my mother. I sing with my father. My brother and I had a large group of neighbors, cousins and parental co workers’ children to adventure with. Ours was, in many ways, a golden, charmed, rainbow filled, existence.
But, as much as I was born into song, I was also born into Southern (and Southern Baptist) Ladyhood. Because we moved a bit, my upbringing was not as Honeysuckled and Magnolia Blossomed as some of my old friends’, but there was still a prevailing air of understated grace and gentility that surrounded us. An air which I, unfortunately for my ever ready clouds, miserably failed at. With the grace and the gentility came scrutiny. Ladies came with expectations to be met. Adolescent me met not a one. I stood wrong. I spoke wrong. I mastered neither conversation nor socialization. I was, and continue to be, too curious, too inquisitive. I either shuffle, awkwardly silent or I blurt out questions as if I were conducting an interrogation.
Gradually, piece by piece, question by question, year by year, it became clear that who I was, who I am, was and is not okay. Some people take this information and reinvent themselves. They become smooth, popular golden gods, always with the right remark or charming story. I have, and did, nothing of the sort. I remain awkward, inquisitive, fearful of everything from censure via the ones I love to rejection from people I am trying to impress.
Again, these experiences are not my own. Many teenaged girls are kicked under the lunch table when they utter something the rest of the group considers strange or inappropriate. Other children are warned not to discuss certain topics or to refrain from dominating a conversation so that the adults can socialize.
What may be unique to me, however, is the pain felt when the people I love unthinkingly bring hurt into my already fragile being.
With permission, I will share a fact of my marriage: I am almost a completely opposite person from my husband. Our marriage is much, much better than it was even two years ago. We love each other very much. We just don’t agree on many things. And Kenny is not shy about letting me know this. Frequently, he lets me know this. His conversational openers are peppered with suggestions/hints/strongly worded advisements to turn my music down or stop jumping around my room or get to the point. The last one, of course, often has the opposite of the desired effect. When faced with such negative (perceived or otherwise) wordage, my brain shuts down…literally goes blank…and however important my message was, it simply remains lost in whatever recesses my fright banishes it to. I try and talk with my husband only to be met with interruptions and eye rolls. He frequently tells me that he is not interested in whatever it is I have to say at that moment. He is impatient with me, as I often is with him. In my depressive state, I live with the knowledge that who I am is not okay. It is this way with other relatives as well.
For example, I, the dreamy, messy, romantic Kentucky girl that I am, have a reputation among my close family members to “misremember†certain events in my life. If I am, for instance, relaying something that happened to me, my companions will hasten to assure me that I just BELIEVED that the affair happened to me and that I must have merely read about or watched what I believed to be my own personal story.
This reputation serves to make me appear fun, inspiring and creative as an aunt, a babysitter and a storyteller, but it also shakes me deeply in two ways. The first is a personal one. If I cannot, for instance, trust that the events I believe to be true actually in fact ARE true, how can I know that what I believe about myself and my world is real?
The second is relational. I have found myself in the position of dismissed hysterical emotive more than once. Some of my loved ones seem to take the attitude that if the experiences I relate are not to be believed, than the feelings I am trying to share are not factual either. Therefore, I am often overlooked as, not quite a liar, but not quite a verifiable source either…even when it comes to my own psyche. So I often leave conversations with needs unmet and issues unresolved.
Ah yes, resolution. Maybe because of all the books I devoured as a child, but closure is an important issue for me. Unfortunately, it is not an issue for what is laughingly called “the real worldâ€. And here is where my circumstantial depression comes in.
1992, as I have already said, was a year of extremes for me. One of the lowest points was meeting the people who were the first to truly break my heart.
Being a minister’s child, I had been in all kinds of situations with all kinds of people. I don’t know what you know about church culture, especially the culture of an Evangelical, which we Southern Baptists are, but overt stand offishness is not the status quo. By this, I mean, everyone does their best to appear friendly and approachable, even if they are having the most soul crushing day of their existence.
Being Southern, Southern Baptist, a Lady and a Minister’s Child (all of which I love and would not trade for anything), I was sometimes in situations that I deemed uncomfortable but whatever authority figure was over me at the time deemed acceptable. I was, in fact, around very few (if any) actual dangerous people, but there were a few (again very few) comments that were just a bit off or hugs or touches that I wanted to shy away from.
As a result, I learned to disregard whatever radar I ever had and follow my authority figures into whatever situation I was told to follow them into. I have no way of knowing if ANY other Lady in Training, Minister’s Child or Paragon of Womanhood experienced this as well, but it was, and remains, very real to me.
In 1992, this led me into trouble. There were some people in my life who, whether out of their own hurt or out of wanton destructiveness, turned out to be the very opposite of friends.
Because of this, I lost much of my identity and much of my faith. I had already begun to be told that I made up or imagined details of my own autobiography. I had also been told at least once that whatever it was that I was praying for at the time was too small to bother God with and that I should only trouble Him for big things. So 1992 ended on two notes: Was the loss of my friends (and my innocence) a small thing that should not be brought to God and only handled on my own or was it okay to pray? And why did the people I needed the most dismiss everything I said as hyperbole and over exaggeration and not take time out of their own selves to at least try and listen to me, for if the words and situations were not real, the emotions very much WERE? (This point I discovered in therapy. I had previously been disregarding my emotions surrounding situations because others disregarded the situations themselves. My counselor, however, informed me that emotions did not just happen on their own. Hence the potential unreal situation yet very much real emotion dynamic.)
These emotions grew, unchecked, for many years. Though I have prayed, off and on. Sometimes I am a fully functioning adult member of a polite civilized society.
These days, however, I am an overwhelmed glass sculpture just waiting for a fall.
1992 is gone but the hurt remains. As does the hurt of high school. And the experience of Southern (Southern Baptist) womanhood.
As does small town life.
In thinking and drafting this now rather long entry, I was trying to list the things I knew about me, about my depression, about my life, into facts.
Those pertaining to small town life, at least small town over thirty life, are as follows:
*I am not a teacher
*I am not a parent
*I am married to a man who prefers staying in his office, alone, to socializing (sometimes even with his few friends)
*I work a schedule that is ever fluidly changing
*People of my acquaintance cannot make firm plans
Some of these depression causers are actually rainbows. My work schedule is due to a shop that my husband co owns. This shop turned out to be a huge blessing for us, as we now have a common purpose and more fully understand the ins and outs of the others’ day.
Co owning a business, however, can play havoc with one’s schedule. As a result, I lead a somewhat isolated life. My work hours begin in the afternoon, so I am eating my snack when everyone else is beginning their evenings. Due to last minute jobs and emergency phone calls, as well as extensive orders (again, blessings all as my husband loves the freedom, creativity and flexibility that co working for himself is bringing to our lives and I love some of those things as well), we get home anywhere from eight in the evening to one in the morning. Just in time to go to bed, right? Fun, yes. Challenging, yes. Blessings in terms of both people and work, most definitely. Yet it is also isolating. It leaves no room for parties, for movie nights, for impromptu ice cream runs.
And even if I had time, my depressed side whispers, who would I go with. See points one, two, four and five. I have no children. I have no children. I have no children. I have no play dates. I have nothing in common with the people my age who attend my church and frequent my path. I do not know what they are talking about, not do they care to take the time to explain themselves. I am forever outside looking in.
This fact (I have no children), more than any other, is the most long standing hurt in my marriage. Yet it also affects my social life. Mother’s Day services at church are killer. Baby pictures are hard. Each announcement of a happy pregnancy among the members of my ever expanding family is another nail in my coffin. Another, if you will permit me to use my expression, cloud in my sky.
And my faith dies a little more.
See, that’s the thing. You can be a Christian and be depressed. I was saved at the age of five. I love Jesus and hymns and the Gospels and Point of Grace and Lottie Moon and the book of Esther and the sweet little choruses we teach children to sing. I love the hope of heaven and the fact that we don’t have to say goodbye forever when a fellow Christian dies.
I don’t like..er…don’t love the guilt.
Have you ever read a Jennifer Weiner book? In one, she is describing a group of women enrolled in a weight loss seminar. The participants are asked to verbalize slogans or promises that they have encountered in their pasts as they related to being “big womenâ€.
“Just eat carrots. “says one woman. All her life, she had been told to just eat healthy and her pretty body would shine through to match her pretty face. This woman hated the advice. This woman knew that the carrot advice would not work, yet people (out of either ignorance or sincere belief, or maybe for lack of anything better to say) kept offering it.
I am the same way.
I am an “if only†girl too.
“If only you would wear a little make up, you would be so much prettier.â€
(Make up. Yet another thing to be depressed about. Make up breaks me out and makes my eyes water. I was in a church play once and wore some. People thought I had been hit in the face, I was so swollen and black ringed.)
“If only you would go back to school, you could get such a good job. You would be a great teacher. Why don’t you try for that?â€
“If only you would sell or store all the stuff you came into your house with. Other people picked it out. Redocorate! You will feel so much more independent. You would be so happy.†Independence being another of the buzzwords of the “I know what you need crowdâ€. As loving as they are, they are not in my head, not in my life. Making my husband angry would NOT make me happy. Disrespecting him would not either. I know my clouds. They would circle much more should I begin to ignore those I love and go my own way.
I feel guilty about wanting to go to the movies when my friends cancel on me. If I hadn’t have wanted to go in the first place, there would have been no conflict.
I feel guilty about coming home crying when we don’t have enough people to come to some of the classes I teach at church and the children can’t present their offerings. If I hadn’t have wanted to have class at the same time as sports or parental meetings or if I were just more flashy, more exciting, class could have met and…we could have had a season.
I feel guilty about not having enough faith. Don’t I know Roman’s 8:28? Don’t I know all it takes is a mustard seed?
And still the days come when my bed is both my refuge and prison.
I can’t eat. I can’t work. I don’t shower.
Mine is not the blues. It is not a song. It is more.
Mine is not the crazies, though I have wondered.
I don’t hear actual voices, save the one saying “Why can’t you just count your blessings? Get up, don’t you know the Lord made this day…the Lord made your man, your job, your life? Why can’t you live and work it?â€
Mine is not the self destructive anger, though I have experienced that.
Mine is more the fade away kind. Maybe if I just faded away, all would be well.
And yet, I’m aware that depression is selfish.
It is ego driven sometimes. It is wanting MY needs (er…mostly wants, actually) met.
It is a luxury most developing countries, who are fighting for food and clean water, can’t afford.
It is first world, not counting your blessings, not acknowledging your gifts.
Yet it is all consuming.
It is a monster, never filled. A great wound never stitched.
In some ways, it is universal.
Yet it is intensely personal.
You can be a Christian; you can know all the hymns, quote all the verses, say the platitudes with the sincerely concerned church ladies who want to know why they haven’t seen you in weeks.
You can say to yourself that you ARE worthwhile, your life DOES have meaning, someone IS loving you very much.
But the clouds are there.
And sometimes you fall into bed and don’t get up.
And sometimes you fight through another endless day.
And sometimes you wonder if the medicine is doing any good.
And sometimes you pray and get no further than the ceiling.
And it passes. Somehow, slowly, it passes.
That’s the thing. Show me “Where is the Lid?†or certain Katharine Hepburn movies or read me parts of “BossyPantsâ€, put me in front of a class of three year olds and let me play, give me a kitten learning to flop over and hold their paws up.
I will laugh myself to tears. I will be enchanted. I will quote my favorite lines.
But you can sing and be depressed.
You can have faith and be depressed.
You can pray and be depressed.
You can even watch “A Bit of Frye and Laurie†and still have the clouds circle.
I’m okay. I’ll be okay.
I’ll read.
I’ll sing.
I’ll teach my classes.
I won’t be graceful.
Or athletic.
I’ll never ever be the lady I was supposed to be.
I’ll carry my books.
And eat my chocolate.
And I’ll be okay.
But I’ll still have the “Don’t bother God with that’s†and the “It’s not okay to be you’s†and the “You’ll never be good enough’sâ€.
And that…
That is why I’ll be crying in the hall ways.
Even though I know it’s just my brain.