Wednesday, March 04, 2009

Have you ever been depressed? And I don't mean feeling blue because you had a bad day at work kind of depressed.

Have you ever been diagnosed as being severely depressed? By an actual practising physician no less.

If you haven’t, all I can say is keep up the good work. You may now go back to your regularly scheduled web surfing activities.

Last year, 2008, should have been one of the happiest years of my life. I celebrated my 23rd wedding anniversary, had a good job, had any number of very dear friends, and had a wonderful vacation just outside of Estes Park, Colorado. What more could a body hope for?

Oh yeah, my first book had been published to excellent reviews... So why shouldn’t I be as happy as a hive of bees with a whole field of flowers. (I bet you thought I was going to say as happy as a pig in shit, didn’t you?)

I should have been, if not on top of the world, at least on top of my world.

But depression doesn’t work like that. Depression for me is like being buried under 100 feet of cold tapioca pudding. Have I mentioned that I hate tapioca pudding, warm or not? Being depressed is like being buried deeply under sludge like material, in a place where you can see nothing but blackness around you and not be able to move side to side let alone worry about just how far up it is that you have to travel before your head can break the surface.

Depression is one of those terrible diseases where you know, instinctually if no other way, pretty much what it is that you need to do to find a cure but have a brutally hard time trying to follow your own advice.

Friends and loved ones of someone who is depressed are in a very tenuous position. They want to help but have no idea exactly how it is that they can do so. Telling a depressed person that they need to exercise, get out into the community more, get some focus in their life, take up an old hobby... just about anything really doesn’t work, despite the good intentions. But for people who are depressed, well, o.k., for me anyways that was one of the worst things.

Being told about all the stuff that I should be doing, stuff that I pretty much knew that I should be doing, only served to remind me of the fact that I was unable to do so. After a while, my own realizations of my failures coupled with the reminders of those who loved me were devastating. I dreaded my wife Rhonda's return from work and the inevitable question about what I did that day. Some days, as I started attempting to draw back from the abyss I actually did accomplish things. On those days I was only too happy to share my accomplishments with her.

Hello dear, I did the dishes, cleaned the litter box, spent time trying to straighten the storage room out and I even managed to get out of bed before noon. All the while I felt like an over zealous Cocker Spaniel pup trying to earn his next dog biscuit.

But the days that I just couldn't rouse myself to do anything? They just tore my soul apart. Another day that had slipped by without me making any kind of progress; the disappointment that I felt in myself; the fear I had for having to admit as much to the person that I loved. Even when Rhonda was supportive, as she mostly was, on the days when I accomplished a big fat goose egg, her eyes belied the pain; the disappointment that she felt.

And, in a very real way the disappointment that I felt in myself, for whatever reason, seems to have been the key to the length of my depression.

During this lost period my folks moved from their home of 40+ years into a 1,000 square foot apartment. It was time. My Father had well and truly shovelled more than his fair share of driveways over the years and my Mother had tended to their Home and Garden worthy backyard lovingly long enough that they were both due a respite.

As is usually the case when someone is moving, my folks had to unload some of their flotsam and jetsam. Forty years worth of ballast to be sure; and their first instinct was to give that which they felt strongly about but knew that they could not hold on to, to people they knew would appreciate those self same things.

A couch, two recliners (one of them a rocker), a rocking chair and a WONDERFULL hardwood kitchen table later Rhonda and I had been truly blessed. But there were the small things, those things that are the threads that tie a lifetime together.

My Mother, as many mothers do, kept all of my report cards. Why? As best as I can figure, because she was my mother.

We all grow up differently, don’t we; with pros along one avenue and cons along another. Those pros and cons go a long way towards defining who it is that we are going to eventually become.

I never truly had any real focused vision of myself as a youngster; only what it is that I heard and what it is that I wanted to hear. I never believed myself to be a diminutive Einstein, Descartes, or Solzhenitsyn.

One of the things that my folks bestowed upon me for which I shall be forever grateful, were my report cards, all the way from Kindergarten right the way through Junior High.

For whatever reason I had come to believe that every shortcoming in my person, my actions, and my soul were a direct affront to all the promise that I had showed in my early years. After all, I had been a genius growing up, under appreciated, unsung, hadn’t I?

As it turns out, not so much so.

I have been blessed with two of the best parents that anyone could ever possibly hope to be blessed with. They supported me at the right times, chastised me at the right times (but never, EVER to harshly). I fell DEEPLY in love with music and they went along with it. I decided to pursue Journalism as a career; and they supported it. I decided that Journalism had run its course (more for health reason than actual intellectual reasons) and they supported it.

After a while it became easier to see myself through their eyes rather than the cold, discerning eyes of those who are well and truly impartial.

Reading through my report cards from kindergarten onward I came to recognize those things in myself now which were, apparently, self evident way back when. Creative, good with words, imaginative, not so good with mathematics, not so good with practical science, even though he understands the theory. Loves music; loves theatre; loves all the artistic disciplines to the eternal detriment of all the practical ones.

Having read those reports, semester after semester, year after year had a profound effect on me. Any self loathing or disappointment that I had ever had for myself was, to a very large extent, self defeating. As surprising as it may be, today, as I sit here, I am pretty much the person that my grades kindergarten through grade six teachers originally had pegged me to be.

How fucked up is that.

But it has been a very liberating experience. Flagellating myself for ideals that would always and forever be outside my ability to reach are well and truly dead.

That I am a flawed human being has never escaped me. Hell, it has never even bothered me. To think of one self perfect and pristine is the worst kind of “sin”.

To my eternal shame I have managed over the past year to loose track of certain people who, always were well and truly worthy of being deemed friends. Stef, I love you my friend. Congrats to you and Christina on the birth of your first born. I know and truly appreciate what that must mean to you after all your trials and tribulations.

Depression is real, and it is as debilitating as any virulent disease, if not quite as terminal as some. Fortunately I managed to avoid the razor blades.

I'm not sure if my head has broken the surface yet, but I can certainly see the light.

And for today, that is just fine.

1 comment:

Shortcake said...

YEAH!
I love you, Stephen!