How Depression Robs Your Soul

As we all know I have moderate to severe chronic depression.

With therapy and proper medication it can be, to a certain extent, controlled.

It is a disease like any other, and it can kill.  If you have any doubts about how crippling mental illness can be (Oh just get over it!  Stop feeling sorry for yourself!) the facts leading up to the death of one of our time's finest writers, David Foster Wallace, should change your opinion.

Note I do not claim to have the value in this world that Wallace did.  I simply point to his death as one which illustrates what depression is capable of.

The best analogy I have to explain depression is the following:

Your life is a book in your lap.  You are curled up on a couch in the late afternoon, next to a sunny window and each day is a page.  As you read, though, the passages slowly become harder to see; you cannot focus and the words melt into the pages.  The paragraphs you do make out are filled with your faults, failings, and long lists of how you are just not.... Not enough.

Not kind enough, not thoughtful enough, not sensitive enough, not chose-your-whatever-here.

At first you don't notice.  You just keep trying to read, because you know - you have to.  It's your life.

But the slow struggle of reading - of living your life - grows and creeps over you, quietly draining you.

You cannot, cannot find a job; even an interview.

You love but the love is not returned.

Your friends want to see you, but you have nothing to offer.

Even the 'Lost Dog' flyer at the corner shop brings you to tears.  Days becomes empty, they bleed into each other; to keep reading your book seems fruitless enough that...

a whisper starts telling you,

Just put the book down, Elle.

I was in this place - this very dark place - when I left DC for home.  And I am there again.

This is what it is like: I have not had a shower in about a week.  I have worn these same clothes for about two.  I do not remember the last time I brushed my teeth.  Mornings are the most manageable, when I think, Okay, today might be better.  I will get ONE THING done today.  For example, yesterday I cleaned the cat box.

Then I'm just too drained, I lay on the couch, I go to bed for a 'nap' at 3 in the afternoon and I wake up 14 hours later.  Another day.  Did I eat anything yesterday?

And I drink, too much.  It can also be difficult to take the meds because the side effects are hard to tolerate.  Lots of vomiting, my tongue swells up, I have difficulty swallowing and I gag easily.

The whispers to put down the book lead me to consider it.

I can't do it in the house.  That would be bad for the house, and what poor soul would find me?  I could hang myself in the garage (which is detached) but it would still be 'here'.  How would I prepare to make sure the cats were fed until I was found?  Maybe the thing to do is to do it elsewhere.  Not jumping off the Aurora or anything - that's too public.  The smarter way would be to have a car accident.  I could drive into oncoming traffic, but that would be awful for the other drivers.  I could drive off a bridge maybe.

None of this is to say I'm going to off myself.  I'm more sane than that, I promise.

Bigger picture:
Sure if you kill yourself you are no longer in pain = Plus!
But you are also, you know, DEAD = Minus.

And all the people close to me would feel really, really shitty.

But I do think about it. 

However if you are lucky, unexpected headlights sweep the room, or someone happens to turn on a lamp  and asks, "How can you read in the dark!?"

Then you realize just how dark it is, how dark it has been for far too long.

And that's when once again - you find help, you get back on your meds long enough for them to work, you scrape together the shards of your heart and attempt to tack it all back together.

I just wish I could find the light switch.