What Depression Looks Like

Earlier this year a friend of mine asked if she could take my picture.  She's spending the year focusing on the importance of the people in her life, A Year of Faces.  I was one of many she'd asked and declined at first.  It was a very dark time in my life.  Not a time I would look my best.  I explained to her where I was emotionally and asked if I could participate later, when I felt better.

She said she understood and, of course, we could wait if I wanted to.  But if I was willing, she'd like to capture where I was right then.  The darkness.

And I knew it was right.  I needed this to happen.  Even though it wouldn't be pretty and even though it was difficult, it was also so important.  I agreed to do it.

She sent me some pictures she'd found on the internet of depression.  Some were very stylized, very artsy.  Some were blank stares.  Some were silhouettes.  I understood why people associated these with depression.  And these might represent depression for some people, or even me at some times.

But not this time.  None of these came close this time.

This was my darkest time, at least the darkest I can remember.  This was the most painful depression I've ever had.  And the most unrelenting.  Months and months of pain and numbness and isolation and fear and loneliness and sadness and confusion and anxiety and guilt and exhaustion.

The day she came I was wearing the same pajamas I'd been wearing for three or four days straight.  My hair was dirty because I just didn't have the energy or will to shower.  She was the first person I'd invited into my home in weeks.

She asked me to tell her about my current struggle as she took photos.  She was gentle and kind.  She listened and asked questions.  It was an important moment.

She used one photo for her project.  I've been saving the others for the right time.  Today is the right time.

These photos are difficult for me to look at.  They hurt.  But people need to understand what depression is and I believe these will help.

Thank you, Karen, for capturing a hidden moment that needs to be seen.

My fingertips are pressing on the spot where I've had a headache for nine years.  When I cry, I tend to furrow my brow; this makes my head hurt worse.  I press on that spot to try to get the muscles to release and relieve the pain.  It helps a little.

Depression makes me feel incredibly vulnerable.  I have no emotional energy to protect myself.  That's part of why I isolate.  So often, when I am with other people, I feel the need to defend or explain myself.  When I am in a depression I just have nothing in me to do that.  I have no strength or will to draw boundaries and defend them.  It's easier to just be alone than to feel like a rag doll at the whim of those around me.  I often find myself in the fetal position in an attempt to seal myself off from the world and keep myself safe.

Sometimes my depressions are emotionless.  I feel nothing.  Most of the time it was like that.  Dull.  Blank.  Empty.  Nothing.  Other moments were like this.  Gut-wrenching.  Crying from the deepest parts of myself.  Falling to the ground sobbing.  Unable to stop shaking from the shredding of my soul. 

And this is how I felt so much of the time.  For months and months and months.  Like an empty shell.  Depleted.  Like everything that made me who I was had been taken away.  Worthless.  Like I had nothing to offer the world.  Without hope.  Without purpose.  Gone.  Lost.  Alone.

This is what depression looks like.  It's not a bad day.  It's not when things go wrong.  It's when the world is pulled out from under me and I am plunging to my death and I just don't even care.

Today is a Down Day

A dark day.  A heavy, painful day.  One of those days when I feel like I am walking through tar and it's so hard to pick up my feet to even take a step that I want to just lie down and curl up and sleep in the muck. 

Every task weighs a ton.  Nothing matters.  A day of hiding and isolation.  A day of knowing what's healthy and not caring.  A day of avoidance.

A day of feeling held captive by biochemistry.  At war with my own body and mind.  Fighting not to lose myself.  And losing.

Nothing is wrong.  There is no great tragedy in my life, no new crisis.  I'm  just quietly sinking.

It's not that I don't have hope or that I'm not happy.  I know it will pass and that I have a wonderful life with much to be grateful for.  But I am also so sad.  And lonely.  And hopeless.  It's like the hope and happy of my life are a bright outfit I'm wearing, but I am also wrapped in a heavy, dark coat.  So heavy I can't take it off.  So heavy I can't function with it on.

I get better.  Over and over again I get better.  And I start to believe I am healed.  That I have finally found the way.  I finally know the behaviors and thoughts that will keep me afloat.  And then something grabs my ankle and pulls me under.  I'm walking along strong and turn the corner to find the big, black dog growling at me.  Before I know it he's knocked me to the ground and is chewing on my face.  All I can do is curl into the fetal position to try to protect myself.

And that's where I am today.  Curled up, trying to stay alive.  Trying to stay me.

**********

I'm not in danger.  I'm not going to hurt myself.  I just need time to lick my wounds.

Post-it Note Therapy

I almost cancelled.  I wanted desperately to cancel.  How could I go to therapy if I couldn't speak?

It's not that I had laryngitis or bronchitis or any kind of injury or illness that affected my voice.  I just couldn't make myself open my mouth and say the things that were in my heart.

But I didn't cancel.  I went.  I trust my therapist.  And I knew that isolating myself and shutting down wasn't the healthy answer.  Even though it was a tactic I'd used many times in the past, I knew I had to push through.

I cried off and on all morning before I went.  I was able to pull myself together enough to seem okay with my kids.  I even did okay signing in at the therapist's office.

The secretary handled the money, scheduled a new appointment, and handed me the questionnaire.  That wonderful, glorious, dreaded, silly series of questions that is somehow supposed to tell my therapist how I'm doing and if I'm making progress.  I looked at it and laughed inside, knowing I could make it say whatever I wanted.  Knowing I could present a happy, healthy front and fake my way through the session.  And knowing that I just couldn't play the game that day.

My therapist came to the waiting room and greeted me.  As we walked back to his office, he reached for my paper.  I handed it to him.  He looked at it and said, "It's blank."  And I answered, "I just couldn't do it."

He said, "Okay," and we continued to his office.  He said he was going to get a drink of water and offered me one (no, thank you).  He also asked if I'd like to fill out the questionnaire now.  I said, "No," in no uncertain terms.  He said, "Okay.  I get no," and left to get his water.

He returned to find me sitting on the floor, with my knees pulled up to my chest.  He closed the door and commented on the fact that I was sitting on the floor.  I said that sometimes I just need to sit on the floor.

He said that was fine and commented that I seemed upset.  I didn't respond.  He asked what I'd like to work on today.  I started crying.

I cried and cried.  I held my face in my hands and cried.  I wanted to speak.  I tried to speak.  But I couldn't.

He waited.

After about five minutes of me just crying and not being able to say anything he said that it was okay to just sit and cry.  That was valuable therapy time, too.  That I didn't have to talk in order to heal.

I continued to cry and be silent.  Inside, I was screaming.  I had so many things I wanted to talk about, why couldn't I open my mouth and speak?

He asked if it would be okay to ask some questions.  I said it would.  He asked why I was sitting on the floor.  I thought for a minute.  All I could come up with was, "It's less effort" and "It's safer."  He asked if I felt unsafe.  I said I didn't know, it's just what came to mind.

More long minutes of silence, except for my crying.

Eventually I was able to ask for a post-it note.  I took out my pen and wrote:
"I'm just so sad and I don't understand why."

Through great effort, I gave him the note.  He read it.  And he said, "Sometimes it's good to be sad with someone else, to not be sad alone."  And I cried more.  So much of my sadness is experienced alone.  Seldom does someone offer to be with me while I am sad.  Especially without trying to make me not be sad.

He asked if times like this, when I am so sad, are when I want to hurt myself.  I acknowledged that I had thought about it, but I hadn't done so.  Except that I had stopped eating.  He reminded me that not eating is a form of self-injury.  And he praised me for not cutting (or scratching, in my case).

Over the course of the hour I was able to give him three more post-it notes:

  *  "There are a thousand things running around in my brain.  I don't understand why I can't say any of them." -- He said that when the time is right, if they need to be said, they will come out.

  *  "No matter how hard I work or how much progress I make, I feel like there will always be this underlying sadness and loneliness." -- He said it wouldn't be like this forever.  We could take it from a 9 to a 3 or from a 7 to a 1.  But he also said that he hoped I wouldn't ever lose it completely or I would lose my ability to empathize with others; I wouldn't be able to help others through my blog like I can now.

  *  "I am fighting a battle on so many fronts in my life so much of the time.  I am just so tired of fighting; sometimes I just want to quit." -- He said it's okay to take a break.  I need to allow myself to take time off.  I need to give myself permission for self-care.  This is just a break.

"It's okay to take a break; it's not okay to hurt yourself."  As he said this, I felt strengthened.

In the hour I spent with him, there may have been five minutes of talking.  I probably spoke under a minute.  And I cried the whole time.

But I'm glad I went.  It was valuable therapy.  It was nice to have someone really see my pain and validate it.  It was nice to have someone sit with me as I cried.

As I prepared to leave he asked what the goal was (meaning what I would work on until I saw him again).  I said, "Don't hurt myself."  And he agreed.

I am somewhat better now, although the sadness and loneliness is just under the surface.  I still cry quite easily.  But since then I've been able to communicate a little with a couple of people and I've gotten back on my regimen.

And I haven't hurt myself.