I’ve noticed a lot of articles about depression on the internet recently. The best, by far, is this one and if you haven’t looked at it yet, I can’t recommend it highly enough. The quality of pieces like that is part of what’s stopped me talking about my own experience - what more could I possibly say and how could I possibly say it, that would express my feelings better than the piece I’ve just linked to. The other part of the reason is that my depression didn't seem bad enough to bother talking about.
Of course it didn't - after all, it's perfectly normal for me to feel like dying, more often than not; it’s perfectly normal for me to feel a kind of squirming insecurity and belief that I am Just Not Good Enough to be around other people. Given that it’s perfectly normal, why bother talking about it? It’s only recently that I’ve started to appreciate that other people don’t feel like that - other people look horrified and embarrassed when I tell them how I feel. Which, ironically, produces a feeling of shame in me and makes me even less likely to say anything!
It seems that other people (perhaps you, for instance), feel differently. They don’t have days when they're one wrong word or thought away from sobbing but don't know why; they don’t have the almost overwhelming desire to give up on everything. They don’t have the self-loathing that comes from not being able to pull themself together; to just cheer up; to just deal with it and get on with things. They don’t have the special kind of feeling bad that comes because they don’t have things bad enough; other people have it worse.
Like the Hyperbole and a Half article, there’s no particular “reason” for me to feel depressed. Which sort of makes it worse; if there was a reason, I guess I’d be able to do something about the reason. I’d at least have something to point to, a justification. To be able to say “I feel depressed because...” and be able to give a reason that people could understand, could empathize with, would be such a relief. It seems so pathetic to feel depressed but have no reason for the feeling, no justification; it’s embarrassing and it just adds to the depression.
That lack of reason, I think, is part of why I used to cut myself. I wanted people to take how I was feeling seriously even though I would have been mortified if someone had asked; I wanted to externalize the pain, to show it in some way, to express it. All that, plus the guilty little secret that many self-harmers share, the real underlying reason, I suppose: we feel better having done it. It’s a relief. It’s not practice for suicide, it’s not seeking attention (I’m really embarrassed if people notice my scars) it’s just the only way we can think of to feel better. Or sometimes it’s the only way we can think of to feel something. I haven’t done it for years now, although I’ve been tempted. I don’t think I’ll do it again, but never say never, as they say.
As for the suicidal feelings, that’s mostly what we used to call in Samaritans a “passive” wish - it’s not an active desire to be dead, as such, but more of a desire for everything to just be over, for everything to go away. A lack of desire to go on, rather than a desire to stop. I’ve thought about it a lot - methods and so forth - but never felt sufficiently bad to do anything. I think it’s more a comfort to know there’s a way out, if I need it.
I haven’t had the kind of epiphany that HaaH did: perhaps my depression has never been quite as severe or it’s of a different nature. It just lurks in the back of my mind and sometimes it comes to the front. I don’t really know what causes it; maybe nothing at all, maybe it doesn’t even need a reason. I can just feel it coming, like a storm front rolling in. I see it from a distance and know that it’ll be here shortly. I can feel myself slipping into it. Occasionally it disappears - the storm clouds evaporate before they get to me - but more often than not it arrives, stays for a while, and then slowly fades. Sometimes it’s short and severe, sometimes it’s a long, constant drone that lasts for weeks. Churchill called it his black dog: it’s my own little brainstorm.
It’s not wholly debilitating and it probably won’t kill me (he said, with a wry smile). It’s not the worst thing in the world; it’s not terminal cancer or quadriplegia or any of a dozen other terrible fates that can befall people. I’ve been fortunate enough that, no matter how bad I’ve felt, I’ve always had enough strength of will to drag myself into work and cover it up long enough to allow me to do my job. I guess it’s partly made worse by the amount of time I spend alone - I have a tendency, as David Walliams said about himself on Desert Island Disks, to unpick myself when I spend too much time alone, so I’m trying to change that. Although convincing myself that it’s okay to spend time with other people can be a challenge, too.
Exercise helps. It can be a real struggle to get myself out of the house and to put the work in when I get to the gym but I invariably feel better having done it; the mood lightens for a while. Sometimes going for a walk can help, too - what C (who was completely unable to understand it, even though she had suffered from depression in the past) used to call getting a change of air. I’ve been promising myself a good long walk in the country on one of those cold, hard winter days - I’m quite looking forward to that. Other than that, there doesn’t seem to be much that I can do to prevent the storms or dispel them when they arrive - at least, I haven’t found any ways yet.
So why am I writing all this? Well, to be honest I don’t really know - mostly, I felt compelled to say some of these things and, having done so, it feels like a bit of a release. It’s sort of a return to my earliest posts on this blog; an exploration primarily for myself. And, I’ve found, that by writing about these things it has helped me understand them a bit better and, in this case, accept a part of myself.
I suppose that, if you know me, these storms sometimes cause me to act in particular (and peculiar) ways. For instance, if I don’t want to go out or if I seem hesitant to join in, I’m not being rude or aloof: it’s because I genuinely think that you’re only being kind and don’t really want me to come along and I don’t want to be a burden. You probably have no idea how hard it is sometimes to accept the idea that someone might want to be with me, might enjoy my company, and how pathetically grateful that can make me feel when it happens.
If I don’t know you, I guess I want to add my voice to the increasing number of people who are being honest about how they feel. To try to remove some of the stigma around depression, to try to help you understand how depression feels to those who suffer it and to put in a little plea for your understanding. Not your understanding of me, of course, but of those of your friends who may be suffering even now.
Postscript
This has been sitting on my computer for quite a while now. It’s gone through a few revisions but mostly superficial - it hasn’t really changed much from the first draft because it all came out pretty much in a torrent! The reason I didn’t publish it immediately was that, having read it, that part of my brain that seems to work with the depression immediately started to sneer and mock. It’s pathetic to feel this way; you’re pathetic to feel this way. Stop moaning and get on with it. You’ve got nothing to complain about.
So let me say this: I’m not complaining, I’m not saying I have things worse than anyone else and I’m not making a case for any particular special treatment. This is the way I am and, while I’d rather not feel depressed, I’m fortunate enough not to feel it all the time. The last few years, I seem to have felt it more often than not and that’s been difficult, to be honest, but I feel like things are slowly getting better, I feel like I’m starting to feel more like myself again.
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