How to describe depression? How to explain the negative energy when all one’s energy — and then some — has vanished? How to explain the pain and fear of having no words, when one’s words, the only tool one has, are gone?
I went to BlogHer, I came back, and I forgot to take downtime. I forgot my body would go down, will I or no, and so I pushed, and it only pushed me down farther, longer. I can craft short missives, finalize posts mostly-written, fill in a book review form, but lyricism? Coherency? Depth and breadth of argument? Beyond me.
I have to trust — though I do not now believe, am not now able to believe — that it will return. I have to let go of any need to know when, and just make do until it’s here again — walking the fine line between pushing and quitting, driving myself neither up the wall nor falling into a pit.
*****
If I had the words, I would tell you of the well-meaning body worker telling me to “get in touch with the feeling that’s asking for your attention”. I would tell you of the bitter laugh that chokes my throat at that thought.
The key to my sanity, to not falling into a darkness in which I cannot believe the existence of light much less its proximity, is not feeling my feelings. They are there, and I acknowledge them, but I do not, as it were, invite them in to tea. I do not try to get to know them, because to know them is to give them power; to give them my attention is to give them myself. They are half-truths anyway, at best; quirks of chemistry, exaggerations of honest emotion, distorted past decency or honesty.
Get in touch with them? No. Nor reject, any more than I reject my back when it spasms; but neither wrap myself in its immobilizing tendrils, clothe myself in its ash-ridden rags. No one who understood would suggest so.
*****
And then there’s this.
At the time, I believed that I’d wasted my twenties by not having come out of them with a finished book and I bitterly lambasted myself for that. I thought a lot of the same things about myself that you do, Elissa Bassist. That even though I had the story in me, I didn’t have it in me to see it to fruition, to actually get it out of my body and onto the page, to write, as you say, with “intelligence and heart and lengthiness.” But I’d finally reached a point where the prospect of not writing a book was more awful than the one of writing a book that sucked. And so at last, I got to serious work on the book.
…
The most fascinating thing to me about your letter is that buried beneath all the anxiety and sorrow and fear and self-loathing, there’s arrogance at its core. It presumes you should be successful at 26, when really it takes most writers so much longer to get there. It laments that you’ll never be as good as David Foster Wallace—a genius, a master of the craft—while at the same time describing how little you write. You loathe yourself, and yet you’re consumed by the grandiose ideas you have about your own importance. You’re up too high and down too low. Neither is the place where we get any work done.
…
Writing is hard for every last one of us—straight white men included. Coal mining is harder. Do you think miners stand around all day talking about how hard it is to mine for coal? They do not. They simply dig. You need to do the same, dear sweet arrogant beautiful crazy talented tortured rising star glowbug. That you’re so bound up about writing tells me that writing is what you’re here to do.
Ow. And yeah. And ow.
*****
I’m never going to get it “right”, this balance between trying too hard and trying enough, between cutting myself slack and not cutting myself down. But I’ll keep trying. And that will be good enough.
It will have to be.
When you’re down, there’s no “giving attention” to those feelings. They envelope you, smother you, consume you.
I know what that is like. Not how you feel specifically, but the feeling that nothing will be good again. Just live thru it using whatever works for you, and better times do come around.
BTW even at it’s worst your writing looks good from here.
My lulls feel smaller and less scary to me than what I’m reading here.
People say such diminishing things to those who suffer mental illness or depression. I remember when I was suffering from an acute bout of depression after my first child was born. On the phone while I cried and fretted and my heart raced my mom said- cheerfully – “You know it’s all in your mind, right?” How I still feel anger remembering this.
You are right that it will come back, and I wish you peace and healing while you’re waiting. Thank you for posting.
Kelly — There’s a story I tell about right before I first sought psychiatric help: I was completely terrified that they would tell me “it’s all in your head!” And then one moment I had an epiphany, and started laughing: it was all in my head! That’s the point! It’s a neurological condition — the imbalance is in my brain, in my head!
(Which isn’t entirely true; mental states, especially something like depression, have full-body effects, but I think the point still stands. And in that moment, it was exactly what I needed to realize.)
I sometimes think that I’m painting a picture of myself — as that troll said — of completely broken, disabled by my mood swings. And I do make note of (because I am affected by) fairly “small” (for me) swings. But part of that is because if I don’t, then they get bigger and bigger until I really am unable to function in the ways that I need and want to. And part of it is that what for me is pretty minor (as this is/was) probably isn’t that minor to everyone else. I don’t really really know. But also? It doesn’t really matter. This is my truth, and whether it’s “normal” or “bigger” or “scarier” or whatever in comparison to anyone else doesn’t ultimately matter. It’s just me, and my life.
Thank you for reading, and for commenting. Feeling heard is a gift you (all of you) give me, and I am in your debt for it.
That well-meaning body worker? She has a fundamental misunderstanding of depression so common to people who have never actually BEEN depressed: it is not sadness writ large; it is another animal entirely.
When I am in my hole, my thinking doesn’t make much sense. I write in circles. But to put my body in the desk chair, my fingers in the keyboard, and start making words? Even if I never write a word that’s fit for reading from that place, the making of words is the best way out.
Because that’s what some of us are here to do. I’ll never get the balance right, either, but showing up? That’s a victory, every single time I do it.
Adrienne — “…showing up? That’s a victory, every single time I do it.” Yes. Sometimes it’s ok to take a break (tonight I’m catching up on comments instead of Creating New Content, which I sort of feel obligated to do), but eventually I gotta show back up. And it is a victory, every time, regardless of what happens after.
Thank you.
I don’t have anything profound to offer. But I had to say that this phrase makes me smile: “dear sweet arrogant beautiful crazy talented tortured rising star glowbug”. I want to be a glowbug. But maybe not a tortured one.
Amber — That piece really (REALLY) affected me and a “dear sweet arrogant beautiful crazy talented tortured rising star glowbug” friend of mine (also a writer who struggles with many of these issues). It speaks truths painful and important.
And you? Are so a glowbug. You light up my corner of the web, for sure, and I know I’m not the only one.
THIS.
<3