It’s not proper depression.
It’s not the kind that has you locked away to be safe, cared for and talked to, analysed and understood. It isn’t the type of sadness that people name, hushed voiced, wide eyed.
I don’t alarm anyone, as a rule. Generally speaking, no one calls for back up.
I don’t go mad, become frightening, or lose myself in a world I can’t find my way back from.
It’s not ‘proper’ depression.
There have been times; times I circled our street in the dead of night, times when I drove to a friend because I didn’t trust myself to stay sane unless the words came out of my mouth and landed somewhere safely heard. There has been a time – once – when I contemplated driving hard and fast at a wall. It wasn’t when you might think. It was the time I was judged and ridiculed and left with nowhere to speak, no friends, no willing ears. Not the time you might think.
You might find that surprising, to know the worst time was not at the worst part of my life.
I’ve had times when I’ve huddled beneath the duvet, too consumed by self hate and guilt, grief and the unmanageable emotion of worthlessness. There have been times when the pain inside my head, of knowing I was not good enough to even stand upright in the light became so huge that I couldn’t make my bones obey anymore. There have been times when my most overwhelming instinct, to protect the mental safety of my children, got put aside by my own madness. Times when I couldn’t even care that losing mummy to her room, the dark, the underside of the duvet was scaring them from the inside out.
And that, I suppose, is ‘proper depression’. The times when medicine is the only way back. And it has been a while since those feelings lived in here.
It’s not politically correct to say it, but those bouts are almost easy by comparison. When something terrible happens and all the pain is easily attributable to an event or a loss, I can handle those. I can handle wading through grief and shock and difficulty (I’m well practiced) and getting the help that needs.
I know the drill. Get help. Get pills. Get out more. Wait till the chemicals settle back into place. Keep going through it until the thing, the event, fades away and the seesaw stops bouncing wildly from one end to the other. Step back into the middle of it. Balance. Breathe.
I comprehend the chemicals. I know what they do and what they sometimes choose not to do.
***
I’ve been struggling lately. Life has been busy and difficult and I hold that balance and equilibrium only very delicately. It doesn’t take much to wobble it. Too much on, trying to do too many new things, too many days away from home, not enough time with Max, the girls or Bene. Not enough time with Freddie too, in our own special way that we can/have to spend time together.
The bells rang after the health visitor called; she offered me some listening visits. She asked me if I cried when I was alone?
“No,” I said. “I don’t even cry any more.”
And then I said “If I can just hold on for another 5 years, then I can get some time to deal with all of this. Until then, I just have to hold it all together.”
And I realised how ridiculous it sounded.
I might be dead in 5 years.
***
When I get the ‘wrong depression’ and the ‘improper depression’ I don’t see it coming. It isn’t triggered by something, it just creeps up.
I’m not built for wild. I’m not built for fast or exciting. I can’t live life at a pace.
I’ve been trying to build a freelance career and realising that I can do this, but I probably couldn’t actually work full time anymore.
The creep comes up through my bones.
I start to sit still.
I start to waste time.
I start to self harm, not conventionally, but by eating things I know will make me fat, not going running but hating myself for not doing. I start to stay up too late or squander precious creative minutes.
I stop writing.
I stop thinking.
I stare past Max and disengage and wonder why he isn’t spending time with me.
I panic about my health and start to see symptoms in every twinge of some dreadful death.
Paranoia creeps in; if I write something that is a cry for help and no one answers, I delete it because I disgust myself at having asked.
***
A couple of days ago someone replied to a tweet about Freddie with “move on”. I blocked, because I’m better at that these days and that night I told Max how proud I was that I had done so and shrugged it off.
He didn’t reply.
Now *I know* that he didn’t think a reply was needed. I know really that he isn’t good at those conversations and didn’t know what to say. I know he loves me and he’s proud of me for still standing.
What I heard in his silence was “Yes, well you should move on.”
What I hear in no reply is “Stop making us listen to this grief now.”
***
That’s the problem with improper depression, the type I can sometimes fix with more sleep, non-rocket fuel levels of pills and some self care.
I can’t validate it. I can’t quite allow myself to believe that I deserve to be sad and that really, there is nothing I can do about this physical propensity I have for imbalanced chemicals.
It creeps up, twists my bones and sends white noise through my brain and all I hear is…
“Why can’t you be happy?”
It’s like the whole world is saying it.
Big hugs and love from me to you. Thank-you for sharing, and I just hope your fog lifts soon xxxx
Holding your hand and sitting here with you xxx
Oh Merry. So much to say to you and I’m on the phone which makes it slow to type. Firstly, the depression stuff I totally get, all of it – you are not alone. Secondly, the grief – I haven’t been through it so I can’t come close to knowing but I try not to shy away from it, and the horror of just imagining it is so great, and yet I know it’s nothing compared to the reality. I’d quite like to punch the person on twitter who told you to move on. It all comes down to the question “which one of your children would you be able to lose and just move on from?” I think you and Jennie have both put that more eloquently but you know what I mean. I feel (maybe irrationally) guilty for missing stuff you have tweeted – maybe I need to start stalking you! But if it happens again, and no-one is there, please text me. I am always here for you. Sending love xxxxxx
Merry many hugs being sent. You are not alone and you do not need to move on.
Sometimes it is hard to find a balance and you have so much on your plate. I really hope things start to improve for you xxx
Hugs, Merry. I relate to a lot of that. xxxxxxxx
Oh Merry, so sorry that things are hard. I find the grinding grey harder than the ‘mean reds’, to be honest. And yes, for me the worst time with depression was not right when Z died – it was maybe 15 months later when I lost another pregnancy and had to face all the grief I had buried under trying to get pregnant. The ‘move on’ comment is a profoundly ignorant one. Yes, grief changes over the years, but you never ‘move on’ from loving and missing your child. You are entitled to feel exactly whatever you are feeling Merry. And my sense is that feelings deferred are feelings which fester and come back to bite you on their own schedule. No one deserves to feel sad. Emotions aren’t distributed according to who deserves them (and if they were, who would do the deciding?) They just are, and your choice is to feel them or defer them for later. Sending you lots of love xxxxxx
The eating thing! That’s the first time I’ve ever seen anyone vocalise my thinking about my eating! Thank you.
Is being sad the same as being depressed? I don’t think it is. I recognise the ‘proper depression’ as the one that is more ‘fixable’ but the ‘improper depression’ I think is part of the up and down of life. It’s how I feel most of the time tbh: tired, disengaged, trying to do too much and feeling a failure at it all. Part of that I know is the working-mum syndrome but part of it I think is compassion-fatigue. Spend too much time taking on the emotions and awful situations of others and unless you can disengage you will crash and burnout. My husband thinks I have no soul as it takes a lot to upset me but he’s no idea of what I do at work and would be traumatised if I described my day. In the context of that, very little in our life is truly upsetting.
That’s not helpful at all I expect, but suffice to say you’re not alone. If only the world would stop for a week to let me sleep and a second week to let me get jobs done it would all be so much better.
This is probably a bizarre question but other than the summer, do you give yourself annual leave from work? I encourage my junior staff to take a week off once they’ve been working with me for a month or two and then regularly after that (not because they’re working with ME but the emotional strain of the job 🙂 ). Regular breaks make a big difference but when you’re self employed I expect that may not be an option?
Keep talking.
Many are listening.
S
I have both the “wrong” and the “right” types of depression at different times. And i really get your comment to your health visitor. I visualise a time in the future that i will be able to “let it all out”, but i know that that point never comes.
I am in the “wrong” type of depression atm, not dangerous but just overwhelmed by life
We will get through this
I read this and it was like you were speaking from inside my head. And I feel so guilty for feeling this way because my life is in a bit of a hiatus – a lull and I “should” be enjoying the space and it’s that should that gets me. I self medicate with food too and I don’t know how to stop it. I wish I had some words but I know they’re not what is needed.
I just do love you. So wanted to turn a virtual hug into a real one xxx
Always here. Always listening, never expecting you to do anything you don’t want to do xx