Back on My Feet Again

Yep, I went through a rough patch. And I wasn’t going to talk about it, but then I realized, if we’re ever going to remove the stigma from depression, schizophrenia, bi-polar, and other otherness, we’re going to have to talk about it when it happens to us. I’ll try to be brief and not whiny. 

I’ve struggled with depression for longer than I can remember knowing what it was. Back in jr. high  it started creeping in, and high school it got really bad. After I graduated the day-to-day help me I’m stuck in a festering shithole and they won’t let me out part got better, but the uncommon, simmering, susuration of depression was always there, sometimes below the threshold of consciousness, but sometimes, overwhelming everything else. I started seeing a counselor when I was about 19 or 20, and found it to be incredibly helpful. I saw other counselors in my 30s and 40s, haven’t seen one since 2012 I think. Haven’t needed to, thank goodness.

But my depression does bubble over from time to time, and I have learned how to fairly reliably pull myself back out of the pit. Usually it involves forcing myself to do something creative. Back in 2012 my counselor said, “What makes you feel normal?” I said sewing, so he advised me to go to a fabric store and get myself a bunch of fabric and spend a week sewing. That did it. One time I stumbled upon a copy of a wonderful book called The I-Ching for Writers, by Sarah Jane Sloane, and every day, religiously, I would throw my three pennies and get the day’s creative writing assignment. Eventually, after about a week, I found myself writing what would probably be a novella or a book for young readers, about cats stepping between one dimension and another, and the humans who found a way to colonize the cat’s OtherWorld. I never finished it, but I still have the draft sitting on my hard drive. It pulled me out of the pit, though, and that is enough for me; I don’t need to finish the story (though the handful of people who have read it will argue that, yes, I really do).

This time, it was a little different, and I was ready to ask for recommendations for a really good holistic counselor, but I managed to get out of it.

This time, it was compounded by some stuff that I really and truly have no control over. Nor do any of us. I wasn’t living my mission, not because of anything I was or was not doing; I chose to not take the risk of bringing people into my studio who may or may not be infected with one of the most contagious viruses of the last 100 or so years. I could do everything right, limit myself to one session a day and disinfect religiously before and after; wash my hands until the skin peels off; wear a mask and a face shield together; I could do all of that, and more, and still the virus could slip through and it could be two weeks before I would know I was infected, and that would mean potentially spreading it to 10 people – and no. I won’t do it. I can’t risk anyone’s health but my own, so I have chosen not to see clients or students until it is safe to do so. I miss being In The Sound terribly, and that’s also a huge part of it – I’m not getting the daily tuneups which have healed and soothed me and allowed me to experience incredible growth with grace.

Hell yes I’m broke, thanks for asking. But it’s worth it if I save even one life, or prevent just one person from ending up with permanent lung or other organ damage. Including me.

The isolation wasn’t so bad. I know how to keep myself entertained, and my default position is “solitary.” But not living my purpose, that got me. Hard. If I’m not useful, if I’m not making the World A Better Place, I am not happy. And so I slipped, slowly and almost imperceptibly, into a very dark space. And once I was there, I didn’t know where I was for a long time. And one day it dawned on me, oh, shit, this is depression again. And then I could do something about it. I know what to do now.

This time, I beat it by doing metabolism boosting workouts, following a thyroid-healing diet, and digging into collaboration with the Family Folk Machine and . . .well, another project that we’re not quite ready to talk about just yet, but hopefully soon. Being in a head space with a group of people who are actively brainstorming is a powerful anti-depressant. Throwing ideas, getting excited, joking, laughing, throwing more ideas . . . fast and fabulous, like Aaron Sorkin wrote the script for the meeting that day.

But let me say this; I’m lucky beyond belief and I know it. I have learned ways to control and contain my depression, sometimes for years, and when I slip up I know how to turn it around in about two weeks. Most of the time. I’m not taking it for granted, and Michael sternly assured me that if he didn’t see an improvement in my overall mood in that time that he would drag my ass to a therapist. Fortunately, I managed to pull myself back up and start moving again.

But I know there are folks out there who are constantly in a state where depression is so overwhelming all the time that they don’t have the luxury of pulling themselves out of it with diet, exercise and creative work. I am very well aware that this won’t work for people who have more than low-level simmering depression, and I don’t insult my clients who suffer from a more severe form of it by suggesting it would fix them just like it fixed me. I get it. I’m ridiculously lucky.

Depression is never something to ignore or avoid getting help with. There is no shame in feeling depressed. Hell, if you look around at the state of our country right now and aren’t depressed, maybe you aren’t looking very closely. And if that’s how you have to do it, I get that, too. I swore off Fecesbook and the news for a week, and it helped so much. I’m dangling my toes back in, but if I feel that dark overwhelm creeping up again, I will yank my toes right back out, trust me. Hopefully it won’t come to that.

End the stigma by opening up. We can’t all be in this together if we don’t open up to connection. Let’s help each other grow.

You are loved.