I’ve tried to ignore it. Got myself good and distracted with so many projects, so much creativity, so many things.
And I made it a record amount of time, I think, without actually doing anything about it. Oh, you know how it is when you’re in pain, if you stay busy it just … fades into the background.
Until it doesn’t.
My heart isn’t in ANYthing right now. I’m going through motions but there is no real joy in it. It started creeping up in May, and in July I was reaching out for help – but the therapists in my area were so booked up that they couldn’t even add to their wait lists. And it’s not like it’s life-threatening – depression never killed anybody, did it? Well, okay, yes, it can be terminal. But thank the gods I’m not anywhere near terminal. Just exhausted, uninspired, an hedonic, and just dysfunctional enough to be slightly dangerous (don’t ask me about my driving, just don’t).
And I 100% know I’m not alone, because almost all the clients I have seen lately have been feeling very lackluster themselves.
Of course I have a theory – have you met me? Sheesh. A decade ago, after the death of my mother, step-dad, mother-in-law, the end of my marriage, the closing of the business I worked for, and a broken ankle, I crashed. Hard. 3 weeks sitting on the couch unable to do ANYthing. The counselor I finally drug myself in to see said, “You have lost your equilibrium, you have no idea where ‘normal’ is. Even though some of it was awful, it was ‘normal,’ and now you are lost.”
Sound familiar?
We’ve been through some of the worst political crises in recent memory – we’re still mired in some of them, and will be for the foreseeable future. It feels endless. Half of us have had our sovereign personhood stripped from us, and don’t know what’s next. Our siblings of color are still being slaughtered and thrown in jail for the flimsiest of reasons while worse White criminals walk free. There are migrant families that are so scattered that they’ll never find each other again. We’ve gone from “Everyone must quarantine so we can beat this thing” to “Who the fuck cares? Get back to work!” even when infection rates were soaring. We’ve all lost people, some of us have lost major functionality through permanent organ damage, we’ve lost jobs, lost friends, become estranged from family … Any part of that list is more than enough trauma, thank you.
If you have your eyes open even a slit, you can’t help but be a little depressed. There’s no shame in having compassion for the downtrodden and the helpless; no shame in feeling heartbroken for the losses of health and life; no shame in wanting something, anything, to feel normal again.
For me, right now, this is all that plus some kind of sammich that I don’t remember ordering.
For you, it could be any or all of that and a private health struggle, or a family tragedy of an entirely unrelated nature. It could be substance abuse, a friend or family member’s or your own; it could be a loss of faith – oh my gods have people been walking away from religious toxicity left and right – and it’s an incredibly painful thing to endure at the best of times, to lose your faith in something that has sustained you for decades.
Clearly I am answerless at this moment. But this I can tell you – if you’re suffering, you’re not alone. Your suffering is not weakness, it’s self-preservation. Your suffering is not dumb, or not valid enough or not severe enough to merit compassion from other people. If you are suffering, you deserve all the grace you can get.
Bottom line, and last word: Assume everyone you meet everywhere you go is suffering, and bring your kindest self to every encounter. Every. Encounter. We are all part of the same whole. There is no Other. We’re all just mirrors of each other and for each other. When you are nasty to someone, you’re being nasty to yourself. Knock it off. Be kind and generous and cultivate curiosity. Send your heart before you everywhere you go. Wake up every morning and say, “I choose to live in love,” and mean it, and do it.
I love you. You’re not alone. We’re going to get through this. Normal is not all it’s cracked up to be, but balance is good. Let’s help each other.