Also, I don't want it to come across as whiny or as a plea for sympathy. I'm always reading blogs by depressed people who are SO annoying and self-serving and exhibitionistic, like, "Oh, look over here and be moved by my torment and feel sorry for me but admire my courage".
Finally, I'm a pretty private person (hahaha I know you'd never know it) and it might be too revealing. But part of the illness is extreme apathy and a sort of paralysis when it comes to getting help, and I tend to exacerbate that by keeping it a secret from everyone when I'm depressed. So I thought this time I'd just tell everyone and get it out in the open and therefore HAVE to do something about it.
Perhaps something I blogged elsewhere while I was reading Peter Kramer's "Against Depression" (I was not depressed at the time) would be appropriate here:
I don't know how much more misery I can take.
And I don't mean mine.
I mean that everywhere I look, someone I care about is desperately unhappy.
And it's not because the world is a shitty place. I mean, it IS, hahaha, but that doesn't make people unhappy. Think of all the (annoying) people you know who are as happy as if they had good sense, even while this same shitty world falls to pieces around them...
No. I believe we are hardwired to be happy, no matter how fucked-up our circumstances. I don't believe that unhappy people are just more observant and aware of reality, that they somehow perceive the world with a clarity the rest of us lack. I recognize the correlation between depression and creativity, but I don't believe suffering is a prerequisite for the artist's ability to produce works of incredible beauty, profundity and insight.
I believe that depression robs people of their capacity to feel joy and pleasure and love.
And I believe that this disease, depression, is reaching epidemic proportions and that the world is not paying any fucking attention.
Well. Maybe it's not all that fitting. But I still believe it. As Dr. Kramer argues in his superlative book, depression is not the same thing as sadness, or sorrow, or moodiness. And it's not glamorous, either, despite the mystique it enjoys in certain circles. It's an illness. Nothing more, nothing less.
(Oh, and note to friends and family: Don't be alarmed. Thinking about dying is not the same thing as being suicidal.)
2 comments:
Katie!
I think your posts on depression are truly insightful and very, very true. I know. I go there, too. You're right, it does sneak up on you, and the next thing you know, your holing up in your flat, flat on your back, dreading the feeling of HAVING to face the world, eat too many pizzas and other delivery food because you just don't care and you just can't do it. I doesn't hit you over the head like a sledgehammer at all. It IS insidious. All you know is one day, you are in a quagmire of shit, and you can't dig yourself out. Fortunately, I have a great therapist, who will call me when I don't show for multiple appointments because she knows how I do. Revisit The Bell Jar. Sylvia Plath gives a pretty vibrant view into that journey...and her work was inspirational to me because here was this tome, written decades ago, talking about the very same stuff I consistently struggle with. Oh, they can up your dose of this, or decrease your dose of that, give you electro-shock therapy, and you still might end up sticking your head in an oven. Of course, neither of us is married to a bastard like Ted Hughes, either. Poet Fucking Laureat indeed!
Buck up girlie! I love you...and that's saying a LOT.
Craig
Oh, thank you, sweetie! You are a doll. Another excellent first-hand account of depression is William Styron's "Darkness Visible".
I love you, too, angel.
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