It Comes & Goes in Waves

Situational Depression: When suicide no longer sounds like the least painful option

I am migrating my blog from Wordpress to Medium. This is a repost of a blog written in August 2014.

My heart is so heavy this week. Heavy doesn’t begin to describe it. Across town, a tension that we live with every day has bubbled to a boil and I sit in my home praying for peace, hoping for resolution, imagining the possibilities — revolution or rage — total change, equality and a new beginning for my town or more fires, flames, resentment.

Then, the death of Robin Williams — which some feel is inconsequential in comparison to what we have going on outside our back door — but which hit me like a ton of bricks yesterday. Why? In part, because he was truly my favorite actor — but also because I’ve been where he was and I understand why he did it. It’s only by the grace of God that I’m still here.

I have situational depression — it comes and goes in waves.

In 2008, I had a beautiful newborn baby. Six weeks after his birth, my husband and I both lost our jobs on the same day and embarked on one of the hardest years I can remember. Almost a year to the day after losing our jobs, my mother died. I think I’d been holding onto things relatively well up until that point. Sure, it was a rough year, but I had a new husband, was embarking on a new career and was back in school investing in myself. It wasn’t all bad.

Then, when the baby was napping and we were getting ready to trick or treat on Halloween 2009, my cell phone rang in my back pocket and I answered it.

“Pam’s dead,” my brother said.

Pam was my mom. Outside of a few awkward encounters, we hadn’t spoken in years. I ran away from her home when I was 15. The court barred her from seeing me and we never really could figure out a way to coexist after that.

The last thing she’d told me before she died was that I wasn’t worth the effort it would take to repair our relationship.

My son would never meet my mother.

Things would always be how we left them. They’d never get better. It was just… done. I wasn’t worth it, and it was … done.

“Okay.” I said, and listened numbly as he told me a few details. “She died on her couch. They’re not sure what happened…….. maybe swine flu…. not sure.”

A few minutes later, I hung up, walked upstairs, found my husband told him that my mom was dead. He gave me a hug and the tears did not come. I was pissed. “What the fuck?!” I thought. “That’s how it ended?!” It was supposed to get better. I was her baby. It was supposed to get better. She was supposed to get better. She was supposed to love me. I WAS HER BABY.

My days went on without her there. Awkward reunions, platitudes of grief, emptiness and more emptiness. People knew something was wrong. I had to explain why I was taking time off work, school, but didn’t know how to deal with it. When I would say, “My mom died,” people would share their experiences where their dear, sweet mothers passed after some illness and how they missed them so. I’d just say, “No. Really. It’s okay. It’s different.” and awkwardly walk away. With each exchange, I’d find I had less and less tact and was becoming more and more angry for what they had, and what I’d never have.

A few weeks after we buried her, I knew I needed to speak with someone. I’d seen a therapist during my pregnancy with Cole. My delivery with my oldest had nearly been fatal and I needed someone to talk me through pregnancy and delivery, because I was terrified to have another child. I called her and she saw me and at the end of our session said that she was so sorry for what I was going through, but that she was retiring and that would be our last session.

It was ultimately her retirement that sent me over the edge. She was the only person that knew everything about me. We’d worked through the abuse, the divorce, everything — decades of things — how would I start over with someone? How would I EVER get better before it was too late if I had to start over with someone?!

I knew that I had a husband and children that loved me. I knew that I loved them — as a fact, a truth — something documented — but not something I could adequately feel. I knew that I had reasons not to kill myself. I knew all of these things were true, but it just didn’t matter… and I didn’t want to live with my grief anymore. I was just dead inside, and yearned strongly to be altogether gone. There was an ache so deep that I couldn’t calm it anymore. I couldn’t talk to anyone. I could barely talk at all.

A few days later, I googled, “How to cure depression without talking,” “how to deal with suicidal feelings without talking.” I started to dial a suicide hotline, hung up. I started to talk with my husband and worried that I’d be upsetting him for nothing — because, really, what kind of a mother/wife/person would I be if I could seriously think about KILLING myself?!

After one of many searches, I stumbled upon something called biofeedback — and a therapist just blocks from my house that provided it.

I called, she answered, I cried, she made time in her appointment book for me that day. When I arrived, she knew I needed a lot of help. She hooked me up to a machine and although I only had enough money for 1 hour (insurance wouldn’t cover it), she gave me two hours on this machine.

She fastened straps to my wrists, ankles and one around my head with electrodes. I felt nothing. She ran a computer scan that gave my brain 300 signals or inputs in just 2 or 3 minutes and it gave her a baseline of my emotions. Without knowing why I was there, she said, “I see grief, anger, sadness, regret. Is that right?” I nodded solemnly and she said, “You’ll feel better soon, honey.”

Two hours later, I’d been pulled back from the ledge. I can’t say what the therapy did, but I can say that I wasn’t expecting much. Had it not worked, I can safely say I would NOT be here today.

The next day, I came back for one more hour, and a week later, I paid for one more hour. After the layoffs, our budgets were anemic to say the least, and that was all I could afford. Luckily, that was all I needed. I was back from the brink. I started writing and I got on a short-term antidepressant and I found my way out.

I’ve never been back to that dark place, but I’ve been very very low and I know that I’m susceptible in times of trauma and I have a plan if it ever happens again.

Situational depression can happen to anyone. It happens in the aftermath of a difficult or traumatic change in your life — divorce, car accident, retirement, loss of a job, death of a relative or close friend. Some doctors call it “adjustment disorder,” and the symptoms mimic clinical depression — but there are some key differences. Click here to learn more about situational depression.

Looking for another option to help with your depression? Click here for more information on biofeedback therapy to see if it might be right for you.

Thank you to Sharon Moehle, the psychologist who gave so generously of her time when I needed it most. I owe you my life.