The past few weeks have been difficult. It’s that frosted-glass feeling, like the world — most notably, the human world of interactions and transactions — is appearing through a dense fog. The weight of feeling “other”, the guilt about the weight, the voice that whispers your own worthlessness like every bully rolled into one and then upped a level, the sense of smallness at “letting” the voice affect you when you rationally know that it isn’t saying anything worth listening to. The internal buzz that ricochets as an inability to relax, telling you to check your phone (again) in case something life-saving has come through there. The disappointment (again) when nothing has. The waiting. Disappointment has been especially strong, the dual sense that 1) I am a disappointment and 2) I am disappointed. The intense tiredness, that makes getting off the sofa feel like moving mountains. I’m going to stop now, because, as well-meaning folk have oft told me, everybody prefers to be around someone who is happy. If you’re considering giving someone with depression this helpful piece of “advice”, I suggest refraining.
It is not always helpful to dwell on the painful feelings and challenges of depression and anxiety. Often, healing is fostered by switching focus onto something brighter, placing attention onto sources of hope and light. But articulating symptoms can bridge the gap in understanding between unhealthy and healthy, depressed and “normal”. For all the increased openness about mental ill-health that the past decade has brought about, the experience of depressive symptoms remains profoundly lonely. In a socioeconomic system where value and virtue is tied inextricably with productivity, a day interrupted by crying fits is not only distressing, but induces a deep sense of guilt and worthlessness at one’s failure to measure up.
I want to write more, thinking about the link between contemporary politics, societal structures, and incidences of clinical depression, but I don’t think that’s for today. (Note: after writing this, I started reading Sedated: How Modern Capitalism Created Our Mental Health Crisis by James Davies which seems like a solid ground to start research.)
Instead, I’m going to share a poem I wrote about recovery a few years ago. I dug it up because I need a reminder that storms of emotional despair do get better. I hope that this brings you a sense of optimism and possibility if you are struggling to stay afloat with the seasonal shift, ubiquitous war and death related media. and other life circumstances. When I feel disordered, the cadence of rhythm and metre can be like a heartbeat or like the footsteps up the mountain: a way of falling into pace and grounding me in the immediate moment, nourishing in slow yet definite movements out of the woods.
View backwards
You scarcely see the summit, hardly register your climb
’til you realise that your plummets have grown softer over time.
Like you only noted footfall when self-scolding for a slip…
Now, what once was a black hole seems a more infrequent dip
and your skin is glowing healthier, your face more often smiles;
The legs which ached and chained you down are stronger, walking miles.
Remember red exhausted eyes, with little rest from tears?
The thunder’s more like showers now — a rain which comes, then clears.
So bent are you on tackling this next section of the track
that rarely do you drink the view: your progress, looking back
and only when you do so, then you notice with surprise
your starting point’s so far below that you need to squint your eyes.
Eyes which couldn’t register your growth, or all the corners turned,
slow changes in the dark and light, through coping lived and learned.
I know tonight your body’s tired, and your mind feels fit to burst
but you can handle this — you’ve been through so much worse.
