Listening to my depression
What does it want to say to me and why?
I’ve had a depressive episode the last month or so. OK who am I kidding, I probably still have it going on — it’s just that today happens to be a better day than yesterday. And that’s the case with the black dog sometimes. Not every day is totally black. Grey will do. In fact, grey is desirable, at the moment.
I did have something of a breakthrough yesterday though. I was writing down all the things I’ve dealt with over the past month. First, a house move, to a small town around 15 miles from the city I’ve lived in for the past 10 years. I like where I live now and it’s good to own our own place, but I’m no longer a 10–15 minute drive from work — it’s a 40 minute commute, more in rush hour. I used to finish my night shifts at 2:30am and I’d be in the door by 2:45 and in bed by 3am. These days I’m still on the road at that time. And say nothing of coping with the tiredness and disorientation that goes with shift work as well as trying to unpack all the boxes and fix everything in the house that needs fixing and try to make it nice to live in. I’m still wondering where half my things are.
To top that off, we lost my grandmother early in December. This came with a fair few of its own complexities. My grandmother and I didn’t really get on — perhaps that’s how she would see it, but I simply felt that she didn’t like me. I have seen her perhaps a handful of times as an adult, once a year if that. I decided I was done with her when I travelled down from Scotland, where I was living at the time, for her 80th birthday and she told me to move off her table and let another of my cousins sit there.
There’s nothing like going to a relative’s funeral where you don’t recognise much of what people are saying about the deceased and it comes of something as a revelation that they were actually nice sometimes — just not to you.
My usual coping strategy when things in my life aren’t going well is to bury myself in work. Take extra shifts and take on more freelance jobs. And that’s exactly what I did. But this time, it didn’t work. I found myself completely overwhelmed by everything I’d taken on and no time to process anything that had happened.
I found myself so sad I wanted to sit and cry for hours. I found myself so angry I wanted to scream and smash things. Nothing took those feelings away, not even work, not smoking weed or drinking. In fact drinking made things actively worse, as it usually does.
I came off Facebook a couple of weeks ago because I didn’t trust myself on it with this black cloud hanging over me. Redirecting my anger at racists, bigots, and misogynists was one way of letting it out, but ultimately all it did was make me feel bad about myself and then feel anxious in case a client saw one of my rants, or my boss, or one of my tutors at uni. People expect certain things of a therapist, I have come to realise. Conducting yourself with dignity, both in public and online, is one of them. Slanging matches with strangers, no matter how abhorrent their views, do not give the best impression of your therapeutic and empathetic capabilities. Neither does being too drunk to see the boards at the train station to find your train home and sitting on the platform with tears streaming down your face after downing several shots of rum in quick succession.
Coming off Facebook, while it was a positive damage limitation move, highlighted another thing for me. I deactivated my profile and nobody noticed apart from two of the supposed three hundred and something ‘friends’ I had accumulated on there, nobody noticed the absence of my online presence. If ever there was proof that Facebook is essentially a tool for narcissism, there I had it. I could disappear from my online life and nobody gave a shit. We only care about curating our own online worlds.
How much had I missed while I was doing the same?
How many other people are like me and will just quietly disappear rather than admit life isn’t profile page-worthy at the moment?
Out of the friends I actually have phone numbers for, how many of them could I really go to and tell them I was feeling crappy and seek support? Not many, I discovered. Because the friendships have largely been based on me helping them with their stuff.
A busman’s holiday for a counsellor in training and crisis worker, you might argue.
I found myself in tears on the way to my shifts, because I started to feel I no longer existed except for in terms of what others need from me. My home feels like another black hole of need as well — instead of nurturing me and helping me relax, it has been a place of stress and looking at all the things I have not yet done fills me with dread and guilt. I hate the clutter, but have no energy to sort it out.
As I wrote all these things out, I realised. Being hit with depression is not just another bit of bad luck or a symptom of being ill. It’s a call to arms.
My depression is trying to tell me things need to change, that I need to learn to self-care, to say no, and to make the necessary adjustments to my life.
My tears and panic on the way to work are telling me I need to address my overworking, including how many night shifts I take on. My Facebook absence and resulting sense of isolation is telling me I need to go and do things in my new neighbourhood, find some friends with common interests rather than just problems. My sluggish body is telling me I need proper sleep and exercise rather than using substances — including resisting the temptation to go to the doctor and get medication, because that would just allow me to keep treading the same path but not feel as shit about it.
(I do believe medication can be helpful in certain circumstances depending on the individual and I have used it in the past, but this time it’s not right for me.)
Listening and admitting my depression is a sign that my life and my coping strategies are not working for me right now is the first step, I hope, to creating a healthier me.
