THE WIND PHONE
Grief and Depression Duke It Out
I have two pedals, and they both stick
Depression patiently waited for me in 2022. Or maybe it deferred to grief, the more urgent, debilitating force that overtook every aspect of my being as I slogged from loss to loss to loss: over a five-week period, I lost my son to suicide, my mother-in-law to dementia, and my dog to cancer. Depression politely waited a few months before it layered on top of my blanket of grief, and when depression took hold, its grip was fierce.
Though the symptoms are similar, grief and depression are distinct. Brain imaging reveals that depression and grief even activate different parts of the brain. I can feel the differences.
Grief is active and relentless, occurring over and over, the proverbial wave washing in and out of moments, experiences, and daily life. Grief is a response to memory, smell, and sound. It is the mind and heart’s reaction to a world without a loved one. I hear a song that reminds me of happy times when our family was fully intact, and I respond by crying. That’s grief.
Depression is quiet, even passive. It can be still. Depression flattens and prevents action. It can convince you that you’re not capable of taking action. I can sit before my husband discussing nothing more meaningful than which salad dressing to use, and suddenly I feel unworthy of making such a decision. That’s depression.
On the most basic level, grief is about my lost son Charlie, and depression is about me. In this I feel a twisted kinship with him, enduring the disease that killed him because it killed him.
Depression won’t kill me. I’m fortunate to have excellent medical care and helpful medication. I also have two things Charlie did not: a fully developed prefrontal cortex and the wisdom that comes from successfully battling depression in the past. Hard-earned experience that this sickness will eventually end tempers depression’s hallmark sense of hopelessness, even as grief knits itself into this new version of me. But depression won’t go down without a fight.
There’s a war within my body. Remaining still is impossible, yet I don’t possess the motivation to move. My mind and body are trying to separate from each other, with muscles screaming for action and emotion anchoring me in place.
Condolence notes plead for attention, but completing them requires information from my address book, which is across the house. I negotiate with myself about retrieving it. All I need to do is stand, walk, pull the address book from the desk, walk, sit. It will take one minute, tops. Once I complete the simple task, I can sit again for hours. If only I could move.
It takes activity outside of my bodily bubble to pop dilemma. The puppy moves to sit next to the door, a signal to go outside. I stand, walk to her, pet her, open the door, and follow her. We circle the yard; she does her business; we return inside. I dart to grab the address book, place it next to the stack of condolence cards. I’m moving. Once I start, I can’t stop.
I put away dishes. I hang coats in the front closet. I water house plants. I step outside again and pick away dead flowers from the planters on the stoop.
The sofa calls to me. Stop. Rest. You’re tired. You don’t need to do these things. You’re pushing yourself. Stop. Rest.
A small branch has fallen into a flower bed, so I claim it and place it into a pile of yard debris. The air is cool and tingly, a perfect fall day. I slide into an invisible trail of garden chores, weeding the front walk, pruning an errant shrub, extracting swatches of leaves that have collected behind a hedge. More, more, more. I only stop when twilight drops, and I can no longer easily see.
Once inside, I feel accomplished but confused. It’s not so much that I had a boost of stamina, more that my pedal got stuck. The same thing happens when I sit. All gas, all brakes. My body needs to move. My mind needs to rest.
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