I want to tell you that you are not alone. You are among people who suffer, sometimes daily, often randomly, but always, always there will be suffering. How do we navigate those times? Perhaps it is building resilience. It could be medication. Sometimes, it’s just sitting with it, understanding that all things are impermanent and waiting for the darkness to lift. Patience with your depression is necessary.
Here is my depression in real time, while it’s happening in the current moment, and during the past two weeks. Maybe my vulnerability will help you. Perhaps it will make you feel that your feelings are normal. What the fuck is “normal” anyway? I don’t know if anyone can truly define that.
About two weeks ago my brain turned foggy. It happened as I walked down the hallway of the high school. I felt it. An overwhelming sadness, a darkness that was inspiring for anyone who likes to suffer. I found my way back to my office and sat there, head in hands, trying to hold back tears. I paused, as I often do with depression and anxiety, and sat with it, being curious, meeting it head on. I wanted to accept it fully and then see if I could find a cause. Was it stress? A conversation? Was it questioning my worth as I often do? The negativity and emotion that often surrounds me? Maybe the tormented longing of a writer? This time, I could not find any reason but plain darkness. Not just any darkness, but the kind where I knew the following days I would be forcing myself from my pillow, forcing myself to smile, and forcing myself to have any interactions at all. This type of depression is when I want to withdraw from the world and disappear. Where I feel like leaving humanity.
*On a side note, not all depression is the same for everyone, and it also is not the same for the individual each time it happens. For me, some depression has a ray of light within it, others I can function and feel a little numbness, and then there are times when the numbness is so intense that I stop feeling, especially for myself. The darkness is so great, I become lost.
It wasn’t long before the degrading dialogue entered my thoughts, and all self-worth and self-respect left me. For anyone who thinks you can just change the dialogue or “Just smile and be happy,” you have never felt the deep despair and hopelessness of depression. It’s a vengeful son-of-a-bitch that wants to ruin you. My dialogue said, “You are a piece of worthless shit. You don’t deserve love. Your wife deserves better than you. You should not be an educator. You pollute every school you enter. You are not good for kids. Staff hate you. You have let them all down. Your family thinks you are not deserving of their love.” The conversation is brutal and as much as I try to counter it, reframe my thoughts, this type of depression, the deep, dark kind that I am in, smothers me.
I then sit, remembering how much my mother loved me, and still does. I can still hear her as she would listen to my voice when I called during these tough times, “Honey, you don’t sound yourself today. Are you okay? I can tell your depression has come.” We would then talk for a while about depression because she shared the same darkness. I sat and cried as I could hear her say, “You always remember that your momma loves you so much.” I will try to hang on another day, momma.
I then muddle through the next day and the next. I try to help the people around me. I go to greet and talk with students because they give me hope and purpose. I practice my breathwork and yoga, I write, I attempt to read but the dialogue in my head is screaming louder than the words on the page in front of me. I find myself reading the same paragraph over and over, and then I finally just close the book and sit, staring blankly, my eyes red and watery.
I find myself in meetings and conversations, and the darkness becomes worse. I feel shunned for trying to advocate for staff and help them, and realize once again that there are always risks with getting involved. People don’t like to face hard things, especially when they need to reflect on their actions. I say, “This has nothing to do with me. I am just an advocate, delivering a message, and people need help and guidance.” I feel like my words are muffled. They are lost on deaf ears, lost on my ears. Then again, the internal dialogue says, “Quit! You need to leave your job because they don’t want you there.” It’s a harsh voice.
I find myself standing before the new teachers. I stand there as I have been tasked to talk with them about mental health, share a little of myself, tell stories, give them some coping strategies, and maybe inspire them to keep going in this wonderful, but often difficult, profession. When depressed, mental clarity is a struggle. It takes an incredible amount of effort to just put together sentences, let alone a forty-minute presentation. It took everything in me to show up, but I respect my director who invited me. I did not want to let her down. I did not want to let the new staff down. I left that evening feeling I did just that. I sunk deeper, realizing I was not on my game. My wife told me, like she often does, that I am too hard on myself. It is true. My director told me it went great. Two staff members came to me after and said it was wonderful, but my depressed brain said, “You’re fucking embarrassing yourself!” The darkness became worse overnight. I started to think I let everyone down, and the dialogue screamed, “Who the fuck do you think you are, thinking you have something to offer anyone!” I answered that with, “I am no one and no one is me.”
The weekend came and I sludge into the day, going to a concealed carry class. I struggled to listen to the instructor. His own insecurities in life shined, at least I thought. His lack of confidence, showboating, and lack of understanding came through his lesson. My thought is, a secure person who cares about life should be the ones who carry a gun. Many will struggle with that, but there are bad people in the world doing bad things. We need protectors, not pacifists. We go to the range and I struggle to focus, struggle to care if I qualify. I do, but my aim is not perfect from distraction, so I have one more thing I convince myself I am not worthy of and am a failure. Once a marksman, but where did it go?
Sunday morning, I sit in tears. I think about my mom, and the grief pushes my depression to a new place. It is one I have been to before. The disbelief of losing her is heavy on my chest and I feel like it’s hard to breathe. “What is this hell that I am in?” I think. I just want to feel good again. I want to smile and mean it. I want to be loved.
I force myself to work. I forced myself to offer help to a family and from their response, it worked. I did help them, but I feel more numb. At this point, I think maybe it will be better off to start looking for other work. Maybe I should leave the field of education. I don’t belong. This thought has entered my mind for over eighteen years. I drive to another school and try to be helpful again. I sit with a new teacher, offering assistance, answering their questions, attempting to lift them up as, like many new teachers, they are discouraged. Then the dialogue starts again, “Who the fuck do you think you are to offer help or advice to any teacher? You are an imposter.” The day rolls on and I am exhausted with life and life is exhausted with me.
I come home and try to find comfort on my yoga mat and it occurs to me that usually when I am this deep in depression that I have suicidal thoughts. No plan, just thoughts that everyone would be better off if I just went through with it. To my surprise, as I sat breathing on my mat, I did not have any suicidal thoughts since my depression started. You have to look for the positives, the light.
I found myself back by the kids. I surrounded myself with them, interacting, and needed their energy. It has always made me feel good to offer them help. I love my kids. I go to my office and look at a note from a former student that I have kept for years. She tells me how much I meant to her and the other kids, and how much I helped her. I leave it in the open so I remember I was once a good educator. At least, I was good for someone.
I woke up this morning at 3:47am. My mind raced. I felt my chest as I breathed because last night I had a dream that I had drowned and kept sinking. In my dream, I looked up at the light that trickled through the water and I reached for it, trying to swim back to the surface, but I sank further until there was no longer light. That is when I woke up, surprised to be alive. I have had moments like this before when I woke up and had to look around, gathering my thoughts as I processed if I were alive or dead. Almost three years ago, I had a similar experience when I was high as hell on Opioids, that my sister came to get me and take me with her. We walked in a field with tall grass, smiling and the sun shone as we entered the woods. I woke up that day numb, wondering if I existed and then wanting to run back to my dream and after my sister. The day after that dream, I attempted to take my life. I was lucky that day that I turned the key off of my truck, realizing that it was the opioids sinking me so deep and not actually wanting to kill myself. This changed me. It changed my life and brought a different, more profound clarity and gratitude. It launched me onto a new path. A new way of thinking, but it did not take away the depression. I am convinced that it will stay with me until the end of my days, and that’s okay.
I looked for good interactions all day but my dialogue was still ruthless. Though, I have hope. I have survived this before and I know I will again. I am resilient.
This is depression in real time, as It is happening now. I am not sure if it will happen tomorrow or not. Perhaps, I will wake up and it will be gone just as quickly as it came. That is often how depression works. For now, all I have is the moment.
She enters the room. I have watched her for years as she gracefully walks towards me, bending down, her blue eyes, my favorite shade of blue, captured me, and her soft lips greet me. It is her, my love, that offers me light through the darkness.
