And I got back to number 33, my parents’ house, and I rang the bell and Andrea answered and I was inside and there was no relief, because my mind was quick to point out that being relieved about surviving a trip to the corner shop was another confirmation of sickness, not wellness.
She was about to tell me my birthday surprise. “We’re going to Paris. Tomorrow. We’re staying in the sixth. It’s going to be great. We’re staying in the hotel Oscar Wilde died in. L’Hotel, it’s called.” I don’t know if anyone had been this scared of Paris since Marie Antoinette. If I said “no”, then I would be a person who couldn’t travel abroad because he was scared. And that would make me like a mad person, and my biggest fear – bigger even than death – was of being totally mad.
If you have depression on its own your mind sinks into a swamp and loses momentum, but with anxiety in the cocktail, the swamp is still a swamp but the swamp now has whirlpools in it. The monsters that are there, in the muddy water, continually move like modified alligators at their highest speed. You are continually on guard. You are on guard to the point of collapse every single moment, while desperately trying to keep afloat, to breathe the air that the people on the bank all around you are breathing as easily as anything.
If you are the type of person who thinks too much about stuff then there is nothing lonelier in the world than being surrounded by a load of people on a different wavelength. Few things make me feel as terrible as not being able to do “normal people things” because of the amount of anxiety that something simple causes me. So much of what Haig said (specifically the lines in this post) resonates with me because it really is an insanely lonely feeling to be surrounded by people who are happily enjoying themselves, while I’m slowly, but actually, dying inside. I’m either repeating something stupid to myself so the tears don’t creep down my face, thinking of an escape plan, or chugging shot after shot to just end the night sooner. The worst part is – no one has absolutely any idea. Every once in a while, I can’t hold it together and I break down in front of other people. It happens. It’s still hard not to be embarrassed or ashamed, but I’m working on it because I know it’s something I have almost no control over. I’ve always felt more comfortable with a small group of friends because I know there’s a select few that would just be there to listen and let me cry when I needed it. It’s a little harder to explain to a group of 20, 15 of whom I’ve never met, that heyy I’m actually insane, but I’m almost done sobbing, so just don’t mind me. It’s doesn’t exactly help the mood of the party either when I’m looking for the room with the highest jumping point.
It’s a weird thing, depression. Even now, writing this with a good distance of fourteen years from my lowest point, I haven’t fully escaped. You get over it, but at the same time you never get over it. It comes back in flashes, when you are tired or anxious or have been eating the wrong stuff, and catches you off guard.
For about six months my lack of self-esteem had been artificially addressed. I would lie in bed and go to sleep smiling, thinking Wow, I’m quite a big deal, I’m going to be published. But being published (or getting a great job or whatever) does not permanently alter your brain. And one night I lay awake, feeling less than happy. I started to worry. The worries spiraled. And for three weeks I was trapped in my own mind again.
Actually, depression can be exacerbated by things being all right externally, because the gulf between what you are feeling and what you are expected to feel becomes larger.
I began to be not entirely sure I was there at all, and I felt floaty. This was it. A relapse. Weeks, maybe months, of depression awaited me.
The other big thing is that, unfortunately, depression spells come in phases. They exist to a degree every day – I go to bed almost daily hoping to not wake up and motherfuck the world when it’s 5 am the next day and I’m up to get ready for work. But the days of “can’t get out of bed”, “can’t stop crying”, “I wanna die”, “where’s the rope”, etc., rarely announce themselves – and are 15,000 times harder to handle. After struggling for almost 2 decades, I’ve picked up on patterns where I can almost predict when the downward spiral begins. There’s certain months that are harder, some events, or a trigger comes along I wasn’t expecting. It sucks because as many “skills” I have in my pocket to help myself through it, it never gets any easier. And I start to not only feel miserable, but I feel guilty. I wonder why, after so long, have I not learned how to master masking it better so that I can go about my day. I blame myself for not being strong enough. I tell myself I’m not doing enough. The self sabotage goes on and on.
People say “take it one day at a time.” But, I used to think to myself, that is all right for them to say. Days were mountains. A week was a trek across the Himalayas.