I haven’t been writing for a while, probably the longest
stretch of non-writing I’ve had in the last few years.
I just haven’t been able to; just the simple
act of putting pen to paper or hands on the keyboard proved too much.
Lent usually is a time when the words come
pouring out of me – but that’s not the case this year.
This year
Lent seems to be what, hopefully, is the tail end of a depressive episode
unlike any other I’ve had in decades and damn close to being one of the
worst.
My biggest problem with depression
is that I have it at all, that I have that label and it’s written in my medical
history over and over again with a list of medications stopped and started to
try to manage the symptoms because there seems to be no cure.
No amount of optimism, faith, trust, love,
hope, sunshine, or happy circumstances can crack the darkness of depression –
that is, until it does.
I know I must sound like a broken record on this blog. I
sometimes go back to see what I've written in the past few years and I’m sad to
say that my topics don’t branch out all that much. I’ve been here before on this blog and in my
life. As much as I try to deny the
diagnosis and inevitable accompanying symptoms, depression haunts me. The symptoms
of depression exist within me on many levels and reveal themselves in varied
ways. Some of them can be managed with
medication, some respond to just the distraction of the daily routine, and
others I can just push away or aside if I’m able to focus on something,
anything good. The sunshine, a glance
from my husband, the dog, the laughter of my girls, the words of the Mass,
the Eucharist, or a great cup of coffee can sometimes offer a temporary reprieve.
This time, however, the symptoms ingratiated
themselves far down in the recesses. I feel this depression physically as though I
have a pile of bricks on my shoulders as I go about my day. I feel my heart beating faster. I can't concentrate. I'm forgetful. It feels like I’m choking but nobody notices
as the lump in my throat never subsides and the tears fall profusely
against my will. I have learned over the
years how to successfully hide the symptoms of depression and have gotten good
at functioning in spite of what I’m feeling and what is stirring about in my
mind. The suicidal thoughts and grand
schemes remain and it takes an exhaustive effort sometimes to not pay attention
to them.
Adding to all of this was an allergic reaction to a medicine
that I was taking for about a year. It
seemed to just stop working one day and I had horrible itching and hives and
slight fever. I had to immediately stop
taking it – which is never a good idea with any antidepressant. The timing couldn’t be worse for a
medication change over and the subsequent waiting period for the new medication
to start working.
Thank God, the new medication seems to have started working
ever so slightly, just in the last week.
I am starting to feel as though I can breathe again and I’m able to concentrate
a little better which may be debatable by the readers of this particular blog
post. I’m far from 100%, but I’m at
least headed in that direction. I have
to be.
When the veil of depression descends, it touches every part
of one’s life; at least it does for me. Everything
just goes black. I go through my days
like a robot already programmed with the required tasks to accomplish. There’s no joy, there’s no laughter, there’s
no happiness. Everything that’s bad is magnified and the anger becomes angrier.
And when it’s really bad – there’s nothing.
Nothing is the scariest part.
While I’m in the nothingness, my mind starts to rewind back
to every bad thing that’s ever happened to me.
It’s not just the abortion –it’s everything from start to finish. It’s everyone who’s ever hurt me and it’s me
convincing myself that I deserved it. I
start to replay moments in my life over and over again, obsessing over the
details, trying to remember even more clearly what would better be forgotten. The soundtrack of my mind accuses me of any
and everything. Before long I’m walking
around and even sleeping with a thousand thoughts, all of them bad, sucking the
very life out of me. Everything in my
life is then viewed through these gray glasses where any glimmer of goodness is
darkened. Anything that’s remotely good,
my mind convinces me is actually bad.
I am a horrible person. A complete whore. You aren’t fooling
anyone. You’re a joke. God doesn’t even
know who you are. There is no God.
Things that are nuisances most of the time become overwhelming
and paralyzing.
And pretty soon I’ve
descended so far down that even attempting to crawl out seems pointless so I don't even want to try.
Where would I start?
It doesn’t even matter anymore.
I’ll just stay here.
Wouldn’t it just be better if I weren’t here? Wouldn’t it be
better if my husband didn’t have such a screwed up wife? Wouldn’t it
be better if someone else raised my children, someone who they would listen
to? Wouldn’t it be better if I just
ceased to exist somehow? If I just faded
into the background while their lives continued on? Maybe if I just disappeared now, before
things get any worse, then perhaps their memory of me would be better than the
reality.
For weeks I felt in my soul that this was true.
Even when I don’t admit it, even in the blackness, there
remains some small flicker of light which is just enough to make me reach out
for help, to ask for help in any convoluted way, so long as it brings the help
I need and the help I didn't even know I needed.
I’ve found hope in a few places to sustain me the
last few weeks and hopefully will continue until I’m on the other side of this
depressive episode. Apparently, there
is nothing I can do to make my husband not want me and believe me… I’ve tried. I have succeeded in making him not very happy,
but I can’t convince him to leave me. No matter how depressed and miserable and irritable
and mean I can be, he still likes me. No
matter how much I retreat physically and mentally – he’s still here. No matter how many times I remind him of my
past and how I’m damaged goods and I had an abortion – he’s still here. And even in the worst of this depression,
there remains a sacred space and time between a husband and wife where love is
all there is. There are moments where
all of these feelings and depression and memories cease to exist and peace and joy
take their place. He’s chosen to love
me through it, again and again, whether I allow him to or not.
In my darkness and solitude I begin to convince myself that
my children would be better off without me. They don’t love me. They don’t listen
to me. They don’t respect me. But, every so often, a smile comes across
their face that reminds me that I am irreplaceable in their lives no matter
what kind of day we’ve all had. No
matter how long I sit on my bed and convince myself that I don’t even deserve
happy, healthy, beautiful children because I killed the first one, one of them inevitably
busts in the door and reminds me that my love and attention is what they seek
out above all others and there is nowhere else they will find it.They are oblivious to my horrible past and my present despicable behavior doesn't really matter to them either because there are far more pressing issues at hand like nails that need to be painted, snow that needs to be played in, or books that need to be read.
Even in my darkness, I’m reminded that no matter how much I
yell at God and pout and lament every bad thing that has happened in my life,
there is good that remains.
No matter
how much I try to ignore Him and shove my Bible and all my spiritual reading
stacked on my nightstand into the drawer in a juvenile attempt to tell him to
@#$@ off, He remains… waiting.
And when
I go to find him, He’s there.
When I
come limping back, crushed under the weight of this ridiculous mental state
that has no rhyme or reason that I understand, He’s there… waiting.
Just when I think He actually listened this
time when I shouted in my mind, “what’s the @#$#ing point? I don’t need you,” He
somehow reminds me that I do.
Sometimes
it’s the lyrics of a song, sometimes it’s the beat of my own heart, sometimes
it’s the touch of his hand.
Because of my abortion, because of my past, because of my
depression, because I am a wife, because I am a mother… I need him. And even just because, I am... I need
him. He’s the light that remains.
No matter how hard I try, my emotional state or station doesn’t
predict His existence in me. He’s here regardless. When I’m broken and crawling through the dust
or happy and laughing - there’s no criteria that needs to be met for needing
Him. I used to think that I had to be
perfect before coming to him, perfectly worthy to go to him – lately I’ve been
afraid that if I’m not broken I can’t go to him for I’ll have nothing for Him
to fix. I often think of myself as the
woman about to be stoned, or the woman reaching out to touch the hem of His
garment – but I never really think past it and what happens to the woman after
she gets up and goes on her way? She
must have had a life after that moment.
What would her life have been like after touching, really touching,
Jesus?
I wonder if He would still take my hand and hold me when I’m
not broken in a myriad of shattered pieces?
Could I ever so slightly began to see myself through His eyes and allow
love to grow within and He would still be there for me for any reason… or none
at all? Does He only pay attention when
I’m at my wit’s end and my life is in shambles? Is He still paying attention when I’m content
in the love of my family? Does He only
listen when I pray out of desperation or does He ever listen when my ramblings put a smile on his face?
Would my husband? Would my children? Would Grace – whom I
came to know only after I was so broken that I had no choice but to face
her?
In all of my depression and self-pity and self-destruction I
think about how no one could possibly love me, or even like me. And there He is, in the middle of it all,
showing me that unconditional love exists in the very air I breathe every
day.
I pray that as I take each step out of this episode of
darkness – that He’s there in the sunlight.
