Welcome to My Depression
What it feels like, so you understand.
My depression means my nerves are prickly and electric, like glowing optical fibers. I feel completely exposed. I prefer wearing a hat and sunglasses if I’m outside in the daylight. Nowadays, I can even wear a mask.
All my depressions have a cinematic quality, a certain texture, a grainy photo filter. Each Depression is memorable, because of my longing to be covered up, wrapped in multiple quilts with cotton balls in my ears. I try to dull my overactive senses, until there’s just muffled movement and heaviness. It takes extreme effort to decipher what’s happening outside my blankets. Peace feels like walking in felt slippers on shag carpet.
I still accomplish things when I’m depressed, despite chronic weariness. I’m afraid what would happen if I didn’t. I wake up, shower, make breakfast, walk the dog. I go through the routine of daily life except with tears running down my face. These tears are “nothing tears.” I’m crying about nothing in particular, but I can’t stop. I feel the weight of these tears — their sensual smoothness as they roll down my face and fall off my chin. I wonder how puffy my eyes look to others. Can they see me crying? Or do they ignore me? (Please ignore me.)
The Depression is a warm, sandy sinkhole. It feels comforting as I start slipping under. There comes that familiar feeling that things can’t get worse now. It’s as bad as it can be. Oddly, this gives me hope. Because I know that the bad feelings eventually fade away just like the good ones.
The Depression means I try new things like cross stitch and playing the ukulele, but don’t stick to any of them. It means I drink more hot tea. But, mostly, I just watch TV for hours.
The Depression means I feel like a burden, especially to people who aren’t depressed. I start to feel like my friends can’t help me anymore. They don’t want to. They are tired of me. They don’t understand why I’m still so sad. Everyone seems to think that I am choosing this.
I remember my first depression. I was a senior in high school. My parents had separated the year before. That was both crushing but not surprising. Most of my closest girlfriends had already found boyfriends. I had not. I never had a boyfriend in high school. Back then, I made sure to only fall in love with boys who would never love me back. Not sure how different it is now. But, that might be The Depression talking….
The Depression, however, is mostly silent. The Depression can say it all with one look. The Depression is old and decrepit — much older than me. The Depression hobbles around in leg braces and is hard of hearing. The Depression has cataracts and bumps into things. Everyone rushes away when The Depression approaches, lost, asking for directions.
My teenage depression began as an excruciating loneliness–an ache that never left. I white-knuckled my way through varsity tennis and the school musical, But, the minute I returned home to my room, the wrenching sobs began. The tears seemed endless, but eventually I cried myself to sleep. I would awake the next day in a numbed out haze, but well rehearsed in my interactions with the world. Did anyone suspect? I don’t think so. I was proud of that — the hiding in plain sight. I remember thinking that everyone must be feeling this type of pain all the time but just didn’t talk about it. Everyone was doing a better job at handling life than me.
My second big depression was sophomore year of college after I had to transfer to Indiana University from Sarah Lawrence, when I was 19. This depression was similar to the first. There was endless crying and feelings of overwhelm. When I felt especially bad at night, I would walk to the Herman B Wells Library, take the elevator up to a random floor of the windowless stacks, and then wander the bookshelves alone, aimlessly stopping to pick up titles that spoke to me. This is how I found a book of Mozart’s letters which he often signed “A thousand kisses upon your hand” and a book of stories by the Russian absurdist writer, Danill Kharms, who very clearly understood the sadness and futility of daily life.
One day, a man went to work, and on the way he met another man, who, having bought a loaf of Polish bread, was heading back home where he came from.
And that’s it, more or less.
— The Meeting, Danill Kharms
These frayed hardcovers, with their musty scent, soothed me, as I sank down onto the cool linoleum floor, basking in the comforting sound of the humming HVAC system. I turned pages until I felt like I had caught my breath. Then, I would walk back home, thinking about Danill Kharms — how he died of starvation in the psychiatric ward of the notorious Kresty Prison during the Siege of Leningrad.
He was not crazy. He was likely depressed.
