When Depression Helps you Set up Camp and Stay There

I wrote about my depression a few weeks ago.  Many people were hugely supportive, and all those kind words helped.

I am not all better. I still haven't seen a Doctor, and it's really just a self-defeatist attitude, and a almost Freudian forgetfulness that makes it that much easier to procrastinate. Thing is, I'm not miserable all the time.  I'm not unhappy all the time.

I had an amazing birthday. I was already having a good day,  then so many friends sent me birthday wishes through twitter and Facebook that it made the day that much more wonderful. I was really surprised, and grateful, that so many people stopped long enough to type a few words. the whole week went by in a blur.
I am lucky to have friends, who at the very least, are there to tweet and text almost any time of day. I'm lucky to have a fantastic family, a husband who is incredibly perfect for me. A beautiful daughter who is very well behaved, despite inheriting her mother's tendency toward weirdness. I have tons of extended family there to talk, to help, to support me.
I am so very fortunate to have all of these things.

Yet it doesn't fix my brain. It doesn't keep the depression from creeping in and making me unhappy in spite of all the things I am grateful for. Sometimes the very nature of depression makes it easier to be angry with myself, because I should be enjoying my life. I should be happy with what I have, and I shouldn't waste so much time on mindless pursuits that I'm only doing to stave off the weariness.

I compared depression to being lost in the swamps. The thing about being stuck in the mire, is that everytime you fall in the quicksand, nearly drown in the bog, or get mauled by an alligator, you have to retreat. You lose ground, you lose time. Instead of being able to push forward with your life, you feel like you're never making progress.

For me, it starts to become a pattern, the depression creeps up and mires me in place, and after so many tries to do something ambitious, to succeed, and after so much failing, it's easier to not try anything. That's one of the things I hate the most.

If the job is easy, perhaps tackling a load of laundry, or baking a tray of cookies, I'll take it one, and then congratulate myself on the small achievement. Then because I did something, that becomes justification to do nothing else. It'd be different if what I was attempting actually took my out of my comfort zone, or required a real commitment, but I don't do those things when I'm down.

I've set up a camp on a small piece of 'safe' land in the swamp.  I never try anything big. I avoid leaving the house except when I have to.  I avoid offering to help/socialize/interact with people, and I completely avoid tackling any creative project that requires real effort and passion. It becomes a sort of wall, and if I stay within it, then maybe just maybe I won't wind up failing, I won't wind up trying anything that might fail, and so I won't fail myself.

I don't want to drown in the swamp. So rather than trying to swim, I'll just avoid going near the water.
This is the stage of depression, this form of self limiting behavior, that's so easy to get stuck in. Even people who don't think they are depressed, don't think they've ever been depressed get trapped here. You aren't really happy. You aren't miserable, but you aren't enjoying life either.  It creeps in, and you tell yourself all the little lies: that you never really wanted to try for that dream, or that you never really cared for the friends you've lost touch with. You aren't really hurting, you aren't really sad, you're just existing.

Sometimes I wonder how much of my life I wasted just letting life pass me by because the depression and my own insecurity kept me from trying. I wonder how many of those years where I didn't really do all that much are actually a product of me becoming complacent in my own apathy.

Let me make sure I explain. It's okay to have a life where you stay at home, work on your own hobbies and enjoy a quiet life. There is nothing wrong with a peaceful life. What matters is what you feel about your life. Sometimes I feel like I'm failing in some way because I'm NOT a stepford wife. I don't have a clean house and I'm perpetually disorganized and I just don't care if clutter piles up. But having a clean house or a perfect kitchen isn't what makes me happy. If you are legitimately happy and satisfied in your life then you aren't camping in the swamp.

I'm not in the swamp because I want to be here. I'm here because I'm afraid to leave right now. I hate the voice in my head that is constantly shooting down my hopes. I hate the crippling uncertainty that makes me feel convinced that my next attempt at anything meaningful will fail. I hate the fact that life starts to become a meaningless blur. So many days that don't matter, weeks and months that go by without me doing anything outside my very small circle of what makes me ...not happy... but safe. I hate the tired weariness that comes with it. The sleep disruptions, the irritability.
I'm going to get help. I'm going to get out. I don't want to live here anymore.

I just hope that if you read this and see yourself, or if you know someone else who might be helped by this, that you're willing to share it with them. Help them get out. Its so very easy to believe, when your depressed, that you don't really deserve to be happy, and that nothing will get you there.
Just because you got lost in the swamp doesn't mean you should settle in to live there. There is more to life than settling for misery. Please, if you feel the same way, get help. Tell a friend, tell a doctor, call a hotline and if you can't get out of the swamp on your own, your friends can be the rescue team that shows you a way out.

Hang in there. It will get better.
Liz

Memories that drive me

I've thought back recently to moments that helped me know where I was going. Times in my life that tell me this is something I want to be. I've several of them, but one of the most driving points in my life came in one of the hardest times of my childhood. 

When I was in seventh grade I was a tiny quiet little thing, with glasses, braces, and a certain social ineptitude. I was the least popular kid in all my classes, and school was a torment. I might have fared better if someone told me what conformity was, or how to do it, but even without my dorky appearance, every time I opened my mouth to use extremely big descriptive words, I set myself apart from the group all over again.

It was halfway through the school year that my English teacher gave us an assignment, a completely open creative writing project. We were told to write a short story, it could be about anything. It was one of the first times that I could remember being given a chance to simply write, without a dozen addendums and rules to take the joy out of it. We were all to write a short story, about anything we wanted, and the stories would be put into a book as a gift for another teacher.

I was excited. I don’t remember the exact reason I chose my topic, but I decided to write a short story about a man eating bear that stalked a man in his cabin, hoping to eat him too. I thought it came out wonderfully, if I had saved a copy I’d love to read it again, I can hardly remember how it came out. But I do remember writing the climax, the man made a break for freedom, cutting through the woods, finally having to run as the bear bore down upon him… And then the bear got shot by the forest ranger, and the man was saved. (I don’t think it occurred to me to have the bear win. I was twelve, and they tend to send notes home about stories involving graphic death.)

I was so proud of that story. The irony of it is I probably would have turned it in, received my marks, and forgotten that story completely if not for what happened next. I turned in my story, and then the next day, during study hour, the teacher called me to her desk.

“I know what you did.” She stated. (This all sounds so cliché, but I swear those were her exact words.) I blinked in confusion. I don’t remember if I said anything or not, but she went on. I’ve forgotten her exact words, but they went something like this.

“I read your story. It’s very good.” There I smiled, she liked my work. “Except that it’s obviously too good. ‘Slavering’? I don’t know where you stole it from but you aren’t fooling me.”

I was completely baffled, stunned really. She told me I’d be receiving a zero for the assignment and had to take home a note. I may have cried, but I don’t remember. Years later, it does strike me as a certain irony that my English teacher was oblivious to the 900 page hardback historical fiction I had propped on my desk during reading hour. Or the fact that I was completely shunned by my peers for using words like ‘slavering’ in a conversation, but it was the fact that she didn’t that let this story stick in my mind.

I brought the note home to my Mother. I do remember her reaction, she looked at the note and looked at me.

“Why does she think you didn’t write it?”

“She said the words were too big for a seventh grader.”

“Has she met you?”

After that was a phone call, maybe even a teacher conference. My Mother was outraged by the accusation. “She’s scored at a 10^th grade reading level!” The teacher was convinced, my paper was accepted, and it all had a happy ending.

Yet through it all, it wasn’t the final result that stuck with me, or even the words that I wrote, it was that singular moment. That instant where I went from being told my words were good, but that I was unworthy of them. That strange moment of disorientation, when my ability was called into question.

I’ve always had a stubborn streak. This whole incident served to prove to me that I had an ability to write, a potential that I shouldn’t squander. The very words, “this is too good to be written by you” only serve as fuel for my goal. I want to write my stories, and tell them well, so that people will find them fantastic. I want to earn my writers spot, because once upon a time, my words were good enough to convince my teacher that they didn’t come from me.