Explaining My Depression to My Mother

“Explaining My Depression to My Mother”
~ Sabrina Benaim

mom,
my depression is a shape shifter.
one day it is as small as a firefly in the palm of a bear,
the next it’s the bear.
on those days i play dead until the bear leaves me alone.
i call the bad days the dark days.

mom says: try lighting candles.
when i see a candle
i see the flesh of a church,
the flicker of a flame
sparks of a memory younger than noon;
i am standing beside her open casket,
it is the moment i learn
every person i ever come to know will someday die.
besides, mom, i’m not afraid of the dark.
perhaps that’s part of the problem.

mom says: i thought the problem was that you can’t get out of bed.
i can’t.
anxiety holds me a hostage inside of my house, inside of my head.

mom says: where did anxiety come from?
anxiety is the cousin visiting from out of town
depression felt obligated to bring to the party.
mom, i am the party.
only i am a party I don’t want to be at.

mom says: why don’t you try going to actual parties. see your friends.
sure, i make plans.
i make plans, but I don’t wanna go.
i make plans because i know i should want to go.
i know sometimes i would have wanted to go.
it’s just not that much fun having fun when you don’t wanna have fun, mom.
you see, mom,
each night, insomnia sweeps me up in it’s arms,
dips me in the kitchen in the small glow of the stove light.
insomnia has this romantic way of making the moon feel like perfect company.

mom says: try counting sheep.
but my mind can only count reasons to stay awake.
so I go for walks
but my stuttering kneecaps clank
like silver spoons held in strong arms with loose wrists,
they ring in my ears like clumsy church bells, reminding me
i am sleepwalking on an ocean of happiness i cannot baptize myself in.

mom says: happy is a decision.
my happy is a high fever that will break.
my happy is as hollow as a pin-pricked egg.

mom says i am so good at making something out of nothing
and then flat out asks me if I am afraid of dying.
no,
i am afraid of living.
mom,
i am lonely.
i think i learnt it when dad left;
how to turn the anger into lonely,
the lonely into busy.
so when i tell you i’ve been super busy lately,
i mean i’ve been falling asleep
watching sportscentre on the couch
to avoid confronting the empty side of my bed.
but my depression always drags me back to my bed,
until my bones are the forgotten fossils of a skeleton sunken city,
my mouth a bone yard of teeth broken from biting down on themselves.
the hollow auditorium of my chest swoons with echoes of a heartbeat,
but i am a careless tourist here;
i will never truly know everywhere i have been

mom still doesn't understand.
mom,
can’t you see?
neither do i.

RIP Mr. Williams

Arguably the best stand-up, improv, comedian in the last 30 years suffered from depression and when suicide was the only option he saw, the world lost a very funny man.

Robin Williams had money, so the cost of counselling or medication was not an obstacle. We may never know (nor does anyone need to know) the final straw that broke this man to the point of seeing only one door left to open, but it may have been something that anybody else may have shrugged off as being minor.

Regardless of notoriety, this goes to show how people can appear happy, funny, and even joking on the outside, while simultaneously being torn apart by inner demons.

Be kind to your friends and family – you never know what is going on behind laughing eyes.

R.I.P. Mr. Williams.

Closets

I think we all have closets we need to come out of.

Your closet maybe telling someone you love her or him for the first time or telling someone that you're pregnant or telling someone that you have cancer or any of the other hard conversations that we have throughout our lives. All a closet is, is a hard conversation. And although our topics may vary tremendously, the experience of being in and coming out of the closet is universal. It is scary and we hate it and it needs to be done.

So like many of us I've lived in a few closets in my life and inside, in the dark you can't tell what color the walls are, you just know what it feels like to live in a closet. So really, my closet is no harder than yours but here's the thing, hard is not relative, hard is hard.
Who can tell me that explaining to someone that you just declared bankruptcy is harder than telling someone that you just cheated on them. Who can tell me that admitting to having a mental wellness issue like depression or anxiety is harder than telling your five year old that you're getting a divorce.

There is no harder, there is just hard. We need to stop ranking our hard against everyone else's hard, to make us feel better or worse about our closets and just commiserate on the fact that we all have hard.

At some point in our lives, we all live in closets and they make us feel safe, or at least safer than what lies on the other side of that door. But I am here to tell you, no matter what your walls are made of, a closet is no place for a person to live, even though my closet door is still shut, locked, with rusty hinges.

So why is coming out of any closet, why is having that conversation, why is it so hard? Because they're stressful, we're so concerned about the reaction of the other person and understandably. Will they be angry? Sad? Disappointed? Will we lose a friend? A parent? A spouse? These kinds of conversations cause of stress.
Stress is a natural reaction in your body, when you encounter a perceived threat. Keyword, perceive. Your hypothalamus sounds the alarm and adrenalin and cortisol start coursing through your veins. This is known as Fight or Flight. Sometimes you rumble, sometimes you run. And this is a totally normal reaction. And comes from a time when that threat was being chased by a woolly mammoth.

The problem is your hypothalamus has no idea whether you're being chased by a woolly mammoth or if your computer just crashed or if your in-laws just showed up on your doorstep or if you're about to jump out of a place or you need to tell someone you love that you have depression. The difference is the woolly mammoth chases you for what, maybe ten minutes? Not having those hard conversations that can go on for years and your body just can't handle that. Chronic exposure to adrenaline and cortisol, disrupt almost every system in your body, which can lead to deeper anxiety, deeper depression, and heart disease, just to name a few.

When you do not have hard conversations, when you keep the truth about yourself a secret, you're essentially holding a grenade. Me, I am frozen by fear, curled up in the corner of my pitch-black closet, clutching my depression grenade, and moving one muscle is the scariest thing I have ever considered, and I have a choice in that moment, as all grenade throwers do. I could go back to my closet and talk the talk, and refuse to walk the walk – because it is too scary, or I could try to talk to somebody other than my doctor – a co-worker or even start a blog. What else can you ask someone to do but try? If you're going to be real with someone, you got to be ready to be real in return. So hard conversations are still not my strong suit, but I'm getting better and I know WHAT I have to do WHEN I decide to do it.

Number one, be authentic. I have to take the armor off, be myself, I don’t always be ready for battle. Stupid hypothalamus.

Number two, be direct, just say it, rip the Band-Aid off. Since I know that I am depressed, I just need to say it. If I tell my spouse, friends, family that I might have a mental wellness issue, they may not understand the nuances of “mental wellness issue”, but they WILL understand DEPRESSION.

Number three, and most important, be unapologetic. I need to speak my truth, without apology

Some folks may have gotten hurt along the way by my behavious, so I will sure apologize for what I've done. But I will never apologize for who I am. Some folks maybe scared, angry or disappointed but that is on them. Not on me. Those are their expectations of who I am, not mine. That is their story, not mine. The only story that matters is the one that I want to write.

The next time that you find yourself in a pitch black closet, clutching your grenade, know we have all been there before. Some of us are still there. You may feel so very alone but you are not. We know it’s hard but we need you out here, no matter what you're walls are made of. Because I guarantee you, that there are others peering through the keyhole of their closet, looking for the next brave soul to bust a door open so be that person.

And show the world that we are bigger than our closets. And that a closet is no place for a person to truly live.

When I bust out of my closet, holding my depression grenade – I will let you know.

Sadness, grief, and depression

Don’t tell me to cheer up and think that everything is going to be OK.

Depression is not sadness, although it can be a sad thing, but please do not confuse the two. Sadness is a very temporary issue that can be overcome next time your endorphin levels are at a slightly higher which can be achieved as easily as having a piece of chocolate.

If you are sad, talking about your sadness issues can be resolved talking to an empathetic  friends over a coffee, a bowl of iced cream,  or while walking in the park. The sadness goes away, and you can move on to the next crisis.

Grief is a form of sadness that is associated with a loss – loss due to death of someone or something to which you are emotionally attached (family, friend, pet, relationship, etc.). This too shall pass, and going through the grieving process is longer than being sad, and grief normally gives way to the sporadic sadness when you miss the emotional attachment, and again can be overcome relatively quickly.

Depression is having your mind set on being REALLY sad, and not being able to shake the feeling for weeks, months, or even years.

Depression can cause a crying jag for little apparent reason, so delicate is the balance of emotions between being just REALLY sad and devastated. 

Depression can make you forget how to smile.

Depression means reading the daily Obituaries, and being jealous of the people that died, because they are no longer in pain. Hearing that somebody died by their own hand gives you pause to rejoice because it gives you hope that one day you be strong enough to do the same. Hearing that somebody attempted, but did NOT die by their own hand, gives you reason to morn because the depressed person was interrupted by somebody who did not understand what was going on.

Don’t offer to help me through my depression by talking it out; talking helps a little, but it can take weeks, months, even years, talking an hour or two each and every week, so if you are not in it for the long haul, don’t even start.

WARNING: GRAPHIC CONTENT

Whether it is the condition itself or the medication used to combat the condition, depression has an adverse effect on libido. The compounding problem is you just don’t care whether you have sex or not,and very often, you ONLY have sex so that your partner will will be sexually satisfied for another period of time.

For women it can be a little easier to fake satisfaction so that their partner is unaware that there is anything wrong with her drive for desire, but for men, if you are not interested, it is physically obvious. The inability to attain and maintain an erection further drives a wedge between partners and it is seen as a lack of affection, lack of love, lack of attention, or that satisfaction is being expressed outside the relationship, all of which can drive a wedge in any remaining positive aspects to the rest of the relationship.

Sexual side-effects are common with antidepressants, such as loss of sexual drive, failure to reach orgasm, and erectile dysfunction. Although usually reversible, these sexual side-effects can, in rare cases, last for months or years after the drug has been completely withdrawn.

Sildenafil (Viagra or Revatio), vardenafil (Levitra or Staxyn) and tadalafil (Cialis) are all medications that reverse erectile dysfunction by increasing nitric oxide, a chemical naturally produced by your body. Nitric oxide opens and relaxes blood vessels in the penis, helping you get and keep an erection. These erectile dysfunction medications don't increase your sex drive and only cause erections when you are sexually stimulated, therefore if the drive is non-existent, the medication will not help. The aggravating factor is these medications are not covered by medical/health insurance plans, so at $15/pill – sold in boxes of four - it can get expensive to have sex. If you cannot afford it, then you are back to square one.

So do you continue taking the antidepressants so that plans for suicide are abated, and take more pills so you can satisfy your partner (if they work at all), or forgo the antidepressants so that your sexual life will only be affected by the overwhelming feeling that you are not worth having sex in the first place?

These are  personal options and decisions that have to be made with your primary physician.

Durkheim

A long dead, bearded sociologist (Emile Durkheim) once wrote on the subject of Suicide as a social phenomena (Suicide: A Study In Sociology, published in 1895). In this book, Durkheim theorizes that the act of suicide is definitely correlated to social integration. He believes suicide can be linked to the degree to which individuals form an attachment with others and/or society, and he believed it was related to the degree of guidance or regulation the individual experiences from others and/or society). 

Durkheim was a 19th Century Sociological theorist with peers who included other idealistic theorists such as Fredrik Engles, and Karl Marx, who saw suicide as a sociological anomaly, as opposed to a realistic and acceptable means of relieving insurmountable stress experienced by people who see little or no alternatives.

There has been much written about the subject by the living, especially by those who have been some “do-gooder” who feels it is their duty to ensure that the person continue to suffer the stresses of life rather than allow them to end their personal perception of purgatory. Few words have been written about those who have failed to find the courage to complete the task they set out to achieve, as they are branded as ‘depressed’ , ‘mentally unstable’, and other such labels as would make one a social pariah, unworthy of reasonable comment.

Those who think that suicide is a cowardly act have never attempted to kill themselves. They have no idea of the amount of courage it takes to slit one’s own wrists, to tie an effective noose, or to ensure sufficient quantities of pharmaceuticals are available to move forward with one’s own destiny. 
Moreover the intricate planning involved take more than a few minutes of indiscriminate thought. Location is everything – do you want children (especially your own) to find the body – if not where could one complete the final act without witnesses, without the chance of revival, and without the chance that a child might find your remains. For many this is of little consequence, for others with a social conscience, it may mean much. To be remembered as somebody who made the ultimate decision to take control over ones own life/death is one thing – to hang one’s self in a school yard is something else altogether.

In the movie M.A.S.H. (and subsequent TV series) the theme song is called “Suicide is Painless” – mocking the attempted suicide of the “Painless” dentist in the medical unit. Suicide may not be painless, but completed correctly, the pain is momentary at best, certainly less painful than suffering though years of mental abuse and anguish, making suicide a viable option for many – not a sociological phenomena, but a final necessity.

BEST. GRAPHIC. EVER.

Too Stupid To Live

Darwin accounted for the demise of specific species based on their adaptability to their environment. Where the environment would allow, species will not only survive, but thrive, thereby accounting for the varieties of flora, fauna and livestock on the Galapagos Islands where few if any predators were to be found.

Homo sapiens as a classification of animal generally survives where the average temperature and suitable food/water supply will allow, but many individuals still get tangled up in their own feet and manage to drown in puddles that would not slow down a turtle: ergo, intelligence is not a strong indicator of survival.

Human blunders can be as blatant as the mental midgets who go swimming in the ocean in mid-winter, to simple memory lapses that see us putting salt into coffee instead of sugar. Sometimes we don’t even know we have said, or done anything less than intelligent until it is pointed out by a spouse/significant other.

The problems begin when your spouse tells/reminds you on a regular basis that you are “too stupid to live”, and the message starts to sink in that she just might be right. It does not take intelligence to live. The smallest microbe on the planet has such a primitive brain that it is no more than organized ganglia of nerves that allow the organism to feed and reproduce, the very basis for the definition of life.

If a person is, by definition of a spouse, “too stupid to live”, then is there any point in continuing to live? If your chosen lifemate sees so little value in your existence, that you could be replaced by an income producing microbe, then what keeps you from joining your ancestors?

Apparently, the slim hope that she just might be wrong - but that slim hope is getting slimmer on a daily basis.

Eeyore Syndrome

I felt a funeral in my brain, and mourners to and fro kept treading, treading till I felt that sense was breaking through. And when they all were seated, a service, like a drum, kept beating, beating, till I felt my mind was going numb. And then I heard them lift a box and creak across my soul with those same boots of lead again, then space began to toll, as if the heavens were a bell and being were an ear, and I, and silence, some strange race wrecked, solitary, here. Just then, a plank in reason broke, and I fell down and down and hit a world at every plunge, and finished knowing then.

~ Emily Dickinson

It's a strange poverty of the English language, and indeed of many other languages, that we use this same word, depression, to describe how a kid feels when it rains on his birthday, and to describe how somebody feels the minute before they commit suicide.

There are three things people tend to confuse: depression, grief and sadness.
Grief is explicitly reactive. If you have a loss and you feel incredibly unhappy, and then, six months later, you are still deeply sad, but you're functioning a little better, it's probably grief, and it will probably ultimately resolve itself in some measure. If you experience a catastrophic loss, and you feel terrible, and six months later you can barely function at all, then it's probably a depression that was triggered by the catastrophic circumstances.

People think of depression as being just sadness. It's much, much too much sadness, much too much grief at far too slight a cause.
In a way depression is continuous with normal sadness. There is a certain amount of continuity, but it's the same way there's continuity between having an iron fence outside your house that gets a little orange dust spot that you have to sand off and do a little repainting, and what happens if you leave the house for 100 years and it rusts through until it's only a pile of orange dust. And it's that orange dust spot, that orange dust problem, that's the one that therapists set out to resolve.

The opposite of depression is not happiness, but vitality. Depression is demonstrated in Eeyore's Syndrome - the "Oh, well I guess we need rain too..." flat-line, monotone, lack of expression, lack of vitality, way of  thinking about yourself and the world around you. It gets down to the point you just don't care - about anything; what (or if) to eat, which team wins, whether or not you have friends, and whether or not you live. It just doesn't matter. Period.

When you are depressed, you don't see that you've put on a gray veil and are seeing the world through the haze of a bad mood. You think that the veil has been taken away, the veil of happiness, and that now you're seeing truth. It's easier to help schizophrenics who perceive that there's something foreign inside of them that needs to be exorcised, but it's difficult with depressives, because we believe we are seeing the truth.

But the truth lies.

People will say, "No one loves me." And you say, "I love you, your wife loves you, your mother loves you." You can answer that one pretty readily, at least for most people. But people who are depressed will also say, "No matter what we do, we're all just going to die in the end." A lot of the time, what they are expressing is not illness, but insight, and one comes to think what's really extraordinary is that most of us know about those existential questions and they don't distract us very much.
Depression is so exhausting. It takes up so much of your time and energy, and silence about it, it really does make the depression worse, but the silence is necessary to avoid the stigma surrounding depression.

In Rwanda, East Africa,they have some rituals that rely upon working towards vitality,but they had a lot of trouble with Western mental health workers, especially the ones who came right after the genocide.
As described by a natural healer...

Well, they would do this bizarre thing. They didn't take people out in the sunshine where you begin to feel better. They didn't include drumming or music to get people's blood going. They didn't involve the whole community. They didn't externalize the depression as an invasive spirit. Instead what they did was they took people one at a time into dingy little rooms and had them talk for an hour about bad things that had happened to them.We had to ask them to leave the country.

Depression is broadly perceived to be a modern, Western, middle-class thing, but it is a human condition that has probably been around since "Lucy" although known by many different names and shown in countless ways and means in every country and culture in the planet.

Depression sucks.

Black Dog

When others seem to be enjoying life, the black dog stands in the way for a lot of people.

The Black Dog is an equal opportunity mongrel. It was Winston Churchill who popularized the phrase Black Dog to describe the bouts of depression he experienced for much of his life. 

Winston Churchill popularised the phrase 'the Black Dog', although it had been round for many years before. In a way a black dog, hunting by moonless night in a blackened wood is quite possibly the best metaphor for depression. 

It hunts silently, stealthily, approaching its victim unseen and unnoticed until it's too late. No one is immune from it - actors, politicians, homeless people, emergency personnel, middle class families, children, the strong, the weak, men, women, anyone.

But in between clever euphemism and metaphor and personal experience is the cavernous gulf of ignorance. Even family members who love and care deeply for a person with depression can find themselves without understanding - bewildered by what from the outside seems such a minor thing. 

The gulf in understanding, the lack of support from people who just 'don't understand', can lead to the un-consenting and unwilling owner of a Black Dog to feel isolated and alone and utterly abandoned. 

The Black Dog wants nothing more than to keep family and friends away, to make the owner believe that no one does or even can understand what it's like. 

That no one cares and there is no helping hand. 

And once there in the cold dark lair of the beast it saps the life from it's victim.