Many things are difficult right now.
Oddly, it’s not difficult to write here at the blog. It’s not difficult to write to you.
It’s peculiar to write to you, sometimes. I’ll say that. But I feel you listening, I feel you reading between the lines. I feel your warmth. I appreciate and value it immensely.
*****
The phone, well, you know by now—personally or by reading this blog—the phone is gut-wrenching for me. The phone breaks my heart before I even pick it up. Because someone will have a question. Questions are killers right now.
I make lists of all the questions people have for me. I make lists of all the questions that I have for myself, so if anyone questions my dedication to trying to beat this, I can say, But look! But look! I’m asking! I’m trying!
I try to come up with as many answers as I can for the people I love, for the people who love me. Then I try to guess what the next batch of questions will be. I try to come up with answers for those, too.
My answers are tedious. Rather, they make me feel tedious. I hear myself, and I feel my voice must be unbearable to whomever is on the other end of the line. I gag on my words. Sometimes, to make matters worse, I cry as I struggle to answer, and then I really can’t stand to hear myself aloud.
Yes. Yes. Definitely. Absolutely. Doing that.
Yes, he’s aware. He’s aware too. Yes, she’s aware. So is she. No, I don’t think you need to call her. What?
Well, I guess that’s something the doc and I will discuss. No, I don’t think you need to be there for that. No, tried that one, that had a bad outcome.
Maybe, trying to look into that. The forms are scary and make me cry.
No, I don’t know where the glass is for that door. I know, I know, I know, I’m losing heat.
Yes, the unemployment runs out soon. Today, actually. Funny, right? No, no, of course not. Not funny! Sorry! Yes, I know, I was doing it again. Maybe, I hope so. They told me to call back on Wednesday. Yes, I did my best.
No, I don’t want to be a massage therapist. I never said I wanted to be a massage therapist. I did? Oh. Vet tech? Maybe, yes. Physical therapist, yes. I have to go to school for something fast, so I can get another student loan deferment. Ironic! No, I didn’t say funny. No, I’m not smiling.
What’s changed since I was ‘better’? I don’t remember what ‘better’ feels like. No. I’m not kidding.
No, I’m too responsible for that.
Yes, of course I miss it. I think I miss who I was. I don’t remember her. No, I’m not sure, don’t know when I’ll be sure.
Girls? I think fine, although who can say? Oh, you want me to say? Right! Yes, fine! I got them ready for school, had their lunches made the night before! How about that!
I would like to be well. If I got as far as ‘well’, then I would like to be the carefree, phone-loving friend, relative. I’d like to inch closer to that. It may never be me, the happy-go-lucky phone chatter. I am a scared dog, straining at the end of my leash, ready to bolt. Can we go? Are we through here?
*****
The sense of failure that comes with recurrent mental illness is profound and all-encompassing. I will dare to call it mental illness because that’s one brave thing I can swing. It’s illness, man, like heart disease, diabetes, high blood pressure. It needs daily attention.
Truly, you’d be better off with gonorrhea. Clap—ho ho!—if you’d rather have gonorrhea than mental illness! Yup, trust me, you would. A few antibiotics and an embarrassing email or three, and you’re on your way, clean slate.
But mental illness requires more of you. Depending on your flavor of brain ouchies, you’ll need to dig deep. You will have ups and downs.
But you buy it now, what you didn’t buy in, say, 2005: This is something you must learn to live with.
Worse, this is something you must then teach the people you love how to live with. You must help them understand what it is, and what it is not. You must remind them what is still authentically you, and what is pathology.
Tall order, when you can barely get out of bed, or your toiletries are singing to you in the shower.
Some won’t agree with that assessment, that you’ll be shacking up with mental illness for a lifetime (the optimists). Some will agree with that assessment too vehemently (the pessimists). You don’t really care who agrees anymore—you just want to be as well as you can be, and content.
You don’t care who agrees anymore, and you don’t care who knows anymore.
This, you suppose, is progress.
*****
How did you define ‘contentment’ before? Impossible to say.
You checked three things off your list today. You took a shower last night. You had yogurt for breakfast. You sent the girls to school in clean warm clothes, matching clothes, with brushed hair and brushed teeth. You tried to get someone on the unemployment phone line to extend your benefits, but they told you you had to call back on Wednesday. You freaked a little at that, but stayed upright. You got dressed. You renewed one prescription. You checked the 48 phone messages that were waiting for you. You put the phone on speakerphone. It’s better when the messages are not right in your ear. You listened to the 48 messages, hyperventilating, but you did it. You took notes, then erased them all.
And then you called your doctor. Because You Are Proactive. And it is clear that something needs to be adjusted. Because the slope is getting steeper, daily. Still.
*****
I don’t like to call it ‘depression’, because 1) it’s a crap word, a slug, as William Styron wrote,
and
2) it’s depression, and more.
There are many shades of gray, many tough-looking, bruiser diagnoses all hanging out and smoking on the playground together, arguing over who should get the last word, the last cigarette.
Ultimately, the diagnoses, when there’s a slew of them, don’t matter. They’re all proposals. Like that one? No? Don’t want to marry it? Have you tried this one? Handsome! Creative! Popular! Too popular? Got it. Take away the 2 and add a 1. That one has a nice urgent ring to it! Yes? Perfect! You look wonderful together!
Who cares? All you know is that you’re sliding. Your fingernails are long gone. Your fingertips are bleeding from trying to scrabble up a rocky slope that pitches more steeply all the time. At least, it seems to. It’s hard to know what is real.
Others reassure you that it will not always be like this, but you wonder if they have the right to make such reassurances.
Do they mean well? Absolutely. Do you want to believe them? Absolutely positively. Do you believe them?
No. Not right now.
*****
When you looked around, you used to be baffled by the ratio of upright people to prone, devastated people. Sure, you understood your math was off. You knew the prone, devastated people were hidden behind locked doors, if they could help it.
But still: There seemed to be a LOT of walking, functioning, smiling, grocery-shopping, 401-K-stuffing, married, baby-having, employed, vacation-planning people in the world, compared to, you know, YOU.
It’s still hard to shake.
Self-loathing creeps in and sets up a bitter lemonade stand. You can laugh it off in public, you can smile at the worn-looking checkout lady, but you cry when you climb inside the empty car and lock the door.
You can’t get it RIGHT. What the hell?!? What happened to the A+ grades, the glowing reviews, all that promise? Apparently, you had dreams once?
They always meant well, telling you that you were ‘special,’ a word you detest almost as much now as the word ‘depression.’ So when did you become a different kind of ‘special’? When did you become the person who drones on and on about sadness and meds and doctors? Even with the help of docs and medicine and exercise and two baby girls you love with your whole heart and then some, you still can’t get it RIGHT.
Why the f**k can’t you just get it RIGHT already?
You’re thinking it, and you’re sure somebody out there is thinking it, too. Alack. Catch and release. Nothing to be done.
You are trying. You are TRYING SO EFFING HARD, and still, when the sun comes up each day, you think, God, no WAY. You have got to be kidding, Lord Almighty. The human lifespan is too long, and it’s all your fault.
Why aren’t you BETTER? After all, you went to the hospital! You went to THAT place, the place that sounds to your ear like a sports stadium or a fabulous botanical garden where perfectly tasteful weddings are held.
It was neither, of course.
*****
You were allowed as much ice cream and peanut butter as you wanted there. The sweet, very sad girl with IV bandages and a gray sweatshirt showed you how to mix the two for a little gourmet fun. The Saturday-evening psych nurse made his famous homemade pizza for Movie Night, which you appreciated (although you weren’t allowed near the hot stove, because that’s how it is, precautions, precautions). You were glad they didn’t go with Benny & Joon as planned, and opted for Get Smart instead.
Can’t make this stuff up.
You watched Comedy Central behind the locked windows with an angry, suicidal young man with broken blue eyes who was shocked that you were laughing at the redneck comedians’ filthy jokes. A chick.
Later, the same young man insisted you sit down and play Gin Rummy with the suicidal posse. When you said you didn’t know how to play Gin Rummy, he said, Are you freakin’ kidding me? It’s so easy, even a bipolar retard could play it.
You pulled up a chair. I guess that’s my game, then, you said.
Oh, snap! They’re a tough crowd, but get a laugh out of the suicidal posse once, and you’ve got friends.
Later that night, the broken-eyed angry boy made a noose out of socks. You had wandered out of your room, sleepless, around the time of the discovery.
I’m in trouble, he whispered gruffly to you.
While the nurses prepared an observation room for the night for him, you asked him to set up Solitaire for you. You can never get the piles right. He shook his head affectionately. You moron.
Then you asked him to write you a poem, to take his mind off things. He did, apologizing for his terrible handwriting, which turned out to be beautiful, looping cursive—Victorian, almost. He then allowed himself to be led away, a fierce, sad sheep.
You still have the poem. A perfect circle of thought.
The other day, you saw him on the street, walking with a girl. He is upright. You hope he stays upright. But now you know beyond a shadow of a doubt that it is possible to be upright and devastated, at the same time. He knows, and you know.
And maybe you know, too.
{ 75 comments… read them below or add one }
True.
Oh my dear Jenn. If words could heal, could only heal … I salute your courage and I stand by your side. There’s no shame on leaning on a stronger branch. I just ask that you persevere and believe that things will get better. Love, Mom
Oh my goodness, your last section brought an unexpected smile to my face. The memories I can still remember from my days in various hospital stays are some of my most cherished in a way: everyone there is in roughly the same part of a strange journey, and the interactions are so pure as a result.
Honestly, I don’t know how you are able to create such beauty during an episode. That is such an amazing talent.
On a stupid, embarrassing tangent, I gave you an award on my blog. I didn’t want to mention it at all, but you keep proving me right with each post you do.
Jenn, we are all a little broken. And brokenness is not something that ever really goes away. The cracks will remain. The veneer will be scuffed. But in time, even though we carry the scars of our brokenness like some sorry badge, we do carry on. We do stand upright and walk on. A little stronger. A little wiser. A little more real than we ever were before. Time heals. It doesn’t cure. IT heals. If you let it.
For now: just breathe with me.
My instinct was to send up a quick prayer for you after reading your post and not comment, b/c I don’t know what to say. Still don’t, but I thought you might rather see that I care enough to leave a comment, ANY comment, than say nothing.
Thanks for sharing this piece of yourself.
I wish I wish I wish I could write like you, and make others understand what it’s like being inside my head, all the time. My husband affectionately calls me “crazy”, I love him to death, but he actually thinks that funny. I don’t know, maybe it is. Maybe it’s better to laugh at the lowest times.
In Japan they have laughing clubs where you go and just laugh in a big circle. Because laughing is infectious, they say it relieves stress.
Well, laughing has never been my problem…
clap, clap, clap, clap for STD’s!!!!! I’m with you sister. At least STD’s you get for a FUN (usually) mistake.
Sometimes, if I didn’t have people’s lives depending on whether or not I got out of bed, I wouldn’t some days.
I could write a YES! YES! comment to almost all of this post, but I won’t. I’m hear listening, caring, NOT judging, and routing for some relief for you.
I’ve been there… and your writing expresses beautifully EXACTLY how I felt but could not put in words.
I know the warm thoughts we send your way cannot heal… but I hope they provide you even the smallest glimmer of warmth. And hope.
Thank you for putting into words what I cannot. I admire you at levels that would embarrass you.
If there was the option of chemo and radiation to rid my body of this, with a guarantee of at least an improvement, I would do it. Without hesitation.
Jenn, this is so achingly beautiful. We are here by your side to support you. I hope it gets better soon.
*hugs*
i’m afraid every day that i might go back there. it scared me to be there. i’ll hold your hand in the dark.
Jenn, you don’t know me but I have been to that place where all things are colored shades of gray. I too looked at those around me and wondered why they could not see the millions of cracks in the facade I tried so hard to keep up. I too thought of that other me. The one before…the one who effortlessly carried on everyday life. You are in a dark place, yes. But you still see the light. i know you do because you crossed those three things off your list and you ate yogurt for breakfast and took a shower. You took good care of your girls. That’s how I know. Keep going! Keep putting one foot in front of the other. That’s the way out. One hard step at a time. It’s how we all make it out….you know what? You ARE doing it right.
So true. I’ve been in the dark place from time to time since my daughter was born in 2004. Hold on, hang on. You are a beautiful gift to the world. For whatever it is worth, what helps me come back from the edge (in addition to the professionals and the meds) are accupuncture from a very good practitioner and kundalini yoga. I pass this info along not to add more “to do’s” or create pressure, but to share what helps a for me should you have the energy to explore at some point.
Love and light to you.
a longtime lurker, I emerge from behind the listening door to bring you the above from john o’donohue … sorry, don’t know how to hyperlink things but the effort to get there will (i hope) be worth it.
blessings as you coil and trudge
link didn’t show up!?
http://speakingoffaith.publicradio.org/programs/john_odonahue/ss_beannacht/ss-beannacht.shtml#slideshow
Halfway through reading this, I came up with a good metaphor, which I was going to helpfully present. By the time I finished reading, I’d forgotten the metaphor. I think that is probably for the best.
There are not as many upright people as you think. Some of us are faking it. When you can’t see us we are lying down. The good news is, today I’m upright which means that day can come for you too.
THANK YOU so much for writing this. For posting it. You are helping so many people, right now…you are helping.
My daughter is mentally ill, MDD, PTSD, maybe DID…many people think it is made up. You are helping to show it is not in ways I don’t think I’ve been able to.
Profound thanks.
Please keep going through the motions. Even though they seem meaningless, they are helping you to hold it together, for all of you. I am glad that you are among us, even if at times you are not.
Wow. I’ve been reading your blog for a while now because you have to be the most amazing writer I’ve ever read. And I’ve never commented before. But I need to now.
This is a dark period in your life. One that will pass. And I don’t have any words to help you through. But I have to pass along to you what an amazing, talented person you are. Your words are beautiful and strong and piercing. Keep writing. Keep holding on.
I wish you a better tomorrow.
I’ve never commented before, but felt I had to. You are absolutely right–we *are* here, reading between the lines, listening and laughing, crying and hoping. Hoping for you, for me, for all of us out there who know about darkness, about bleakness, about fear and grim reality that can’t be pushed away.
Even in your darkness, you’re a shining star. Thank you for writing, thank you for sharing.
Megan
My heart is pounding in my chest for you. Keep going.
>>You can’t get it RIGHT. What the hell?!? What happened to the A+ grades, the glowing reviews, all that promise?
Your courage is astounding, as is your writing. You are in my prayers.
Yes, I know. I know. I’m glad to know there are so many other “fakers” out there. Sometimes I hold things together just fine and other times I fear I will be “found out” for who I really am – mostly I try not to let the crazy out, except around my husband (lucky him). I wish I had a circle of women as safe as this one to be me – the good, the bad, and the ugly. I don’t trust easily and am quick to protect myself and not let you in – that way I can’t be hurt, not too much anyway. And too, it takes such work to really get to that safe place with another person and I have burned my share of bridges in the past as a result of real or perceived hurts. These BEAW readersfeel like an awfully nice community to be part of.
The upright? Almost all of them are kind of crooked.
I wish I could say something to make this better for you but I know it is a solo journey. But you’re not alone, Jenn. Please *know* you are not alone.
As always I’m sending peace, light, hope and a pot of soup if I was closer…xoxo
Oh Jenn, dear Jenn. Aching and wishing for better days. For us all.
I think you are The Awesome.
Something that came to me while reading this:
Let’s say there is an earthquake somewhere earthquakey. California, let’s say. Lots of people fall down.
Here in Ohio, we don’t have an earthquake today. I don’t fall down. Today.
That doesn’t make me more stable than the people in California, who fell.
For me, at least, my brain fits (aka “bouts with mental illness” are as unpredictable as the earth suddenly pitching beneath me. It just happens and, wow, over I go, with no idea which end is up. Then I struggle struggle struggle, but the earth rights itself. It’s not something I am able to fix.
So, I guess I take some comfort in that. I don’t make it happen. I also can’t fix it — I can understand it so I am less afraid, but it’s beyond my control to stop the undulating earth.
My last major quake was in 2000. Last aftershock was in January 2001. I’ve had little tremors since then, but mostly the ground has been steady, like it should be. I am upright!
Jenn, you are great.
Big hugs to you! Be kind to yourself while you learn how to be upright again…
Oh, Jenn.
We’re here. You are present in the thoughts and prayers and good wishes of the unseen assembly.
I’ve been there, in that dark and fearful place. It did get better. Is it always better? No. But the dark is less, is shorter, the hole easier to climb out of.
“Be kinder than necessary, everyone is fighting some kind of battle” –it’s my motto, my guiding principle. To remember that not everyone who is upright is whole and unbroken. Hang on, Jenn. Hang on.
For what it’s worth, I hate talking on the phone too.
And, you showed such great compassion to the suicidal man—you could be one reason he was walking upright again.
Wish I had more to give you than these words. Just know that they are filled with great hope that better days are ahead.
I do know. Too well, mama.
Another chiming in with gratitude. We are in the same boat, you and me. Some days the only thing that keeps me from lying down in a total bed of despair are your entries.
Keep writing.
Thanks for writing here. I feel very privileged to get a look inside your mind now and then.
I hate the “special” and “amazing” labels that we got as kids, too. They were nice then, but they suck now when there’s no way we can live up to that expectation – there’s nowhere to go up from that. Margot Tenenbaum is my idol as a rebel against all that, when her dad says, “You used to be a genius,” she replies “No, I didn’t.” The education experts say that teachers should give precise praise to children, rather than a blanket gush, “You’re so brilliant!”
Anyway, I think it’s cool that you took a shower and ate yogurt and checked yourself in for a break. Also, I went to the Mater’s blog and saw Hannah’s newly decorated room and I would have sworn that the people from the House Makeover show had been there – way to match the butterfly rug and the butterfly canopy! Also, I agree with the above commenter who said you are the awesome for your work on this blog.
You are a most beautiful soul. Your kindness, compassion, and courage inspire. Prayers for you and your loved ones as you walk your path.
Thank you so much…
Thank you so much…
I want to reach through the screen and pet your hair.
You bet your sweet bootie I know, Honey.
Wish I’d commented more often in the past, so that reaching out now wouldn’t seem so creepy!
Jenn, mine wasn’t ‘just’ depression either; and although it was different from what you’re going through, and although I managed to stay out of the hospital by the skin of my teeth (“If we don’t see an improvement over the next week, TC, we’ll have to…”), I still get it. Lots of people get it.
The daily attention is indeed true. BUT, like with any other illness, there are going to be days–sooner than you think–that that attention is going to be cursory. I remember it taking my diabetic friend THREE HOURS to give herself her first insulin shot, and that was after several days of hyperventilating about it. These days, it takes her under a minute to do what needs doing, and she’s on with her life. Some days her sugar gets crazy, and she has to slow down and do some other stuff and get it back under control, but most days, it’s easy peasy.
So it is for me with my issues. So it will be for you.
Also: About four years ago, I wrote a book about the illness you seem to be saying you’re most likely dealing with now, which included both practical info as well as details about my father’s own journey to standing upright. (He was a one. Always and forever a one. The very definition of a one. But once they figured that out, his life did a near 180. Not a complete 180, but oh. What a difference.) Anyway, I’d like to send it to you (which is what I meant when I said I wished I’d commented more so I didn’t seem creepy) if you’d like to send me an address–doesn’t have to be yours if that freaks you out–where I could forward it.
Hugs. Keep on keeping on. It really does end. You just don’t get to say when.
That in the depths of it that you could reach out to the guy with the sock noose…I am dumbfounded by it all, but I see someone who so merits salvation. (Tho’ I’m not discounting the God kind, I’m thinking specifically here of the mental kind.) Good luck.
Dearest Jenn, There is no Right; there’s just Doing the Best You Can. And you checked three(!) things off your list–that’s more than I accomplished, upright, today. Hugs.
Dear Jen, I too study the upright and wonder how exactly is it done?I often feel like I maybe missed the class or slept through the lecture because everyone else seems to KNOW.Daily, I try to figure out the secret, the missing ingredient.Often my conclusion is that no one really knows, but many just don’t question. They just accept. They do what they do because they do what they do becasue they have always done it and they do not look below the surface. It is the lookbelowthesurface people who seem to get stuck. I sometimes don’t want to be in that club, but it seems to be my destiny. So I will try to be better for it, from it, with it.One step, one breath at a time.May sun shine on your journey today.And thank you for your honesty.I am sure you will never know just how many people you have touched, affected, and lifted with your words.
Your writing recently has been some of the most apt and accurate descriptions of depression I’ve ever read, speaking as someone who’s been on the inside of my own flavor of that hell and figured out how to walk around with it.
The sheer frustration of it is galling, isn’t it? The constant questions of, “But you weren’t depressed BEFORE, you seemed fine! What changed?” Nothing. Nothing changed, and everything changed, and there is absolutely no way to explain to someone who hasn’t been through it that yes, you were functional THEN and no, you’re not functional NOW, and the only difference between the two is that that was THEN and this is NOW, and here you are.
ABOUT is another killer. “But what are you depressed ABOUT?” There’s no ABOUT to depression: it’s nothing, and it’s everything, and again, galling as it is, there’s no way to make people understand that. You’re not depressed ABOUT something, you’re depressed. It’s a state of being.
As hard as it is for me to read your writing these days (because I remember just what that’s like–sometimes much more recently than I’d care to admit to anyone), I’m proud of you for writing it, and it makes me want to reach out and give you a hug. I’ll leave virtual hugs, at least, and virtual pats on the back, and virtual wishes that this would improve for you. If there were any way we could carry this for you, I’m sure there’s not a reader on this site that wouldn’t take a chunk of it on so that you didn’t have to. I’ll take some of your load, virtually, and hope that helps, and continue offering a receptive ear for whatever you offer.
You kick ass. I’m thinking of you.
I have barely the wisdom to stay almost quiet, whispering softly, “Another, standing here to catch, support or whatever the moment calls for.”
Take care, sweet one.
(o)
*hug*
“When you looked around, you used to be baffled by the ratio of upright people to prone, devastated people.”
I know. But they are everywhere. You know that now.
Jenn, Jenn. I am in tears. Which is not something for you to take on. It’s just that you’ve moved me so, with this.
I want you to be happy, but I haven’t got the right key. And I wouldn’t know which of all the doors was the right one, anyway.
But I am here. Know that at least.
Thank you. I am upright today, I hope you are too.
I was thinking… if you’re aloud caffeine on those meds, switch from coffee to green tea. I’m not saying it’s a miracle but it gives me the boost I need without the side-effects of coffee. Get some at Trader Joe’s on the cheap!
Be well.
At this moment, you can’t believe it will get better. Therefore, I lend you my belief that you will feel better one day. Please return it when you’re done, as I’m sure I will need it again myself one day.
Once again, it’s like you are in my head.
I think, in some way, it gets easier after we realize that we’re going to have to carry it, to live with it, forever. Even with the doctors and the therapy and the medicine, it’s always going to be there. Once you know it’s part of you, you stop trying to get rid of it and start trying to live with it. Feels like progress, to me. Some days.
Peace to you.
Crying.
Please keep writing.