NYT Magazine — Depression’s Upside
Love a good pro-rumination article…
“The alternative, of course, is that depression has a secret purpose and our medical interventions are making a bad situation even worse. Like a fever that helps the immune system fight off infection — increased body temperature sends white blood cells into overdrive — depression might be an unpleasant yet adaptive response to affliction. Maybe Darwin was right. We suffer — we suffer terribly — but we don’t suffer in vain.”
Check this out: “Magic Mushroom” Trips Point to New Depression Drug
Awhile back, when I was looking at street drugs to help with depression — ketamine, marijuana, etc — R suggested psilocybin as something that would probably be more helpful for depression than pot. I guess he keeps up with research or something and isn’t just a closet hippie. That’s probably good, right?
Anyway, it still seems counterintuitive that I would need to slow down my brain to feel normal when it already seems thick and lazy. But, what do I know?
Because caring makes me sad. It makes me hurt. It makes me anxious. It makes me hate me.
What is wrong with me!? I told my shrink about this blog today…
R: So, what have you been writing lately?
K: Oh, you know, I just started blogging about wanting to give you head. Here, let me give you the address…
Ok, so it wasn’t exactly like that. But he did ask me what I had been writing lately. And, for God knows what reason, when he didn’t seem satisfied with what I was writing in another sphere of my life, I told him that I had started writing a blog with some friends… and that it was about therapy. And, uhh, him. Sort of.
While trying to push down the panic I was feeling at my ill-advised confession, and determining if there was some way to swallow the words back out of the air — “Just kidding! That would be funny, right?” — he said it was good that what was happening in therapy was having enough of an impact that I would feel compelled to write about it.
So, yeah.
Embarrassing.
I don’t even know what else to say, but I hope he doesn’t ditch me now for being so freaking weird.
I was told I should post, so I am… captain’s orders.
Let’s see… Day 2 of therapy went ok. I felt like I was in school with my workbook and pencil. Well, I felt like an idiot mostly. My brain is broken in pretty much every way possible, so this whole teaching it new tricks thing is tough. More than one time I caught myself staring at the power outlet, listening to the clock tick. Completely zoning out and not listening to a god damn thing the woman was saying. I bet it was important stuff too… fuck it all to hell.
Anyways… the whole introduction to DBT session made my head spin. My brain felt all foggy and muddy trying to understand what she was saying… so trying to think back and remember things is not going well. What I DO remember is being asked to observe something in the room.
Me: “Uh… observe something?? Like what?”
Therapist: “Anything… just observe something and tell me about it.”
Ok, so I observed the power outlet with about 5 fucking cords sticking out of it. Then I thought what dumbass people they have here that would put that many cords in an outlet. Then I thought about how dangerous that outlet would be if there were little kids in the room. Then I thought about my own little kids at home. I thought about how I hope my baby didn’t wake up while I was gone because I didn’t leave any pumped milk for her to have. I started panicking thinking about my hungry baby crying because I wasn’t there to feed her.
So… Mindfulness!! I was only supposed to focus on that outlet. Observe how it looked, felt, smelt, sounded or tasted… nothing else. Well, shit… I failed my first test in therapy.
Homework for this week. Observe objects. Ok, I can do that. However, I can only think about that object and that object only. Anytime another thought pops into my head, I’m supposed to let it “slide out” of my mind and refocus. Not sure how I am going to focus on anything in this house for longer than 5 seconds without having to yell… “Get your brother out of the dryer!!”… but I’m going to try.
Aristophanes’ story: Once upon a time there were human beings without a sex — male or female — like we know today. They were great, round creatures with two faces and eight limbs; they were fast and clever. When the gods discovered that these beings planned to invade the heavens and overthrow them, many wanted to destroy the humans entirely. But Zeus proposed a solution: each would be divided in half, splitting their strength while doubling the number of beings to offer sacrifices back to the gods.
And so it was, the beings were split in two — a face for each, two arms, two legs; Apollo was tasked to finish sewing them up. But as Zeus saw the despair of these broken beings, how they longed to be one with their other half, he rearranged their bodies to allow them to join together, becoming whole for brief, fleeting moments.
Now what girl wouldn’t be aflutter at the thought? The perfect half to make you whole. Another person you were made to be a part, to be a complete being. A soulmate.
But from the moment I heard the story, I knew there was more to it for me. My longing and emptiness could never be filled by another half. In fact, I was so deficient, I knew a half would never be enough. It was obvious: I wasn’t split evenly. The knife slipped, and too much of the soul was given to my mate. I wasn’t a half; on a good day I was maybe 40%, but in the depths of loneliness, I figured I was a quarter at best.
So I longed to be with men who were more than half, who were loud and present, selfish and determined. Cruel. And it confirmed my suspicions, because the more I was with them, the more less-than I felt.
It was the wrong tactic. I get that. And I figured it out with time to spare; I married a man with little desire to take over my space.
But I still can’t shake the feeling there was a cosmic mistake, leaving me less of a person than everyone else. But if that extra part isn’t with someone else, I don’t know where to find it.
So, why have I not killed myself:
(1) I don’t want to fuck up my kids, and sadly, they have become old enough that they would probably understand that they weren’t enough for me if I called it a day. According to a Johns Hopkins study published in 2010, suicide (shockingly) is bad for kids:
“Losing a parent to suicide at an early age emerges as a catalyst for suicide and psychiatric disorders,” says lead investigator Holly C. Wilcox, Ph.D., a psychiatric epidemiologist at Hopkins Children’s. “However, it’s likely that developmental, environmental and genetic factors all come together, most likely simultaneously, to increase risk.” [...] Those who lost a parent to suicide as children or teens were three times more likely to commit suicide than children and teenagers with living parents. [...] In addition, those who lost parents to suicide were nearly twice as likely to be hospitalized for depression as those with living parents. And those who lost parents to accidents or illness had 30 and 40 percent higher risk, respectively, for hospitalization. Losing a parent, regardless of cause, increased a child’s risk of committing a violent crime, the researchers found.
(2) I won’t make an important decision impulsively. I have a complicated method of death; I have the supplies and it will work, but it will take a little patience and a calm, steady mind to do it. I have resisted the temptation of getting a gun because I know I would potentially use it without reflection. I have the application from the police to get a permit to buy one, but I haven’t turned it in. I will not kill myself in a moment of pain or weakness.
(3) Commitments matter a lot to me. If I say that I am going to do something, it is going to happen. If that means helping to take care of someone or completing a project, I will see through my commitments. People can say a lot of horrible things about me when I am dead, and they probably will, but it won’t be that I let someone down because I didn’t follow through.
(4) Guilt. My husband, my mom, my children — I know they would get over it, and I know they have other people to depend on, or could find other people to depend on — but unless they give me their blessing, I still feel tremendous guilt. Rationally, I tell myself that I will be dead and there is no guilt in non-existence, but still it persists.
(5) The things I am not ready to say good bye to yet. My babies’ kisses and funny, gruff little voices… the few friends I would feel like I was betraying… the list of novels I still need to read (or re-read)…
(6) Loneliness. When I contemplate doing it in earnest, I feel overwhelmingly alone. There are no connections in death.
(7) Time. I’m not in a rush; life plods on. It is always an option and a solace. I don’t need to do anything right now.
The reason for posting about suicide: I am concerned about some of my co-bloggers (damnit, I was never going to use that word — it feels so miserably round in my mouth). I hope they are remembering their lists of why-not too…
I think about suicide and death a lot. Like, a lot a lot. And I have for a very long time. My list for killing myself goes something like this:
I try to never talk about suicidal thoughts with my shrink. I wouldn’t lie if he asked, but he doesn’t ask; it’s just a very, very quiet elephant standing in the corner. Last winter, when things were particularly horrible for me, there was this miserable power struggle — I guess that’s how I would define it, although he probably wouldn’t — when I expressed that I was planning to kill myself. I think in the end, although my memory of it is surprisingly a bit fuzzy, he decided to keep seeing me if I didn’t let on to him that I was suicidal, or if I did, that I would consent to having him call the police or hospitalize me or something awful and terrifying like that. I understand the liability question, but at the end of the day, I try to avoid talking about suicide with him unless it is just seeping out of me.
The moral of the story: like most everyone else, I am very alone when it comes to working through suicidal thoughts…
But, I am still alive.
Sometimes I miss the me I was.
It’s not that the old me was anything special, but she was something more than this. She was funny… kind of smart, a snappy dresser. She still had a little confidence. Even while planning her suicide, there was still a rough strip, defiant, waiting for a match to rub up against it. Waiting to ignite something.
But now, I just wait for the next time I can distract myself from my thoughts. I conjure sleep and daydreams. I don’t want to be alone with me.
My head feels numb and slow. I want to make connections, I want to tell stories, create… But I can’t. When someone talks to me it takes all of my concentration to follow their words. I don’t know how to respond, and I hold onto my thoughts, afraid to hear myself distorted and wrong. I don’t think I have anything left to give the world — but it’s not because I am spent, it’s just evaporation.
I don’t know how to get back to me. I don’t know if I was even real.
I don’t know why I’m here.
I’ve typed…deleted…typed…deleted in this damn box for about 20 minutes now, and nothing is coming out. The only thing sticking is my usual line of “I hate myself and I want to die.” That’s what everything keeps coming back too. I’m nothing with it… nothing without it. I’m nothing.