Monday, September 2, 2013

rock 'n roll

Oooo I'm outing us, depressives! My friend, Bill who's endured a life time of depression would call us "the depressives" which I thought sounded must more active or like a rock band then "I suffer from depression." And the word "suffer"--so anti-American! Sufferers were made to be healed and raised up and medicated back to life!

We are masters at masking our despair. We would be very successful actors if we could get out of bed. Most of you will never know when we're having a bad period. Perhaps we're not as in touch with you as we were, but you've experienced this before. Maybe you are like one of my friends who assumes that I'm having creative epiphanies when I'm really sitting in a dark corner eating ice cream.  And I am the epitome of cheeriness at work, which is a blessing, really, because I've worked with the actively depressed and hearing the windiness of their sighs and their resistance to suggestion makes me want to put my anti-depressants in their morning yogurt. So fucking mean. If the show were on the other sad foot, of course I'd expect them to give me pats on the head and assorted mini-sweets...actually, I wouldn't do that at all. My work mask is firmly superglued into place. "You are always so positive," co-workers say, and I applaud myself on hiding the black cesspool within sucking it up until I get on the train with the other perpetual frowners.

Sometimes I don't talk about my depression with my doctors because they then don't try to find out what's really causing my symptoms. Some yahoo has written a useless paper that says that depression could be the cause of a plethora of physical symptoms, and some doctors have latched onto this as a panacea, attributing chronic fatigue and autoimmune symptomology to being depressed. I'm not saying this isn't the case, but shouldn't you also be looking at more than that? As a recent article that I'm too lazy to find and insert as a link here pointed out, many doctors miss "physical" symptomology because of this. Of course depression has been declared a biological disease, thank gawd, and if I wasn't so depressed I'd go into medical research to find out exactly what mixture of chemicals causes it.

We don't want to be a burden. Thinking we are a burden is part of the disease. When Phil gets blue, he becomes "not worth the bloody trouble." Sometimes when I'm in the grip, positive things people say about me put my teeth on edge. Don't stop saying them, of course.

I once rode on the back of Bill's bike years ago, and we screamed until we were hoarse. Bill claimed that I'd blown out his eardrum but I could tell by the number of bugs that littered the face screen of my helmet that the wind was blowing in our faces. Cheeky sod.

And then all of the suggestions and potions and exercises and role-playing and accupuncture needles sticking out of your ears like cable station antennae are a tad disappointing. Bill's tried every legal anti-depressant and some that you won't find in the Physician's Drug Reference. He had some success with St. John's Wort but then his tongue got numb and he couldn't taste his scotch. A truly depressing thought. Blech.

I've had better luck with medication and some behavior modifications and that's due to the flexibility and skills of my doctors and therapist.  But sometimes I feel like I'm falling and I try, by myself, to put it right. Even after all of these years knowing that it's the misalignment of juice tubes in my brain, it still strikes me as a bad attitude  or just some chronic unwillingness to BE HAPPY. And it's hard to grab onto the logical brain bits that know that this just isn't true. Some have said "you just don't want to be happy." Are you out of your tree? Of course I want to be content, serene, glowingly alive, robust, plump like a partridge, and cast off my mask. Damn, it's hot in here, the adult acne is vicious, and my mascara melts."

©Jo Craig 2013


3 comments:

misha said...

I love you!

misha said...

I love you! Misha

Smapdi said...

The idea that people are depressed are that way because they don't want to be happy makes me want to punch someone very hard in their gonads.
Thing is that until someone is actually in it, down in the grimy, dank, forever-darkening pit, they can never truly understand what it is to be truly depressed. Because we aren't talking about having a bad day or even a bad week or month. We are talking about the full-fledged, total body, all-encompassing depression that won't go away just because that project you've been working on finally sorted itself out. Or that guy you like asked you out.
And just because one can be jovial or laugh, or dare I say, have a good evening, none of that negates the soul-killing emotions that are constantly there.
It is stifling behind the mask. But I wear it because I don't know any other way and because on some level I'm wearing it for myself as well, too afraid to really peek behind it and see the utter lack of light and the dead-end of it all.
Which is just as frightening.