Into The Light

_{photo source}

Well, whadya know? I find myself in a most curious state. As I left my office today and stepped out into the crisp air, a thought ambushed me. I am content, I thought. Then, immediately on the heels of that thought, Huh. I really am content.

After the longest happiness drought in the history of me, not only is my head above water, I have actually climbed onto the shore and am standing upright looking into the sun. Looking into the sun! For the last few weeks, I've been asking myself two questions:

Number 1: How in the world did I get to the place where I went to bed every night thinking, Is it over yet?

And, Number 2: How was I able to find my way out of that wretched place?

If you're expecting profound answers to either of those questions, I don't have that to offer. I can only tell my story in the simplest of terms and hope that, in doing so, I can offer even the slightest hope to anyone reading this who may be going through the same type of darkest hell.

Melancholy has been a familiar companion to me for the better part of my life. Depression is a condition I have wrestled with on more occasions than I care to count. My dark companion had dogged my steps so closely and so often that I began to understimate the power of the disease. I grew weary of the label and the stigma of depression and, maybe, somewhere in the back of my mind, I began to believe the lie that I could wish it away or power my way through it.

I never stopped taking the medications which had been prescribed to me, and when the clouds rolled too close, I would return to my doctor seeking a change of medication. This approach worked well enough, if not ideally, until February of 2005, when life began delivering a series of knock-out punches that just kept coming.

I won't go into detail about all the life-shattering events that took place over the last six years because my experiences are not unique or even all that unusual. Perhaps, had it not been for the convergence of so many traumas in a relatively short time period, I might have come through it, if not unscathed, at least on the friendly side of sanity. Possibly, there could have been a different outcome if I had more fully appreciated the insidiousness of a disease of which I had become too accepting. Finally, maybe it was a combination of all those things - a 'perfect storm,' if you will. I don't know.

What I do know is that I began to feel ever more powerless to fight the clouds of depression that surrounded me more often than not. As I sunk deeper and deeper into that dark pit, I did exactly what I knew I shouldn't do - I began to withdraw, incrementally, from my life until I eventually found myself on the outside looking in. Oh, I would rally somewhat on the odd occasion, but it never lasted long. And it never made much of a difference.

There came a point when I stopped being the "glass half-full" person I had always been. I made that choice. I remember making the decision that I had been wrong all my life; that I had been fooling myself all along with childish optimism. That was the turning point. From that moment forward, I no longer looked at life and saw possibilities or opportunities. I sat down and wallowed in my depression.

Make no mistake, I am not taking the simplistic approach that the control or lack of control of depression is a mind-over-matter situation. On the contrary, I know that the treatment of this disease is multi-faceted and a truly monumental task. But, I also believe that one's mindset is a powerful tool and can either help or hinder the process. I could no more will myself out of depression than I could wish it away; but, my willingness to be overtaken by it or to fight against it was, and still is, a major component in the degree to which it affects me.

For whatever reason, after nearly six years of spiraling downward, something snapped in me and made me reach for a lifeline. That lifeline came in the form of a wonderful therapist and a decision on my part to participate in my own life once again. I don't claim to understand the forces that were at work to push me out of the deepest, darkest pit I've ever experienced, nor can I even begin to identify the impetus for it. But I am grateful for it. Whatever it was.

The path from is it over yet? to I am content was a journey of both agony and joy - a mystery that I may never fully comprehend. One thing I do know, however, is that familiarity does lead to contempt. My familiar and cavalier acceptance of my disease was almost my undoing. I won't make that mistake again. Depression is a formidable foe. Understanding that is key to surviving it.

Someday I may write of the depths to which the darkness took me, but I think not. I choose to remain standing in the sunlight. I like it here.

I am content.

Originally published February 12, 2011 on Open Salon

The Mystery of Grief

Grief is a sneaky thing.

On my way to a job interview two days ago, I was feeling particularly buoyed, having had the benefit of several almost back-to-back sessions with a new (and apparently very capable) therapist. As I drove, I reflected back on the conversations I’ve had with the new doctor, filling her in on the traumatic events of the past several years. In particular, we had concentrated on the events surrounding my dad’s sudden death: my very strong suspicion that my dad was poisoned, the horrific probate fight that drug on for years, the ex-business partner and my dad’s banker who framed my brother for bank fraud and sent him to prison for fifteen months (stealing Dad’s business in the process.) Yes, I know, I sound like a paranoid delusional crazy person, which is why I don’t talk about it much and that has apparently contributed greatly to my shaky emotional status of late.

All of this was in the mental stew that was boiling in my mind as I drove along heading for my job interview. I happened to notice a new business, a steel fabrication company. It just so happens that was the kind of business my dad owned. As I read the sign with the company’s name, I felt a little flutter of happy in the back of my mind. Pure reflex kicked in as a fully formed impulse presented itself in my consciousness. I reached for my cell phone, actually had it in my hand before reality yanked me back to the present. I was going to call my dad, anxious to tell him that I was taking control of my life again. It all happened in a split second – the jolt of happiness, the impulse to call, and then the clutch in my stomach as I remembered – he’s gone.

Suddenly, my mouth was agape, my eyes filled with tears and I felt the grip of grief. My dad has been gone for six years, not to mention the fact that I was consciously reviewing the circumstances of his death at the very moment that I had the impulse to give him a call. It was a surreal moment. I marvel at the capacity of the human brain to compartmentalize so completely that such an event can occur.

I wonder if the trauma of those events somehow stunted the natural process of grief. As I woodenly marched forward through all those months following his death, performing the necessary tasks by rote, somehow managing to do everything that had to be done, did I so successfully compartmentalize the events that I never fully experienced the grief? Or was it just some kind of “brain glitch” that allowed the two experiences to fully co-exist in my brain that day – the full realization and analysis of my dad’s death versus the complete momentary lapse of awareness that he is gone?

I don’t know the answer to that question. I only know that the stunned realization that I couldn’t call him that day, or any day, was so fresh, so intense, that it took my breath away. I miss my dad. Maybe the healing process has begun.

 

  Download this mp3 from Beemp3.com