Depression Blows

I’m from the Texas Coast. If we know anything around here, it’s storms. Winter rain, summer thunderstorms, and of course the ever-dreaded hurricane. I’ve always thought a hurricane was a lot like my depression, because when it hits it’s time to barricade the doors and windows, hunker down inside, and pray it passes quickly. Like a hurricane, it sucks the air from your lungs and strips you down to nothing. It roars and throws your world into darkness. It’s huge, and ravenous, and devours everything in its path before becoming very still. You discover that sometimes the worst has passed, but sometimes you’re just in the eye of the storm and there’s a huge wave coming to you sweep you up and try to drown you. When it’s gone, you’re left to pick up what little is left behind and start over. Sooner or later, you begin to question why you keep rebuilding if you’re only going to lose it all over again.

I’m in the rebuilding phase. Again. I’ve just returned from my third stay in a mental facility in two years, and I’m feeling naked and vulnerable. I’ve tried just about every anti-depressant and anti-anxiety medication, and now my doctor has me receiving electroconvulsive therapy once a week. A large part of me fears getting my hopes up, knowing that the depression always comes back. But another, stronger part of me rages at the storm and constructs new defenses, regardless of whether they’ll be blown away again. I want to stand in the midst of the gale with both middle fingers pointed up in defiance of this disease. I want to dance around in the rain as if it can never hurt me. It’s from this place of survival and hope that I decided to create this blog. The single most important words I have ever heard are the simple words, “Me, too”. You see, the thing about these hurricanes is that they isolate you. Lines of communication go down, paths are blocked. Yet somehow when people pull together in the aftermath, beautiful things happen. It makes the suffering have meaning instead of seeming to be this endless, pointless pain. I have met some of the most beautiful souls as comrade-in-arms, fighting depression and anxiety in some form or another, and we agree there is security in numbers. There is comfort in knowing someone else “gets it”.

I’m not saying that finding the silver lining makes everything better, or that being positive can beat the storm back. I’ve hidden in the dark, waiting, too often to believe that bullshit. But we can hold each other’s hands in the shadows. We can tell each other stories to make the time spent in the blackness pass more quickly. When one of us goes down, we can send the lifeboats that float them to safety. You see, unlike tornadoes, you can see a hurricane coming. You can’t stop it, but you can prepare. Maybe having this blog is one way of stocking up on supplies. It’s having somewhere to turn when the lights go out and we’re not certain we can make it. Here, there will be someone who says, “Me, too” and survived their storm.

Today, it is quiet around me. That doesn’t mean tomorrow won’t bring another deluge, but for now I will take the moment that is given and dance my ass off. I will laugh and love and hope. The storm didn’t win. I can feel the sun on my face. Blow me, hurricane.

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