Depression is a Sexy Vampire: A Portrait of Mental Illness.

02.11.14

12:17pm EST

I’ve been lying on my living room floor more or less non-stop for the past two days. I get hungry, I scrap food together. Mostly I don’t eat. Venturing out for groceries to put in my nearly empty pantry seems to be out of the question. No meditation has touched my mind, no yoga has stretched my body. Just me and the infectious consumption of online tv for two days. It’s not comfortable. When I get up, I can feel a very real achiness in my body. I couldn’t tell you why I’m avoiding my bed. Couldn’t tell you to save my life. I just know some dark decaying complacency has settled in. Dirty dishes. Laundry that need’s folding. Laundry that need’s washing. Unkempt disarray haunting me from most of the rooms in my little apartment. I’ve gotten up three times to address it, but when I look, all I feel is overwhelmed, mildly inadequate, and a bit guilty for the seeming indulgence. Then the pallet on my living room floor calls for me to “come back to bed.”

I have depression. Sometimes it feels like over-reaching sadness that keeps you glued to every form of guilt and confusion imaginable. It’s in my hormones. In my brain. Something chemical. Most people think depression is just about feeling "sad" when something bad happens. This wasn’t that. Not exactly. Not as painful, but just as pitiful. It was like my spirit couldn’t be bothered. I don’t feel sad, I feel absent. Drained. I feel like gloomy fog. Tired, but of what?

Perhaps of everything. I haven’t given in yet, but there’s this lurking feeling. This shark beneath murky waters. It screams at me in silent pantomime. Somehow, my life became a never-ending parade of deadlines and dates I haven’t done the best job of keeping up with. Friends I haven’t seen in years moving on with their lives. People dying. Resources being sucked dry, not just for me, but for the people I love, around me. I'm not sleeping well. So it feels a little like the sad depression you think of. But more like the monster that lives within depression, the luring troll at the bridge, waiting to suck me down into the bog of stagnation. It feels like the depression I’m old friends with. Not the wailing, despairing, fearful ghost people know about, but the seductive vampire who is offering me a reprieve from all that ails me, through the “gift” of slumber. It doesn’t matter that my finances are finally taking a turn for the better. Or that I might have someone who cares about me very deeply. It doesn’t matter that I finally am beginning to feel like I have a life in this hometown city that has felt strange since I came home. Or that I actually enjoy my work. None of it matters. It doesn't work like that. Its not situational. It doesn't need bad things to happen to get in. All vampires need is an invitation.

I think of going outside. I know fresh air helps, and I know I need daylight in my veins. But before I can contemplate the benefits of drinking from the sun, I am faced with the cold. Memories of grey clouds, limited visibility, and freezing cold temperatures in my car that doesn’t have proper heat. I have memories of driving to my cousin’s house the weekend before and praying the entire way, because I landed myself on the freeway and almost had to pull over, driving at a near-crawl because I couldn’t see through the windshield. Why in Hades did I decide to do that? Anyway, it was this imagery that haunted me. Yes I’m from a notoriously cold city, born and raised. It didn’t matter. Winter was evil.

So I laid on the floor some more. Phones rang and I couldn’t bring myself to answer them. Texts popped up and I looked at my phone like it was a selfish lover, thinking only of itself, nagging me with that damned blinking light!

I’m nearly off the floor now. Well, I’m actually sitting there writing this, but I can tell that something in me is nearly through this. I think the worst of it has passed. I hope so anyway. I only write this because I want people to understand that depression has so many faces. It doesn’t have to be the stuff of legend. It can creep in sneakily, seductively, luring it’s victim with a release bigger than any drug. Darker too. Sometimes depression happens in fits. Sometimes it’s gone in a day, other times in a week. Maybe a month until the next happy feeling. Some people have no idea what is happening to them.  Some, like me, know they have depression, and realize that the moment will pass, although by the time we realize we have slipped into it, we are already in Wonderland. That’s what this one was like. I just realized that my body was going to do what it wanted to do. That I could do my best to fight it, but that would more than likely only engage the monster. It likes when I fight back. Like quicksand, the more I struggle against it while in the midst of it, the more I sink. Fighting is best done beforehand to avoid it altogether. But when the conditions are so perfect, it can be on me quicker than I understand. I have learned to cope though. I was foolish enough to believe, after I started my yogi process, that this would never happen again. I got lax. I didn’t keep up the fight, like a night watchman falling asleep at his post. However, years of experience with this disease has taught me that if I can just focus on one thought, that I will be ok; “it WILL pass eventually.”

That’s the only thing that keeps me. That knowledge. Seven years since I discovered the name of my ever so vigilant personal monster-under-the-bed. Seven years that I have had to understand it, learn how to fight it, and learn how to survive when it fights back. In that time it has grown from a roaring lion to a tiny kitten. I pray it never again becomes the lion. The lion can kill you, be upon you before you’ve had time to notice the sunshine. Still, it definitely grows to a lynx a time or two. In those seven years, I learned that the worst part of not knowing its name is that I thought It was me. I thought I was a problem, as opposed to having a problem. Now that I just “have a problem,” I can work through it like every other problem. I’m good for that type of work.

Earlier this year, my schoolmates and I discovered that we had lost a classmate to suicide. And nobody knew, it seems. Prayers went up, hands stretched out across a nation as people consoled each other. And some of us came out of the closet, like an empowered youth at a Gay Pride parade, announcing that we had been in his shoes, and understood. Others of us waxed poetic about the need for a church life or medication, or both. I wonder if he had named his demon. Or if he'd been able to talk to anyone about it. I wonder if it would have changed anything. 

They say it takes up to seven years to become an expert at something. I guess that makes me an expert at depression. I've had it for a lover, and I know all it's dirty secrets. Maybe some would consider me failed because I still have depression, but they who would say that would miss the point entirely. Yes, I still have it, but I am not depressed all the time. I am an expert at surviving depression. I know how much work it takes to “step off the ledge.” People don’t consider that, because they don’t realize how much work it took to work up the nerves to step on the ledge in the first place; to work up the nerve to take your own life. There's nothing cowardly about it. It's the act of a hopeless person who can't see their way out. It’s a rolling snowball on a mountainside, becoming an avalanche. Then when you are finally rolling, to be asked to stop it? It takes a lot of work to stop. And a lot of strength. Sometimes it takes a failed attempt before you understand the gravity of what is happening to you. Believe me, I know....

Surviving this internal war is no easy measure. When people say “it’s all in your head,” don’t they understand what that means? It doesn’t mean it’s less real for that person. It means they have nowhere to escape to. Mental illness is the hardest struggle there is, I think.

So, I’m hopefully getting off the floor today. I say hopefully because I’m still here, and it’s not easy. It’s not just a matter of moving my legs. It is a matter of moving my mind. I offer no specific advice to anyone. Just a story. Here I am. I am living with depression. I don't look like a "depressed person." I enjoy my work, I have loved ones. I pray. I enjoy going to the movies, and Starbucks like everyone else. But if you really look, there's a glimmer in my aura. A fierceness and passion in my spirit one only gets from battle experience. And I use it to my advantage. I have to surround myself with positivity. I do things I love because living with things I hate doing is not an option. I value laughter and sunshine more than I ever have.  I am mostly enjoying my very full life, while occasionally having to excuse myself a moment for the sake of saving the Gotham city of my mind. In fact, by the time you read this, I will be back to my happy life, having fought another fight, and lived another day. I am no longer ashamed, because I just got tired of being so. And I stop beating myself up for it, after these spells. It took seven years to get this way, to get this strong.  

One way or another, I’m getting off the floor. 

~L

Taoist Pooh, Dalai Lama, and Facebook boycotting.

I just took a four-day vacation from the online world.  Nearly no texts or calls, (only a 30 min interval, once a day, mostly for my mother's sanity. :-)..) absolutely no Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, or Blogging. And if people missed me during my window of phone time, they had to leave a voice-mail.

This sounds severe for some people, especially those insanely busy people who imagine that they could 'never have enough time' to tap out. And certainly, for, say, parents of small children who are away, or on-call doctors, I'd imagine that it would be nearly impossible. For the rest of us, the childless, the parents of adult children, the jobless, the work-from-home types, and the strictly scheduled 9to5ers, etc, a day or two offline might not be as impossible as you think. If you are plugged into ANY kind of social media network, and yes that includes YouTube, you have pockets of time that you could be spending unwinding. Even if the networking is supposedly for your business, that is what they make social media manager websites for. Hootsuite is a good example, if you need to know where to find one. And it's free. 

Otherwise, work-relations aside, every once in awhile, it is definitely possible to unplug. Maybe you can't do a whole four days. I get that. I'm a lot freer with my time than some people. I also spent that time doing work that didn't require me to be online. However, a day or two without electronic communication with the outside world will not cause your business to crumble. Your adult child probably wont die from irresponsibility and need you to bail them out of jail (although I say PROBABLY here...). If they DO go to jail on your weekend to self, a day or two in the slammer might teach them a lesson anyway. 

Also, you can set up the parameters yourself. I turned my phone on once in the middle of the day, and then again before bed to check my voice-mail  If there WAS an emergency, (which there wasn't) I could totally break my offline vacation to handle it. Basically, your vacation, your rules. 

Now, some of you may be wondering why I would recommend such a vacation in a busy, hurried society such as ours. This is the day of INSTANT. Who has time to wait? WE do. We all do. We are all given time, when we are born. And as we age, we become responsible for that 'time' we were given. Your time does not do more than my time. It's all the same time. But the point some of us miss, is that WE decide what to do with it.

"I just don't have the time."

"I'm running out of time."

"I just can't make time for things that don't matter."

"I'll do that when I have some extra time."

Seems like in this day and age, with so many technological advances meant to make our lives more convenient, we are busier than ever. But the irony is that, you definitely do have the time. You have all the time. It is yours. And you never get any 'extra.' Running out of time implies death... Let that one go. It's all about what matters to you. 

According to the Huffington Post within the last year, Americans spend an average of 8 hours per month on Facebook. According to Experian, we spend a little over 2 hours a month on Twitter. Without including Pinterest, Tumblr, YouTube or Instagram, the average American is using at least 10 hours a month to surf social media sites. Remember that the next time you miss a 'good night's sleep.' Of course you don't have the time. You are losing about half a day, each month, to social media sites. 

Now, these studies also show that our need to hound these sites arise from boredom, and a need to connect with the world. But for many of us, the appearance of social continuity in other people's lives, gives us pause when evaluating our own. Basically, a lot of people's pages and profiles look more interesting than their actual lives. And we find it hard not to compare ourselves. 

This is where the offline vacation comes in. 

Imagine that you didn't check your phone every ten minutes to make sure that it didn't 'ping' without you knowing. Or that you made it all the way to the kitchen for coffee, outside for the newspaper, and back to your comfy couch, without once worrying that 'so and so' didn't respond to your missed call two minutes ago. TWO MINUTES AGO!

This world is real. You don't have to imagine it. It's the life of the unplugged person. 

On day 1 of my vacation, I was sorely tempted to 'just peek' at my sites. I kept looking at my phone, but reminded myself that it was on airplane mode, and that while people knew where I was, I wasn't going to hear from them. It was self-imposed isolation, and on day 1, it made me a little itchy-antsy.

On day 2, I made just enough use of my 30 minute interval to plan a date with a friend the next day. Phone off required us both to be punctual, and  off we went; light, easy fun. And not once did I check my phone. I actually forgot about it until I heard the familiar 'dead battery' beep. 

Day 3 was much like day 2. And day 4, I left the phone on, but simply ignored it for most of the day. I felt much less of an  urge to check it. 

Thus, my vacation, and my experiment, was a success.

Here's what I accomplished and learned. 

• I hadn't been alone with my own thoughts in a loooong time. There's a lot of stuff up there I have been neglecting for being busy. 
• I hadn't been responsible for entertaining myself in a long time either. I caught up on some reading, and had some peaceful meditation moments.
• Self-imposed isolation is beautiful, because it feels like making time for yourself. Imagined isolation (IE, why hasn't anybody responded to my text in the last 30 minutes) feels awful, because it feels like being ignored. 
• Thus, unplugging taught me to send my words, wishes, and connections out into the world, but not be as concerned about when they are fulfilled or returned. Everything in due time. 
• There was a wonderful chair I purchased for my living room, that I never got to sit in. What is the point of making a space beautiful and serene, if you are only going to ignore it?
• Being still can teach you a lot about yourself. 
• Food is best eaten when your focus is only on the food. Not the computer, cell phone, or TV screen.
• The Tao of Pooh is a quaint, wonderful book, whether you are a practicing Taoist or not.
• The Dalai Lama is a genius. 

The last two things I mentioned are from things I read during my vacation. They opened the door for all the Zen moments I had. 

I read the Tao of Pooh, a book that relates Taoist teachings to the Winnie-the-Pooh characters in a tongue-in-cheek, yet still enlightening manner. I immediately felt like a different person after reading the book. Not every person who reads it will get the same message, I'm sure. But I felt calmer, and more willing to be harmonious with the natural rhythm of this Universe.

I also came across two quotes by the current Dalai Lama (Dalai Lama XIV). They were simple quotes, that read:
  "This is my simple religion. There is no need for temples; no need for complicated philosophy. Our own brain, our own heart is our temple; the philosophy is kindness."

"What I believe, according to my own experience, is that a calm, peaceful mind is a very important element for sustaining the body in a balanced way."

When I read these quotes, they spoke volumes to me. The first one is usually quoted  to refer to the openness of religion. But for the sake of my vacation, it took on a new meaning. I am the center of my faith, of my purpose. Whether or not God is real, it is if I choose to believe in the Creator that matters. Also, my belief is that His presence is within me, as it is in all living things. If this is true, then I must be willing to take time to study and worship within the temple of myself. Being plugged in all the time hinders that natural process. It keeps us focused on the outward, the rest of the world, with no energy to look inward. 

The second quote is much more self explanatory, but it touched me all the same. Anything I could hope to achieve in life, anything I want to do with my 'time,' must first come from a calm, and peaceful mind. And there is not much calm to be had in the busy-bee world of social networking.

So, I recommend the occasional un-plugging for sanity. If my weekend is any reflection of what an evenly un/plugged life can be, it will open the door for peace, self-reflection, soul-searching, and of course, discovery. 

Peace, Loves.

Be Gentle With Yourself

As mentioned in an earlier post, I've been in Blogger Limbo. My updates were sparse in arrival and not particularly meaty in content. I had fallen out of sync with my blogging schedule.

I'd also fallen out of sync with my workout schedule, my eating schedule, my dietary needs, my social life, and everything else.

Not to worry... it happens.

There is a Natural Law of Rhythm which states that everything in the world moves in a natural cycle. And that includes me. A part of my natural cycle includes what some of you may call a "slump." My energy is off, I'm disorganized, stressed, and fatigued. Now, truth be told, I actually live in a persistent state of slump. Every couple of weeks, I just lose whatever 'get up and go' that I have. But it's usually only for a day or so, and then it passes. I've noticed this to be especially true whenever there are drastic changes to my life.

Sometimes, perhaps every few months, my slump lasts a few weeks instead of a few days. The house goes to Hell, laundry is sparingly done (aka 'as needed'), I find myself not eating, constantly tired, and there's a lot of crying, emotional turmoil, and self-bashing involved.

Did I mention that I live with un-medicated Clinical Depression, and a hormonal imbalance condition?

Yeah, I do, and I'm pretty sure these weeks and weeks of 'lows' are directly linked to whatever hormonal flip-flop my body is experiencing at the time. It's very real, and very draining. Different from situational depression, which may be brought on by circumstantial trauma, clinical depression can occur even when everything is going good in my life. It's more about the hormones and chemicals in my body being quick to jump ship and do as they please, without my permission.

Needless to say, these lows are absolute bomb-droppers. Besides getting thrown off of my extracurriculars (like blogging), they bring with them a barrage of emotional self-abuse in the form of criticism and judgement. I have been known to think of myself as totally unsuccessful at life, even going so far as to dub myself a "flake" who won't get anywhere. I self-criticize even deeper for whatever is not functioning well in my life, blaming it on imaginary weakness or incompetency.

Having just recycled into a high, I am aware of how self-defeating this behavior can be, even after the storm passes. But it's extremely, extremely difficult to break out of. It involves re-wiring your entire brain, re-routing your natural reactions, and quite frankly, I'm not even close. But I am trying.

Today, I am not in one of my mega slumps, but I am trying to get over some painful news. And I wanted to write this post because I found myself berating myself for not getting over it faster. The voice of doubt from my slumps was creeping into my present. And a post from Tiny Buddha got me together.

A part of this post mentioned being gentle with Oneself. But it didn't go into much detail about what 'being gentle' looks like. So, I wanted to share my perspective with you.

Being gentle with oneself is first of all, totally counter intuitive to this hard-paced, get-rich-quick, instant gratification culture we have growing in the States. Some of us are extremely  hard-wired to do more, faster, harder, without taking time to sit back and appreciate what we have already done. We measure our success in the quantity of our accomplishments, rather than the quality of our experiences. And then, we throw our 'stuff' that we needed so desperately, away, for more 'stuff.'

So, if that sounds like your kind of life... being 'gentle' might not be for you, and we're pretty much done here.

But if you want more peace, more balance, more calm against the storm of commercial success and consumerism, please... keep reading.

The painful news I received was in fact, about the ending of a friendship. Without going into too much detail, our friendship had reached a virulent rupture that made our emotional distance so very painfully clear. I found myself trying to throw up quick icy walls to ward off any emotional outburst that might occur. And when those walls were defeated by pain and grief, I initially berated myself for it. I was so focused on 'getting over it' that I mentally beat myself up for any sign of weakness. I needed to move on. Quick.

What I was doing was the opposite of being gentle with myself. I am, after all, human. My body, my emotions, even my brilliant and rapid thoughts, do not do everything on command. If I broke my leg, I couldn't get up and walk just because I wanted to. Healing happens on it's own time. That's common sense that I was forgetting. Until today. Today I realized and remembered that just like the Natural Law of Rhythm, which means that eventually, I must return to a high point, because that is a part of my cycle, there is the Natural Law of Gestation, which suggests that everything manifests in its own time.

As far as being gentle on myself, this means that taking these 2 laws into account, I have to ease up on the self-berating Yes, it is important for me to keep moving forward, and heal from this severing of relationship. However, in the moments when I feel pain about it, when I feel low about it, I must acknowledge that they are natural occurrences in the healing process. I am not weak for feeling them. Not for tears, or moments of being out of focus either. In this world of harder, better, faster, more, my body cannot be rushed. And trying to do so, much like trying to walk on a broken leg, will only prolong,and possibly undo the healing process.

So... being gentle is not about standing still, and not moving forward. It's about accepting if your body, or mind, or spirit needs to move somewhat slower than you like. Being gentle is about accepting that to learn a new behavior, to re-write your very own mega-computer (the brain) is an incredibly difficult process that should not be overlooked, or rushed. It's also about acknowledging when you are weary, and accepting it as natural, not a weakness. We get weary some times. Only by accepting that can we do anything about it.

Thus, I hope you decide to be more gentle with yourself. Whatever slump you are in, whatever pain you want to heal from, it will pass. Pain, and low points are natural occurrences. You cannot escape them. But they will pass. In the meantime, don't be so hard on yourself if it doesn't happen as soon as you'd like.

Peace.