How Deep is Your Well?

A day best slept through than lived. You can only understand that if you've ever been truly depressed. Made myself shower. It had been a week since I'd washed my hair. Made myself refill my pill boxes and take my morning meds. It'd been three days.

I confessed to my therapist that I hadn't been med compliant. And she asked me why, which is a reasonable question, and I surprised myself by saying, "It's not really intentional. Last week, I was so high I didn't think I needed them. And then when I crashed, I couldn't be bothered to care."

There's a lot of that last lately. Can't be bothered to eat. Can't be bothered to care about food, groceries, money, bills, pills. As if they will all, somehow, magically take care of themselves. Don't care about my hygiene, how the apartment looks, if I'm able to get anything done.

I've started having the gas mask fantasy again.

The Crash

Everything had been so normal, productive. More so than anything I'd experienced since the hospital. It reminds me of my childhood, the abuse. You could go days full of normal, and then out of nowhere, you'd get slapped down. Literally. Even now I have to use "you," second person singular, to distance myself from the memories. Depression feels like that. You find normal, if only for a few days, but there's always that trepidation that you'll have to pay for it -- with a slap out of nowhere, a hand that slaps you down, and there's a sort of a detached surprise when it happens, and then, like someone abused for a long time, resignation.

Mondays are the hardest for me. They're the first day I have to deal without having Jb around. That's strike one against me. But the previous day, we'd been driving in the car, and some country song had come on about weddings, fathers and daughters, the love and hope of a wedding. And it was disturbing how quickly it sent me back to my own wedding. Over ten years ago now, and I still remember it. How perfectly planned. How I never thought I'd end up separated, divorced. How maybe I shouldn't have married him. About how I'd felt myself shout "no!" inside when he'd given me the ring. How I should have listened to myself. It reminded me of how little I do. And it reminded me of failure, of a lifetime ago. And I felt such grief for that person that I was. For the tender moment with my dad. For the grief of leaving home.

Jb saw it, or part of it. There are things I can't tell him. There are things he simply can't know, having never gone through a wedding, a marriage. But he saw the part about my father. Knew I was thinking of him, and brought up a picture from my wedding I'd entirely forgot. It's the best picture taken from that wedding. My dad, in the library, holding an open book in his hand, dressed in the only suit or tux I've ever seen him in, with a silver glint of earring in one ear, and a mischievous grin for the camera. The big joke being that my dad's functionally illiterate, and he'd never in his life pick up a book or look like a man of leisure in a library and tux. He's always been blue-collar, down home, Southern through and through. And I love that about him.

It all was enough to trigger me, I think. I slept most of the rest of the evening, getting up for a couple cheese cookies I'd made for my birthday the day before and a drink. Then I crawled back into bed and slept the rest of the night. I'd get up for the bathroom, but I literally slept from 5 the following day until 4 o'clock on Monday when I knew Jb would be home. I had to be up when Jb got home, so I forced myself to take a shower. But the depression of those two days was so dark and deep that I couldn't fathom leaving my bed. And all last night, Lucy Kaplansky lyrics from "The Tide" kept running through my head, over and over and over and over.

1:27 p.m. Breakdown & Death

It was inevitable, I guess. Last night, we watched CSI and House M.D. It was like a one-two punch. CSI focused around the "death" of a girl with bipolar. House spun around a dying man and the concept of life after death. The rest of the night, I couldn't stop thinking about death and whether there was actually anything to think about. Are near death experiences merely the last hurrah of nerve endings firing in your head, your brain flooding with endorphins, creating delusions? Is there anything out there?

At my bleakest, I am sure that religion, mythology, and spiritual beliefs are all stories we make up to convince ourselves that life is worth living, that there is some reason and reward beyond ourselves. After all, why is it easy to look back on the ancient Greeks, to throw stones at their gods, without being aware of the hypocrisy of our own belief systems. The peasants in Medieval times seem uneducated and desperate for some hope of release and reward in an unconscionably hard existence, but how much more uneducated and desperate will we seem to those who look back at us a thousand years from now?

This is where I become lost. If there is no sense to living hand-to-mouth, to spending so much time at work that we see more of our colleagues than we do our families, to death and decay and poverty and injustice and hunger, then why--why--bother? Your parents raise you, as best they can, to be a productive member in society, but what happens when that conditioning no longer rings true to you? What happens when it begins to slip? For me, I despair of having to fill countless hours with things I have to do for other people, things which have no meaning whatsoever in the grand scheme of things. Why? Why work? Why sell your life to someone else? Why struggle? Why continue on in such pain and misery and anxiety?

I spent last night grieving my wet-headed, ninja kitty again, though it's been over a year. But there's such guilt there. I knew something was wrong with him. I could tell he wasn't making his jumps, his balance was off, he was sleeping all day... And we laughed at him for being clumsy. And we didn't take him to the vet for over a week because we didn't have the money to spare. And by then, he was so sick. There was nothing we could do, except make the difficult decision, stand by him until his heart stopped. I was hysterical with tears, and was again last night, remembering it. What is it that we do here? That we can believe in to weather such things? What can we do except make up stories to give us hope, to ease the grief, to find some explanation.

But there is no explanation. There is no knowing. We are robots: our body working in set sequences until it can't anymore. We are conscious, yes, and we have free will, but what does it lead us to? So, individually, we choose what we live for: the love of family and friends, the love of a partner, the satisfaction of living life on our own terms, the pride of being successful. Each of us must find some reason to go on, else why bother? And it's during times like this I can understand those who choose suicide. What is it all for in this shallow, shadow world we live in? Tired, and alone, and depressed, how can we choose to go on when we see so clearly? What if we cannot find that one thing worth living for?

And despite this, there are moments I want to believe, but I catch myself. Even in my dreams, when I die, there is nothing. I'm alive, and then I'm not, and everything is blackness. Only once did I dream that I died, and having died in one existence, found myself in another, parallel existence, living another life in another consciousness that was like my own, but not. And perhaps we live that way, on parallel plans of existence, time meaning nothing. Or maybe the true blackness is inside of me, an empty void of loneliness. And maybe I'm grieving for myself as much as I am for my cat, my marriage, my father, my grandmother. All I know is that I cannot understand the struggle, and that I am lonely in my lack of belief.

2:15 p.m. Run to the Water

And as quick as that, I've this sudden compulsion to run to the water. I wish it could be the Chesapeake, salt water, water wide and deep with the tang of salt and wind and weather. I will ask Jb for that tonight, to take me to the water this weekend. Great Falls, somewhere. Water calms and centers me the way few things do. I don't know why that is, but I need it.

There was water last night of a different kind: a storm that sparked from the heat in the air. Only thunder and lightning for the longest time. Jb went out to smoke and watch it coming on. I've been trying to cut back, so I stayed in, but it was brilliant enough for Jb to come get me. 10 p.m. and we're sitting under the awning on the steps of the house, watching the wind whip up the trees, following the lightning strikes in the sky, counting out the thunder, and I lean against his shoulder and remember why it is I love him. We stay like that until the clouds finally let loose with large plops of raindrops that almost instantly leave you soaked. I still feel numb and withdrawn, but nature is large enough, for a brief moment, to flutter up a memory of wonder and awe.

Slippery Slope

I'm heading for a depression. I can feel it coming on. I've lost interest in most everything again: reading, computer games, movies, sex, going places, doing things. I am angry at myself about this, so I'm cranky all the time and restless. Sometimes, instead, I'm listless and passive. The IBS and GERDs is acting up as well. I'm beginning to stress about things like Jb coming home at night. While other things, I don't care about at all: like whether the bills get paid, whether we have money or not, whether we have food or not. When Jb tries to ask me about these things, I get annoyed, short with him. He is constantly yelling at me for snapping at him. My temper and patience are nonexistent. I resent Jb's intrusion into my "world." More and more, he says things to me like, "You know, maybe you should try living here in reality, like everybody else."

This morning, on waking, I remember having a very vivid dream about living in a city with Hitler and being somehow close to him. Because he's a despot and mercurial of mood, everyone is always on eggshells around him, not wanting to curry his disfavor. I am someone he favors, and even I am very careful about what I do and say. It is stressful, this living on the edge, never knowing whether he'll be kind or cruel. And he can be very kind, as well as very cruel. There is a small resistance in the town. They know each other by the books they read. But those loyal to Hitler know them by the books they read as well. I try to sneak past a Hitler supporter with one of these books tucked among many. I make it, barely, out to a terraced park full of students and wildflowers, and there are two women who oversee the whole body of supporters. L-----, from the psych ward, is there in my dream. She screams out at a line of nuns who walk past the park; she was always screaming out about freedom and being closed in.

The dream is telling. I am having a hard time dealing with being home all day, then having Jb come home and disrupt my little world. It's like Jayne says in Firefly, "[He] damages my calm." It also sends me back to my childhood--when I lived in fear of my mother's moods, never knowing what they might be from minute to minute. I have to admit to myself that I've felt this way for the last year or so. Even when Jb was picking me up from work, the last hour of work, before I knew he was coming, I'd start to get sick to my stomach, I'd taste cigarettes in my mouth, and my IBS would suddenly flare up, so that I missed almost a half hour of work at the end of the day, every day. I think, perhaps, this is an inability to deal with change on a small, localized scale. And like in my dream, I used to escape into books. But since the hospitalization, I've had trouble concentrating enough to read them, except in small snippets.

Jb also gets on my ass--understandably so--about not having started to unpack. I took a week off because I needed it after the move, but I've no energy for it. It's been up near the 100s this week, so I tell myself it's because it's been so hot and I've been trying to keep the A/C off during the day. But the truth is that I simply don't have the motivation to do it. And Jb's losing patience with me. We had another fight last night. He told me that I've ruined every night so far in the new apartment, that I no longer participate in our relationship. And I'm left hurt and shamed and guilty and small--and angry at him for making me face the truth. I wish, sometimes, I could not listen. That I could wrap the bubble of my quiet day alone around me.

I cannot blame Jb, though. He is working hard, for both of us. He has every right to resent what he must see as my laziness. And it's like work all over again. How many times can you say, "I don't feel well," before they begin to look at you askance, like you're lying, or making it up. Depression isn't an excuse, but it comes across as one. Unless you've been there, deep and alone, you cannot ever truly understand what it feels like. Mild depression is not the same as major depression. Trying to follow each mood swing is exhausting. Depression is depleting. You are told, expected, to be this or that, but you can't be. Part of you no longer even cares that you can't be. Another part of you is angry and bitter, guilt-ridden and ashamed. And still, even though you want to meet someone's expectations, you can't. The will to try sputters and flags like a flame about to go out, and you're left feeling helpless, and you know it's all you're fault. You are the one who is broken. You are the one who is wrong.

7:45 p.m. Up and Down the Merry-Go-Round

It can be the best day one minute, then one song -- one song -- and my eyes are burning, my heart's aching, and something in my stomach turns sour. I want a cigarette more than life, and even then, the tears start to well up.

Early in the day, Jb and I drive out to Cracker Barrel. All the way there and back we listen to country, Dave Carter and Tracy Grammer, my music, and sometime in the last few weeks, Jb's bothered to listen to some of it, has learned to appreciate some of the songs. It means so much to me that the car flies down the highway, the wind blows in the windows, and everything is green, lush, flowing. And I'm happy; I'm content. Nothing sparkles, the colors don't glow vibrant, so intense they light up my heart, and the pure feeling, the feeling of the moment doesn't overwhelm, doesn't fill me to the brim, not like it used to. And I miss it. The day has been beautiful. I recognize that, appreciate it, but I miss the ecstasy of it. I miss the unnatural high.

We come home, and suddenly, I can't stand being here in the dark when the day's so beautiful. I get antsy, something beneath my skin starts to itch, for the sunlight, for relief. Waiting on Jb, I'm surfing YouTube and I'm watching some Firefly montage to "Ain't No Reason" by Brett Dennen, a song I've never heard before, and it hits home unexpectedly:

There ain’t no reason things are this way.
Its how they always been and they intend to stay.
I can't explain why we live this way, we do it everyday.
Preachers on the podium speakin’ of saints,
Prophets on the sidewalk beggin’ for change,
Old ladies laughing from the fire escape, cursing my name.
I got a basket full of lemons and they all taste the same,
A window and a pigeon with a broken wing,
You can spend your whole life workin’ for something
Just to have it taken away.
People walk around pushing back their debts,
Wearing pay checks like necklaces and bracelets,
Talking ‘bout nothing, not thinking ‘bout death,
Every little heartbeat, every little breath.
People walk a tight rope on a razor's edge
Carrying their hurt and hatred and weapons.
It could be a bomb or a bullet or a pen
Or a thought or a word or a sentence.

There ain't no reason things are this way.
It's how they always been and they intend to stay
I don’t know why I say the things I say, but I say them anyway.
But love will come set me free
Love will come set me free, I do believe
Love will come set me free, I know it will
Love will come set me free, yes.

Prison walls still standing tall,
Some things never change at all.
Keep on buildin’ prisons, gonna fill them all,
Keep on buildin’ bombs, gonna drop them all.
Working your fingers bare to the bone,
Breaking your back, make you sell your soul.
Like a lung that’s filled with coal, suffocatin’ slow.
The wind blows wild and I may move,
The politicians lie and I am not fooled.
You don't need no reason or a three piece suit to argue the truth.
The air on my skin and the world under my toes,
Slavery stitched into the fabric of my clothes,
Chaos and commotion wherever I go, love I try to follow.

Love will come set me free
Love will come set me free, I do believe
Love will come set me free, I know it will
Love will come set me free, yes.

There ain't no reason things are this way
It’s how they always been and they intend to stay
I can't explain why we live this way, we do it everyday.

It brings me down to a level I haven't been at for almost two weeks now. I'm ready to cry. I can't understand the meaning of it all, and everything seems momentary: this too shall pass, this too shall pass. But no one ever acknowledges that also means that this happiness, that passes, too. And we're left on the up and down of a merry-go-round, holding tight to a pole, sometimes brave enough to reach for the brass ring, but mostly so frightened that all we can do is hold on tight and close our eyes and wait for the world to stop.

The worst is that I remember the hospital again. I remember how faithful Jb was, coming every night for that single hour they allowed visitors, and twice on the weekend. Every time he came, and when he left, the girls in the ward made such fun of me: "You know he loves you; you can see it in how he looks at you," "Oo, J-----, hug me, too!" Even the nurses, one of them noting how'd come in the middle of the night to bring me something when I couldn't, and hadn't, slept for three nights in row. She told me if he didn't so obviously love me, she might have a go at him.

Half the women in ward sat in group and talked about love, failed relationships, divorce, and every single one of them got a sort of hungry look when Jb was with me, as if they'd give their selves for something, for someone, to look at them like that, to make life more bearable. And all I could think, swallowed by the deep water of depression and lost to the currents of my own thoughts, was that love couldn't fix me. I had the perfect boyfriend; he loved me, was there for me, supported me in ways I'd never expected anyone to support me. But love couldn't fix me.

1:45 Happy?

Jb's home. We're playing World of Warcraft. Priest and shaman. PvP. We're laughing. The cat's cute. Playful. She swats the "logoff" key on Jb's keyboard, and we're laughing as he has to reboot.

Ten minutes later, it's a numb sort of happiness, as if it's been blunted, or submerged under water. It's still there. I know I'm content, doing well, fine. But over that, there's a certain distance. As if knowing and feeling are separate functions.