I just achieved a recovery milestone. I kind of feel like I am “aging out” of relatability. I have been around for so long that nothing should go wrong, I have amassed a trunk load of tools, I have practiced the principles for a while and, face it, I’m old! What could possibly be going on for me? I don’t’ have a lot of problems that younger women, newcomers, people in the middle of their life have. Or do I?
I do have a life that I would never have imagined for myself. I have a calling / a career that is meaningful to me. I have a family who loves me - yes, I take that in - they love me. I am in good health and I have a comfortable and cute home. So why would the dark dog of depression ever visit? I don’t know. It just does.
I try to reach out. After the smiles and “how are you’s”, I assess if it is the time, person or place to ask for a real response. If I have waited too long, the outer mask is too firmly in place and I cannot reach out. Or perhaps their story pours forth first and I find myself in a position of being support rather than supported (their pain is always measured by me to be greater than my own.) This is all on my side of the street. I know the nicest people and they would be there for me if only I knew how to ask.
If I have been walking around with the facade for too long I no longer know how to reach out. I am overwhelmed with numbness, with a sense of….it wouldn’t help anyway. I have quit most of my self-care practices and have sunk into daily TV watching in between all of my other activities. Then I cancel activities and sink into more enervation. Sometimes even books don’t distract me, sometimes all I can do is eat toast and move slowly from room to room unable to focus on or appreciate anything.
Sometimes I feel like I am that kid in the back of the room - wanting the teacher’s attention: waving and waving. Or the friend you don’t see across the street, that dear heart who has spotted you, but the sun in your eyes or you without your glasses see nothing, as they wave and wave. My pain is there….waving and waving. And it isn’t for attention but because I am desperately seeking help.
I look sturdy to others, my smile blinks on and I motor around when I am at my appointments and classes. I don’t complain much. I don’t’ know how to explain that even with the marvelous life I have, I have lost my spark, my desire, my appreciation. Old words come back to me, things I have heard in my youth, things hammered into my skull in past abusive relationships, words that I have then taken on to repeat to myself as the background music of my days. I desperately need some tool to slip a gear, hop a sprocket, get out of the groove of criticism and flagellation.
The good news is that it passes for me. I do have tools and I have reminders all around. I have luckily never fallen so far that I didn’t attend a meeting at some point during the week, I haven’t cancelled all my classes or appointments, that I have isolated for more than a few days. So little by slow, the clouds part and I start doing healthy things, eating a few more servings of live foods, and, in fact, begin to forget how bad it has been. I also have my therapist’s phone number still in my phone. I haven’t seen her in a while but I know she is there if I need her.
This is what my “knowing big girl” tells me: “depression coupled with addiction, or addiction as a response to depression is toxic, sad, and can be fatal. Reach out, get help, find help, be helpful, ask for help. Make it clear you are not waving.”
And one last thing: sharing. Sharing with another, even in a forum such as this, can help speed up the transition for toast and couch, to tea and conversation. I am learning that, no matter how sturdy I look, I am tender and deserve to be supported.
“I was much too far out all my life
And not waving but drowning.”
BY STEVIE SMITH 1902-1971
