“Seether” hits differently as a middle-aged woman.

As a 16 year-old, I was obsessed with the song from Veruca Salt, with its hard-hitting guitar, sick riffs, and angry lyrics – but I was a bit mystified by who exactly the seether was.

I saw it as someone or something outside of her, trying to control her or change her actions – which makes total sense, seeing as how the rage of teenage years is totally self-righteous and almost always directed outside of oneself.

A nasty break-up. Parents trying to tighten the leash. Managers not giving us enough shifts or pay.

Now, as a middle-aged woman with real reasons for rage, I see that the seether is within me.

In January 2020, I had hit the bottom of a very low low. Not as bad as, but the lowest I’d been since, post-partum depression.

Two and a half years earlier, I had weaned myself off the antidepressants I’d been on for nine years. It was a combination of that often false sense of good health that medication management can give you and refill snafus. In the ultimate combination of Yankee can-do attitude/Catholic flagellation, I figured it was time I was healed enough to handle it on my own.

And I was, for a while.

Whether the meds hung around in my system for awhile or my naturopathic/lifestyle aides helped or I got worse in only slight increments, I was doing okay. Until the increments started stacking up the other way and there was such a big pile of mess, I was fucking depressed. Like bad.

I relived the ridiculous feeling of failure/guilt that I felt the first time I went on meds and went to see a psychiatrist nurse practitioner for the first time.

My anxiety for this appointment was beyond. I was all wrapped up in avoidant behaviors, irrational thoughts, nerves, worry. Of course I was running late. Of course there was road construction blocking the entrance to the building I stared at as the clock ticked by. Of course it was raining as I realized I parked in the wrong lot and rushed my then toddler over the adjoining stone wall. Of course I busted into a podiatrist’s office like a crazy woman to get directions to Unit 8.

When I arrived breathless and sweaty at the reception window, the sanctimonious office manager asked me how I was doing. I think he actually thought he was creating a pleasant atmosphere. I was so amped up with anxiety, for once, I answered honestly.

“Horrible.”

I still haven’t figured out whether he had no personality or I set the tone for our relationship with my snarky response.

Late that afternoon, when my husband had returned from work and all the kiddos were settled, I stole away to a quiet coffee shop for a writing session. I still hadn’t processed all the high-energy feelings from the day. I was likely feeling some sort of post-adrenaline slump. I managed a journal entry and this.

I knew it wasn’t enough for the blog that usually helped me think through major mental health journeys. But it was all I could muster. It was all I had.

I was devastated by the complete control my irrational thoughts and fears had over me. And that was coming at the tail end of a harrowing descent into depression.

Periodically, over the last four years (that also included a worldwide pandemic, Holy Mother of God), that little table in its dim corner, complete with coffee cup, has come to mind. The incompleteness of my thoughts that day – and since. How that is a story I have needed to tell. But haven’t been able to. How I should go back to the beginning of this latest cycle – but haven’t been ready to.

I still don’t know if I am.

But “Seether” helped me recognize the strength and sorrow of that rage within.

Perhaps it’s time to process it – and harness it.