May 2013 was the first time I undertook a month-long theme of multiple posts to mark mental health awareness. Below are some of my posts from that series. A trip in the way back machine that explains a lot about my current state of mental health, motherhood, and life – and how I got here.
After I wrote my last post, I came across notes with the title of this entry.
From years ago.
Ironically, they referenced a book by Emily and Amelia Nagoski entitled, Burnout: The Secret to Unlocking the Stress Cycle.
Seriously.
I’d say you can’t make this shit up – but I literally did.
In fits and starts I have been working my way towards this puzzle – for years.
At the end of my last post, I said “I should go back to the beginning of this latest cycle”.
On some level, my mind, returning to that little coffee shop table repeatedly over the last few years, has known it needed release. That it’s been dragging around all the stress and feelings associated with that deluge of depression and fighting my way back to the surface. And three years ago, when I drafted this ‘mountain’ of notes, I even discovered a big part of why I haven’t been able to let go.
“Magazines tell us that if we just drink ten green smoothies a day, we’ll feel great and look great, our kids will say ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ and our boss will give us that promotion. And if none of those things happen, it’s because we failed to drink the ten green smoothies; it’s certainly not because of systemic bias.
The message is consistent and persistent – whatever is wrong, it’s your fault. It can’t be true that the whole rest of the world is broken or crazy; you’re the one who’s broken and crazy. You haven’t tried hard enough. You haven’t done the right things. You don’t have what it takes.”
Amelia Nagoski, DMA and Emily Nagoski, PHD
It was in the months/year leading up to January 2020 that I made my first ever attempt at bullet journaling – and it was to track the administration of my natural supplements. Increase to two DHA, take Zen GABA twice daily, add 5-HtP. The fact that I hadn’t ‘cured’ my anxiety and depression just meant that I was adhering to the protocol closely enough. And so I went into logistical overload to ensure I’d given it my best shot.
And I realized two things. That the supplemental schedule was untenable with all that my day already demanded of me – and that it wasn’t enough. While it did improve or ameliorate certain aspects, it did not destroy my depression.
But why couldn’t I trust my body, my own intel?
Obviously what bothered me in 2020 and since then is much bigger than a slender bottle of petite pills.
I still must work on releasing the emotional gak associated with that transition – but it plays into the larger cycle of self-actualization and acceptance I’ve been working through for the larger portion of my life.
Message around the other side of the mountain . . .
“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.
Last month, I had the opportunity to attend a suicide prevention training at my community hospital. I’d heard about it through their email newsletter and jumped at the chance to complete the training I’d had on my radar for at least a year. Finding MHFA training so beneficial, the extension of care specifically to those experiencing suicidality was something I was very interested in.
When I saw that some of the participants were apparently hospital staff extending their own professional knowledge, I was even more appreciative that they opened the class to the community – and that was before I met the instructor.
Dr. Robert Harrison had a long and dedicated career at Westerly Hospital as an Emergency Room physician – and that was after his service to the country in the United States Navy.
Now, he serves as director of the Washington County Zero Suicide Program.
As impressive a vitae as that, it was Dr. Harrison’s extensive knowledge of and empathy for people suffering from depression and slipping into the despair that can lead to death that was even more so.
He shared the staggering statistics of the mental health crisis of which our nation is currently in the grip.
Facts such as:
The suicide rate rose 33% from 2004 to 2021
Total deaths by suicide in 2021 were 48,183
Suicide is the 11th cause of death in the US; 3rd leading cause for 15-24 year-olds
The sobering facts of suicide, the stories of suffering could have gone on all evening, but Dr. Harrison shifted the focus during the second half of the presentation – to one of HOPE.
QPR, the steps of this process we could use to help those we suspect are suffering, is intended to provide hope through positive action.
By QUESTIONing, we can deduce whether a person is contemplating ending their life.
We can then PERSUADE them to get help, to find a hopeful solution to what seems like an ‘insoluble problem’.
Finally, we REFER them to professional help, either by taking them directly, making arrangements with them, or giving them referral info and getting a ‘good faith commitment’ that they will not complete or attempt suicide.
Having practical tools to apply in what seems like an unfixable situation is empowering. Depression IS terrifying. But to know that there are ways to stave off or circumvent its lying advances and urgings is the epitome of HOPE.
As striking as this revelatory information is, knowing that there are empathetic people who walk this earth and populate our hospital halls is even more amazing. The nuance and care with which Dr. Harrison shared his experience and information was moving; the witness he bore to pain and suffering and support of people who care was affecting.
In a mental health atmosphere where citizens don’t want to discuss the uncomfortable, practitioners aren’t armed with the skills to stave off suffering, and systems don’t support access or affordability – this conversation at Westerly Hospital one evening in October is one I won’t soon forget.
Yes, it served the professional development of my skills; it fortified the tools and resources in my fight for mental wellness – but it also filled my reserves of hope to overflowing.
At some point in my life between the end of high school and becoming a mother, when I had time to ponder and plan such things, I dreamed up the perfect playlists for various moods. I wanted to create mix-tapes (and then burned CDs) ready to roll on appropriate occasions. When getting amped up for an evening out, high energy dance numbers. When nursing a lonesome melancholy, low fi instrumentals and lyrics that reverberated deep in my soul. Either way, a continuous loop of pertinent music that did not necessitate the shuffling of CD cases or channels.
I remember especially wanting the low fi loop. I don’t think it was so much about maintaining that mood, but that only certain sounds were tolerable during it. If no person around me could understand how I felt, the aching melodies with which I resonated could at least reflect it. While I wallowed, I at least had a soundtrack and a companion.
As my own girls approached this age, my two oldest with wildly different tastes in music, the idea of emo came into being. Outside of the scoffing my husband and I made that it had all already been done in the name of goth, there was almost a mocking attitude toward this music and lifestyle. I got the sense that my kids and those their age who didn’t identify as emo feared turning so if they listened to the music.
The Cure fan in me was insulted. Why discount music based purely on the associated stereotype? Now, I was not defending Panic! At the Disco, but I felt it was dangerous to swear off an entire category of music and its fans simply because they were misunderstood.
And while I wore my darkness in the quiet of my teen bedroom ensconced in sound, such mocking obviously struck a chord. What about the kids who needed a musical companion to confront or survive the darkness inside?
That’s when I started wondering what came first: the Cure fan or the depressed teen? Boys (and girls) about to fall out or those who already down?
Was the music a crutch or did it egg the depresso on?
During a summer when my then three children were home on summer vacation, I discovered the book A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman. I loved it so much, I wrote extensively about it, but in describing its eponymous main character’s drastic means of dealing with his deep depression to a relative, she asked whether it was a good idea for someone dealing with her own depression to read such a novel. Ah, I scoffed, I’ve already been so freaking low, what else can happen? From then on, I read it with a ‘come at me’ attitude, daring the book to do its best.
Backman’s treatment of depression and the loneliness it breeds was achingly beautiful. He handled Ove’s character with such compassion and dignity – while also being starkly accurate. I appreciated the unflinching reality of the illness from which I also suffered. And yet, the realistic descriptions did bring back my own reality. Even in memory, the feelings were difficult to relive. Come at me, they did.
And so a few weeks ago, like a dolt, I plucked another questionable title for such a highly sensitive survivor as myself off the library shelf. The book jacket description of My Year of Rest and Relaxation by Ottessa Moshfegh –
“A shocking and strangely tender novel about a young woman’s efforts to duck the world by embarking on an extended hibernation with the help of one of the worst psychiatrists in the annals of literature and the battery of medicines she prescribes”
A Year of Rest and Relaxation by Ottessa Moshfegh
– piqued my mental health-abstract fiction-tragic hero-loving, meaning seeking self’s interest. Never mind that ‘ducking the world’ was high on my postpartum mother’s list. It was like Kramer’s portrait in Seinfeld.
“He is a loathsome, offensive brute. Yet I can’t look away.”
I wondered whether reading about a woman who obviously did not deal with her ennui by healthy means was a narrative I should entertain, but I threw it into my bag of books, alongside Clark the Shark and Elephant and Piggie.
By the time I’d powered through the three other books I’d selected – in hopes of inspiring juvenile summer reading, but ended up reading in moments stolen between snack-getting, screeching, and screen time – I’d forgotten what the fourth book at the bottom of the bag was.
Oh, I thought as I pulled it out.
Reading late at night and in a bleary-eyed early morning state may not have aided my digestion of this book. The end of the summer with kids all sick of each other and me with a new school looming over all of us may not have helped my self-esteem either. I mentioned my possibly poor choice of books to my therapist. She said, at the very least, you can reflect on how things could always be worse. Which made me laugh, of course.
Moods do tend to overcome me. Even other people’s. But if I pull myself out of the moment to take stock of my mood, especially in relation to everything else – the big picture as they say – I should be all right. Even with ennui and affective moods and music. I won’t blame my depression on Robert Smith just like I won’t become a psychotropic fiend a la the young woman having a year of rest and relaxation.
Just as flies didn’t issue forth from mud in medieval times, moody music doesn’t cause depression. Do people who suffer from low moods tend to gravitate toward such music? Perhaps. Would I be as compelled to read novels about mental illness if I didn’t suffer from a form of it myself? Probably not.
Everyone needs to be conscious of the media they consume – especially those who are highly sensitive.
As a child, I looked to the towering clouds, capped with billows, and imagined walking atop them like I’d watched the Care Bears do. I imagined that’s what heaven would be like when I got there someday. As a teen, Jonathan Livingston Seagull brought me such joy, such heights to which to aspire, the tips of his wings touched with light as he soared to such transcendent levels. As an adult, I watched birds glide on the wind, effortlessly floating above the rest of the world and its worries. I dreamed my own body could fly and always felt great disappointment when my legs started to drift back toward the ground. I gathered images and ideas for tattoos with silhouettes of birds, wings spread, to serve as a physical reminder of opening up, letting go, and ascending.
There is a line, though, where metaphysical musings turn into depression and anxiety.
I began to feel a great sadness watching birds wheel through the sky, their wide open wings and swooping motions a freedom I would never have. Watching the clouds edged with light filled me with a longing that I would never have the peace I imagined lived among their water crystals. No amount or configuration of ink etched on my skin would seep that sense of freedom into my soul.
And then as I sat on a shaded deck this morning, forcing myself to focus on a wisp of cloud and nothing else, staring into the middle distance, forcing all thoughts from my head or repeating a prayed mantra – a pair of birds streaked across, running a parallel line with the shore in front of me. Their pointed wings reminded me of the swallows with which I’ve been obsessed. They darted and swooped and disappeared behind a house a few doors down.
It occurred to me then that I can continue to stay focused on the peace and quiet in front of me while noticing the promise of freedom. I can long to be truly free, but that doesn’t stop me from embracing the joys in the here and now while I wait. I will not be free until my soul flies up to heaven, but I can open my heart now to accept what this life has to offer. I can use this time between now and then to wait and lament and be miserable or live in each moment mindfully soaking up what is there instead of not seeing it because I’m so fixated on what I don’t have.
“It’s all about the power of the mind,” he said. “The only thing that will make it go away is your own determination.” He ran his hand over the window ledge and frowned at the smudge on his fingers.
When Rosa was happy our house was filled with music. I could never imagine the silences returning. The light in her studio burned through the night. One summer she painted Corry Head. The gorse blazed like a fireball. Purple heather covered the rocks. She painted it with the mist falling down and hiding all of the color. I wondered if that was what her life was like. Always trying to escape from behind the mist.
–from “To Dream of White Horses” by June Considine
There is so much about his passage that speaks to me. The father’s misinterpretation of how it is to live with depression. The son’s seeming lack of information, yet more complete understanding. The descriptive pall the illness brings – both literally in the dust that builds up and metaphorically in the mist that envelops the person suffering.
Well into the afternoon, I felt the warm sun on my face, the air on my arms, the pull of muscles in my legs. For the first time all day.
It took all day to get up, get moving, get dressed, fed. And I only did it because the bus would be arriving at the end of our street, depositing two of mine I’d sent out into the world. The littlest had been my only saving grace all day, tucked under my arm on the couch, smiling up at me.
Holding her hand, toddling down the street in the sunshine, I wondered if perhaps God sent me children to save me.
From myself. From getting lost in the bottomless pit.
They haven’t made it easy. Sometimes annoying and painful. But they got me out into the sunshine yesterday – even if it was late in the afternoon.
Chopping Potatoes 