Depressed? Who me?

In honor of World Mental Health Day

In Honor of World Mental Health Day:

(But first: I accidentally left the house in two Care Bear themed articles of clothing. While I feel like one article says “cute fun!”, I feel like two says, “you good?”😅)

I went through a period of time where I felt like the world was behind glass. Even though my life was technically in tact— I loved my husband, my kids were delightful, my work was productive, and I had supportive friends— life felt really reallly hard. I was convinced I just needed more sleep. I was convinced that if we as a society would just stop killing each other and commit to feeding hungry people then this weight on my chest would probably go away.

I didn’t realize I was depressed. Sad, moody, difficult? Maybe. But depressed? Meh. I think I thought that being me just had its ups and downs. And this was certainly a DOWN.

But I kept feeling progressively worse until one day I got an alarming screen time notification and did some simple math around how long it had been since I’d done some very basic hygiene and realized something needed to give.

I agreed to talk to someone. I went in noncommitted. A little breezy. I told her I was just feeling things I didn’t want to feel. That was all. She nodded understandingly and said our emotions can be used like a compass. “Emotions point us to what we want, what we need.” That seemed reasonable.

As I started to share more, I worried I was boring her. You probably hear some really dramatic stories and here I am with a pool in my backyard. She kindly said that people are only boring to her if they’re trying to hide, if they’re not telling the truth. There’s no hierarchy of pain, she said pointedly. In fact, she said, eyes locked on mine, I have found that people often minimize their own problems. You’re not boring me, sweetheart. Go on.

So I finished. She leaned back and thought a minute. I thought she was about to reference theories, quote philosophers, give opinions, weigh in, but instead she carefully offered this:

“It sounds to me like you’ve been really depressed.”

And the declaration felt like church bells.

Why are we so hesitant to name it? Sometimes we just need someone to help us NAME IT. I’m not bad, I’m not weird. I just have a thing and that thing is not the same thing as me.

My therapist helped me realize there are truths I already know and depression was acting as a barrier to what I already knew. Dpression threw in a despairing voice, a hateful voice that told me lies about myself and others and it muddied the waters of what I believed in. In just two visits a therapist helped me know what to turn down and what to turn up. She helped me remember I have the power to change a station because … Depression is a terrible antennae.

My therapist held up a mirror and showed me something about myself. And I believed her. I think it helped that she didn’t love me. She was just doing her job. I told her about what wasn’t working and she made me feel validated by marveling at how functional I had been anyway. She made me feel normal by assuring me that emotional struggles are a normal part of being a person in this world.

My healing is always ongoing and I certainly don’t mean to imply that Depression is under my perfect control but there have been a handful of things that helped/ are helping me.

*An attentive husband.

*Good friends who refuse to give up.

*Being creative

*Volunteering

*Perfume (sometimes it’s the little things)

*Moving my body again

*The right meds

*Downtime with my kids

and

*A little talk therapy

Talk therapy is more than sitting on a couch and baring it all to someone with empathetic facial expressions. It’s collaboration, each person with a job to do. It’s people connecting within their roles.

After my experience, I was telling my friend how quickly a conversation with a professional cut to what I had been trying to mull around for months, maybe even years and she said, “Yeah, you can’t pretend for very long with a good therapist.”