Define Depressed

I am depressed.

I previously wrote a brief history, or encapsulation, of my depression and tried to give reasons as to why I am suddenly talking, or writing, about it.

I don’t know how obvious it is that a depressed person is depressed; I don’t know if some of you reading this are shocked that I am, or surprised, or for how many that sort of makes sense, given my peculiar personality and demeanor. All I know is, I tried to keep a lid on my particular problem for a long time and now I am coming right out and saying it: I’m depressed.

But I also don’t know how many of you actually understand what that even means. I guess the general understanding is the “blues” and not the cool music from Harlem, New Orleans, or Kansas City, but a glum, sort of not happy feeling. Some people say they feel “down” or “sad” or that they are “in a funk” and by all these terms mean that they are depressed. The word itself means “in a physically lower position, having been pushed or forced down” and, secondarily, “in a state of general unhappiness or despondency” which sort of makes sense. In a literal, physical sense, if you push down on something you are depressing it. A depressed personality is one that feels pushed down. I have no unique claim to this feeling. As I’ve mentioned, many people are familiar with a blue, pushed down feeling, at least, for a period of time.

I am more than depressed. I am clinically depressed. All that means is my depression is a condition. It is a mental health problem. Like alcoholism, it is something you are born with or can develop through no fault of your own. It doesn’t go away. It doesn’t really get better. Wikipedia says it this way:

“Depression is a state of low mood and aversion to activity that can affect a person’s thoughts, behavior, feelings and physical well-being. Depressed people may feel sad, anxious, empty, hopeless, worried, helpless, worthless, guilty, irritable, or restless. They may lose interest in activities that once were pleasurable; experience loss of appetite or overeating, have problems concentrating, remembering details, or making decisions; and may contemplate or attempt suicide. Insomnia, excessive sleeping, fatigue, loss of energy, or aches, pains or digestive problems that are resistant to treatment may be present.”

My life is a constant haze of pain and darkness. I have daily headaches, frequent back and joint pain, and never feel quite right. Mentally, everything seems black, which is really hard to describe to those who have no idea what that is like. In trying to explain it, I came up with a metaphor. I am not sure how helpful it really is, but it seems roughly analogous to me.

I live in a room. This room has a very low ceiling, no windows, no light, only a single door on one wall. Most of the time this door is shut and I am in darkness. Occasionally, this door is barely open, and I can dimly discern a hint of light. It is grey, smogish light, but light nonetheless. On bad days, the door is open, and there is light, but it is like looking through a translucent curtain. On ok days, the door is open and beautiful light pours through. This is fairy tale light, with little twinkling dust motes, and beyond, a far green country, a blue sky, and the most delicious warmth. But I don’t feel it. I am inside the room, and I can only see out. On good days, I stand right at the threshold to the door. I experience the wind, the light, the warmth, but dimly, like I’ve been novocained. On great days, I can get halfway outside the door. This is my mental habitat. Most days for me are somewhere between total darkness and bad days. I had a great day once, last month, the only one I’d had in months. Rarely I get ok days.

Another way I usually describe my depression is as a feeling of inertia. One of Isaac Newton’s laws of motion states that “an object at rest tends to stay at rest unless acted upon by an outside force” and that works for rocks and me. Unless I get a good push, I’m going nowhere. And for me, that push has to be disproportionately large. I sit around. I stare at nothing. Sometimes I walk across the room, just to walk back. I stare out the window and think about nothing. I have no motivation, even less inclination. Like Wikipedia says, I feel empty and restless. Things I know I love and enjoy seem hollow. The gloss and the shine is gone. I think of a hundred things to do and spend three hours deciding to do none of them. A day is an unending string of exhausting moments spent doing nothing.

But I don’t choose to live this way. There is no conscious choice. Conscious choice is a fantasy, a thing hoped for, the incentive waiting at the end of the decathlon. I have to work hard and strenuously to get to the point where I can make a conscious choice about something.

Deep inside my mind, the real me still lives. Like Thor (in the Avengers), trapped in the Hulk’s cage, there is thick glass and 30,000 feet of empty air beneath me. But inside that prison, a half-remembered me slams a hammer against the wall, fighting for freedom. I remember what it was like to love things, to derive pleasure. To really enjoy to write, or to build with LEGO, or to revel in the physicality of movement. I have hundreds of creative ideas: pictures I want to take, paintings to be splashed on canvas, stories to write down, LEGO creations to build, crafts to construct, but they all bounce off the ceiling and crash into a pile of their mates at my feet until the weight of them smothers me. And I catch my breath and realize that I am in an empty glass cage staring at 30,000 feet of air.

What a bleak picture. Usually I don’t notice, because as I’ve said before, this is normal for me. This is my everyday experience. I’ve gotten used to it. I hardly know how to react when the depression lifts and I can think clearly again, it is such an unusual experience. Remember that great day I said I had, once in many months? I spent half of it wondering what had drastically gone wrong while I slept. Feeling happy, coherent, lucid, and unburdened scared the hell out of me. It felt so very, very wrong. Eventually I stopped thinking about it and just enjoyed it, having a great day, but I knew it wouldn’t last. I also knew that no matter what, I had to get to a point where that was the new normal.

But that seems so far away, and to be an insurmountable challenge.

Even this, writing about my depression, seems weird. Not the writing about the depression thing, but the writing thing. I wanted to do it. I am doing it. In a few minutes I will have done it. This doesn’t usually happen. It might be another few months before I write again. I have no way of telling, and I have no way to make this happen again. Sometimes I can break through, mostly I can’t.

I’ve developed patience. Depression is a waiting game. Without help, and usually drugs, I am helpless against it. All I can do is stand in my room, wait in my glass prison, and watch life pass me by, waiting for those few times when I can step outside of my depression and experience something resembling happiness, which I take for all I can, because at any moment I can be kicked off the ride.

So when I say that I am depressed, that is usually what I mean, generally speaking.