I've been thinking about this . . .

[pegkerr]

I've been thinking a great deal this week about something that rachelmanija wrote near the end of her excellent three-part essay about her experience with PTSD:

Don't fall in love with your own beautiful suffering.

There is a tendency among people who have had a mental illness for a long time to fall in love with their own suffering. There is a tendency among people who have suffered to think that their scars make them beautiful.

Be careful of this. There is a fine line between healthy pride and joy in survival, and the arrogance and self-righteousness of feeling, as Naruto's Sasuke might say, "more special than you." There is a fine line between taking a clear-eyed look at your illness and how it relates to your self, and luxuriating in the sense of being too broken and sensitive for this cold cruel world.

You will not want to get better if you think that your illness is what makes you special. You will not be able to fully appreciate the present if you think that your dark past is the most interesting thing about you. You will never get rid of your symptoms if you're too thrilled by their drama. This is something I have to watch carefully in myself.

And, yes, there's another fine line between deglamorizing suffering and disrespecting it. I'm just saying: be cautious around those lines. Leave the beautiful suffering to the characters you write and read and watch. It's a lot prettier onscreen than inside you.

This is the time of year that I watch myself very carefully for signs of depression (I'm prone to seasonal-affective disorder). I am very deliberate about taking my walks outside, thinking of my doses of sunlight as being like a prescription that I must take every day. I know that I'm under special stress this year because of the unemployment situation, and so I have been taking extra steps. For example, I have been hectoring the family more than usual to keep the house picked up, since I know that living in messy conditions is one of the worst possible things for my mental health. I'm trying to eat right. I'm going to karate class to get some hard exercise. I'm taking my pills faithfully, and checking in regularly on the state of my mental health with my psychiatrist, my best friend kijjohnson, and with the mental health coordinator at church.

But despite all these precautions, I recognize the signs that all is not well. I feel so gray and desolate that I am having great difficulty writing anything in my paper journal, and I'm self-consciously fearing that people are reading these entries here in this LJ and feeling nothing contempt for me because I'm so pitiful/boring/banal, etc. I had a mini-breakdown earlier in the week when I called my mother-in-law in tears over Rob's job hunt. My mood has stabilized somewhat since then, but all I want to do is to read fanfiction obsessively, to the point that I'm stinting myself on sleep, and I snap irritably at people who interrupt me. Some people anaesthetize themselves with alcohol. I use reading, I guess.

I think that Kij and I have been talking elliptically around this for the past few months in our phone conversations. Oh my god, I'm so tired of this. Why does it never get better? Why do I have to keep dealing with this same old same old mental crap? Is it impossible for me to be happy, or am I just going through a run of bad luck? Do I want to be unhappy? Or is it simply that I'm dealing with depression because my life is so damn stressful right now, and ANYONE who is dealing with what I'm dealing with would feel the same way? If I'm doing everything right to treat my depression, why do I still feel this way? This isn't fair!

I am a woman who deals with clinical depression. It took me years to fully understand this, but now that I do . . . has this idea woven itself so deeply into my self-conception that I'll never be better, never believe myself to be healed because I don't want to be? Am I clinging deliberately to misery for some reason? And if not, if this isn't something I'm doing to myself, will I ever be truly well?

Is it possible for me to just be normal someday?

*thinks some more*

*shit*

Comments

[dichroic.livejournal.com]

I think if you wanted to keep yourself depressed, you wouldn't be checking in for not one but three outside opinions.

I hope Rob's job hunt bears fruit very soon so you can go back to dealing with a more normal stress level. That's enough to deal with, for you at this time of year.

[dichroic.livejournal.com]

Correction: Big, juicy, bountiful fruit.

[huladavid.livejournal.com]

"Don't fall in love with your own beautiful suffering"

THANK YOU for this!

'...and I'm self-consciously fearing that people are reading these entries here in this LJ and feeling nothing contempt for me because I'm so pitiful/boring/banal...

Hardly. Frankly, I think you're one of the people who keeps me sane, and it help to know that someone in a relationship, and has a job, and is creative also takes pills and is prone to SAD.

This helps me to believe that I can have a relationship, and a job and express my creativity.

So, thanks, ya ol' light in the big darkness, you!

[vass]

Depression is not fair, and not your fault. You do not seem to me to be wallowing in it. You're exercising, you're holding down a job, you're cooking, you're looking after three other people, you're spending time in the sunlight.

The fanfic binging (and I'm familiar with that behaviour from the inside) is a symptom, that's all.

I know you don't want to be depressed. And I think it's tempting to blame yourself for it, partly because self-blame comes with the depression territory, but also because it gives one the illusion of control, lets you think you have a choice about being depressed, which might seem better than having this stupid *thing* to deal with.

You are caring for yourself, and taking steps to treat the depression. I don't see what more you can do to not be depressed short of pretending you're not - which would be denial, and crossing the other line rachelmanija mentioned, about disrespecting yourself, your illness, and your own efforts at self-care - and in the process cutting yourself off from support.

I'm sorry. I know it's not good either way.

[cindysilver.livejournal.com]

This is gorgeous.

"There is a tendency among people who have had a mental illness for a long time to fall in love with their own suffering. There is a tendency among people who have suffered to think that their scars make them beautiful."

Yes, yes. When my first major episode came to a head, at the oh-so-tender age of 16, I thought wouldn't like to take medication, because it would "change my soul". And I fought it, not because I didn't want to get better, but because I loved my sadness. Upon introspection, I decided to take the medication, and see what happened. I haven't looked back since, and I turn 26 in the spring. Mostly I've been okay, no major episodes, but some dysthymia from time to time, needing medication adjustments and a little motivation. Usually in the winter (so I feel your SAD there).

The only problem is... when I was 16 and worried about this, I was right. My soul is different when I'm not "PTSD and Major Depression". I haven't written -anything- beautiful since I was a teenager. I'm not as creative on the meds. I'm not as mysterious or alluring. It makes me wistful when I read the novel I wrote in my late teens, read the poetry, the gorgeous journal entries -- and know that I'm just not really capable of that sort of process anymore.

But. I ALSO don't want to -die- anymore. So.. I suppose the trade-off is worth it.

I'd rather live a non-creative life than no life at all.

I just wanted to share that you're not alone in this, not alone at all.

[cakmpls.livejournal.com]

Is it possible for me to just be normal someday?

(Since you phrased this as a question, I'm presuming that it's OK to address it.)

I think a lot depends on what you mean by "normal." I'm not convinced that "normal" actually exists in terms of mental and emotional health. One can describe the state of [happiness, stress, sadness, productivity, whatever] in which a plurality of people live (though it's according to self-reporting, which is notoriously unreliable), but in some cases such a "normal" state may not be one that most people, given a choice, would choose. (I think, for example, that in this sense it is "normal" for white American women and girls to dislike their physical appearance.)

Only you, with the help of your mental health professionals, can determine whether you are deliberately clinging to misery. When people do that, it isn't, I think, a question of wanting to be unhappy, but of wanting to continue a behavior or maintain a worldview that is in conflict with other needs/wants/goals, and the conflict is creating the unhappiness.

As always, I wish you well.

[zephyrious.livejournal.com]

FWIW, it sounds like you're doing all the right things. Sometimes that's enough, sometimes it isn't. At least one can count on the season to change, and I hope other good changes happen too!

I use words as anesthetic too. I think it was a habit developed during all those hours reading a hidden book at school.

[teacherla.livejournal.com]

Peg,

I've had a lot of similar thoughts over the last couple of years. I've come to realize that there can be a fine line between therapeutic confession (writing feelings down to be rid of them) and...well, wallowing is too unkind a word; the other possibility is the obsessive tracing-over of wrongs and hurts, which I think of now as an insinuating habit one acquires when one is really, truly at the mercy of one's chemicals. I've noticed that sometimes, when a particularly low phase passes off, it takes me a day or two to realize that I don't have to feel like that anymore--that I can begin to think about other things. One can get used to being miserable, in a strange way, just because coping with misery forces one to structure all one's other habits around that fact. Then it's hard to change when one finally gets the opportunity.

In your case it's especially hard, I would think, since you do have real-life factors that would cause stress to even the most chipper person.

The best I've ever been able to do was to try to choose positive distractions (walks, coffeeshops with people), rather than negative ones (eating cookies or staring at the TV).

[kijjohnson.livejournal.com]

You know, that is the question and I ask it of myself a lot, too -- have I been wallowing in my pain/trauma/depression? Am I choosing to feel those things, for whatever reason? While the knee-jerk response is, Of course not! Who would choose to feel like this? Feeling deeply depressed is not "interesting," it's not "wow, I'm so sensitive," it's not anything but horrible.

But the answer isn't as clear as that. I don't choose to feel these things. I struggle not to feel them: to move past them emotionally and to change my life so that I don't have to feel them in the future. That's what you're trying to do, too.

My take is that your life really does suck in some major ways, ways that would discourage and depress anyone; and it has done so for years. AND you're chemically depressive, so your body betrays you. AND, because you are a writer (shut up, yes you are), you are incapable of not turning over stones to see what's under them. Maybe you could have ignored them before you started writing, but professional training has made this nearly impossible. Maybe there is a small part of you that is getting something useful but destructive out of depression, but it's hard to even figure that one out when you have these other thintgs all going on -- I doubt if anyone could do that work.

You do the right things to address your depression: connect, exercise, try. But you've been in a three-year perfect storm; it's no wonder you fear your boat swamping.

[mizzlaurajean.livejournal.com]

I don't think anyone decides to be depressed, well okay maybe they do but most don't.
But many things we do and think contribute and feed into it and may have certainly fostered it's development. I think it varies from person to person depending on their experiences especially childhood because everything that happens contributes to the hormones your body releaes effecting mood and the types of neural connections you make.
You can certainly continue to mediate the effects of depression with the choices you make and the way you think. I've spent years retraining myself to think more possitively. Everytime I thought something bad about myself I made myself look in the mirror and say something good. etc. Now it's not like I'm never negative but it is not so pervasive I can't think possitively.

Depression is different for everyone, mine is episodic and brought on my major life changes, events but then can last for a few years. I know that each episode makes another more likely, I have two each lasting around 3 years, so I've worked to not let that happen. I have not let infertility take me down that dark road nor I have denied those feelings of sadness and loss.

You can certainly always work towards being whatever you define as normal it's better then just letting depression take over.

[mizzlaurajean.livejournal.com]

What do you think if would take to make you happy?

[naomikritzer]

You know, I would add to Rachel's insightful and interesting thoughts a random warning given to me by a friend once: "Don't read the DSM when you're depressed." She said she browsed through it while actually in the hospital for depression and diagnosed herself with every personality disorder in there (OMG I'm actually Borderline and everyone hates me, including my therapist, that probably explains why that one woman moved away...no wait, I'm taking credit for her moving away, that means I have Narcissistic personality disorder...) Don't fall in love with your beautiful suffering, but at the same time, when you're trying to be well and it's hard and you struggle, don't look at that statement and think, "It's all because I'm in love with my beautiful suffering and not trying hard enough." Because that's the depression talking to you, right there.

[nmalfoy.livejournal.com]

My depression is, as Winston Churchill put it, a big black dog. I hate it. But I'm lucky that there are antidepressants that work. My mother killed herself and it seems a waste that she did. That's a really good entry to linked to and it makes me think.

Are you taking anything? It really, really does help, and I've had to learn the hard way that no matter how much I *want* to get better on my own, I just can't without medication. But at least I can get out of bed now.

As to Rob's job hunt, would he consider working retail? Just on the floor? I don't know what it's like up there but down here *everyone* is hiring... department stores, gas stations, restaurants, movie theatres. What about teaching? I don't know Rob well so I don't know where his qualifications lie.

Hug yourself. Be good to yourself. You've got enough to deal with.

[naomikritzer]

Retail was what Rob got laid off from and I think Peg is desperately hoping for him to find something else.

[pegkerr.livejournal.com]

Yes, exactly.

[nmalfoy.livejournal.com]

That's what I guessed, but I thought maybe, if things got dire, he could at least find something temporary.

[pegkerr.livejournal.com]

You know, one thing I've realized over the years is that depression doesn't quite work the way you think it does when you ask this question. That's the "if only" mentality. "If only ___________, I wouldn't be depressed."

If only I sold a novel.
If only I had a job that I liked.
If only I had a baby.
If only I had a million dollars.

Well, I've sold a novel, and I've had a baby. Had two. Of each. I'm still working on the million dollars and a job that I like. But I've gradually come to realize that having what you think you want doesn't cure depression. Did you ever read the poem "Richard Corey" by Edwin Arlington Robinson?

WHENEVER Richard Cory went down town,
We people on the pavement looked at him:
He was a gentleman from sole to crown,
Clean favored, and imperially slim.

And he was always quietly arrayed,
And he was always human when he talked;
But still he fluttered pulses when he said,
"Good-morning," and he glittered when he walked.

And he was rich—yes, richer than a king,
And admirably schooled in every grace:
In fine, we thought that he was everything
To make us wish that we were in his place.

So on we worked, and waited for the light,
And went without the meat, and cursed the bread;
And Richard Cory, one calm summer night,
Went home and put a bullet through his head.

There are people who are fabulously rich and successful, who have everything they could possibly want, and yet they are miserably depressed. This seems so counter-intuitive, but I've become convinced that it is true. So I think that the only true answer to "What do you think it would take to make you happy?" is "different brain chemistry."

[pegkerr.livejournal.com]

We did talk about this very issue this week. My fear (and I think, knowing Rob, it is a very valid one) is that once he got into a job, any job, even one with horrible hours that doesn't pay enough, he would stay in it forever because he hates job hunting so much that he would put off looking for a better one more suited to our budget and family needs forever. I spent years begging him, literally begging him, to find a different job than the CompUSA one. It didn't pay enough, so we were going deeper and deeper into debt every year, and I fiercely resented how it stole practically all our family time. But he wouldn't do it. When he finally lost it, there was an element of, "well, now he HASto find something better. Thank god."

[mizzlaurajean.livejournal.com]

There is no cure all for depression that is true. But I think it helps to identify things that you think will help make you happy and try them out.

You know I wasn't really thinking about the outlandish if I were rich, more the everyday realistic things.

There are certainly things you can do that effect your brain chemistry and you do lots of those. But that doesn't mean there aren't some other things you could do as well that might also help.

[nmalfoy.livejournal.com]

As if the fates decided he'd done his time at CompUSA? Could be. I know you're glad to have him more at home now! What sort of work is he looking for?

[pegkerr.livejournal.com]

He is a licensed attorney, so he's trying to get back into the legal field. It's difficult, however, since he's been out of it for eight years. He is meeting with a headhunter today. Perhaps he can find something that combines his legal skills with computer skills. He really isn't suited to the sort of job where he is his own boss--he was in solo practice for a number of years and he just put off the administrative stuff because he hated it so.

We'll see what the headhunter says.

[qwyneth.livejournal.com]

I absolutely love that sentence. I hadn't finished the PTSD set of entries yet (we adopted a dog a week ago and I've been busy!); I'm so glad I didn't miss it.

From what you post, I cannot imagine that you are in love with your depression. You don't seek it out--quite the opposite, in fact. You study your emotions and behaviors looking for trends and triggers, and you do everything you can to prevent and treat. You are faithful with medication, you check in with your therapists, you get sunlight and exercise--you do everything within your power to keep the darkness from taking you over.

I have a friend who I rather believe has fallen in love with her misery. She seeks treatment, but only half-heartedly. She doesn't always tell doctors the truth, and she is quick to decide a medication has failed. For a long time she didn't see a therapist, only a psychiatrist for medication experimentation--a problem, because she desperately needed to sort through her issues with a professional. She married someone who was also mentally ill and very invested in his own misery--someone who does not support or sometimes even notice her desperate struggles. She refuses to tell her family--who are very supportive and understanding, her mother is even a psychologist--about her struggles. She harps on things that have past, refusing to process them with family and professionals and then let them go.

See? That's being in love with your misery. What you're doing is not, at least to my eyes.

Also, good luck with the meeting with the headhunter and the continued job search. I will continue to send out good, helpful, successful job hunting thoughts your way. :)

[lilisonna.livejournal.com]

I suppose it could be a different set of medications that helped with the brain chemistry.

Realizing that you have a family and friends and a social existence firmly rooted in where you live, have you considered moving? I know SAD was a strong reason for me to haul my depressed self down South, and mine (I think) wasn't nearly as crushing as yours. It may not be worth giving up the social life that you have; I have no idea. But the light in the southern states really does make a huge difference.

To continue the stuff

[markiv1111.livejournal.com]

Peg, you have received some excellent comments here. I want to add my alternative to the last verse of "Richard Cory" (probably my all-time favorite poem):

So on we worked, and waited for the trunk
And went without the branch, and cursed the root
And Richard Cory, sodden, stinking drunk
Went home and put a bullet through his foot.

One of the alternatives I sometimes come up with is find some way of laughing at the situation. This isn't always possible. But as a songwriter, I have had the unfortunate problem that some of my most effective songs are among the most depressed/depressing. If I play one of the real downers for a crowd and people like it, effectively I am getting positive reinforcements for negative feelings. The best way I have been able to deal with this has been to try to write funny ones too. As my friend Denny Lien once said, "Life today is no joke; therefore, let us make it one." And this isn't always under conscious control; I have to take my meds. (Yes, I'm on psych meds, and quite hefty doses.) One of the other things that can work when laughter isn't an option is to try to balance things. I can go four or five months without talking to people about the stuff in my life that really sucks, and then drop a bombshell that looks as if I want to be praised for being really, really depressed. It would probably make more sense if I talked about stuff on a low-key and ongoing basis, so that I never felt the need to attract attention by dropping the bombshell. (I am not quite a classic histrionic personality, but don't want to look like one even occasionally; there are better places for most of us to be, than to be the center of attention.)

But hang in there. I value you a lot and enjoy reading what you write, but I know there are people in this group of comments who are far better friends of yours than I am. Listen to them; there has been a lot of wisdom heading your way.

Nate B.

[sarekofvulcan.livejournal.com]

*takes notes for own reference*

But honestly, Peg, there is absolutely no contempt involved here. I admire your writing here, and how much your honesty comes through. You don't sugarcoat things: when things aren't good, you say it, and you say what you think you should do about it.

I anesthetize myself with Desktop Tower Defense, personally. My wife doesn't like it. :-(

[diatryma.livejournal.com]

I like you, even though I don't know you. You write thoughtful, interesting things about things I would like to know more about. Your life is filled with difficulty, which has its effects on you, but you share it with us and don't ask for much in return. You don't seem to be hanging on to your suffering, just hanging on through it.
I hope things are easier soon.

[vass]

but at the same time, when you're trying to be well and it's hard and you struggle, don't look at that statement and think, "It's all because I'm in love with my beautiful suffering and not trying hard enough." Because that's the depression talking to you, right there.

*points emphatically* Yes, that, right there.

[mayakda.livejournal.com]

I've been thinking about your post since yesterday. Spent a lot of time last night, in bed, thinking about it. Mostly angry on your behalf: depression is hard enough without adding guilt about loving your depression. Eh. I dose myself with reading, because I need to dose myself with something to numb the heart. Everything I do I do to survive. The mind is at its most basic rational. Depression may be keeping me alive.
Trudging along, heart heavy with grief, eyes shrouded by ghosts.
One foot in front of the other is enough. Don't have to paste a smile on for anyone.

Spike sings:
Life isn't bliss, life is just this, it's living.
You'll get along,
The pain that you feel, you only can heal by living.

[folk.livejournal.com]

You know, I went to see a headhunter the other week, and I mentioned my particularly bad episode of depression earlier this year. He said that he wasn't surprised that somebody with my background -- high levels of education, academic talent, high-flying jobs -- had encountered depression. In fact, he said, he'd be surprised if I hadn't.

One of the things I found most helpful during my stint of day therapy at a treatment centre was the simple identification with others. I find that depression is an incredibly isolating illness. Hearing others talk about their experience truly helped. Yes, I do ______ too. I sometimes ______. I hate myself when I ______ but I can't stop it. When I _______ it feels good but then I feel incredibly guilty afterwards.

I understand that 12-step groups can be helpful with reinforcing the belief that you're not alone in your illness. There might be an Emotions Anonymous (www.emotionsanonymous.org) meeting near you -- it might be helpful to get in touch or perhaps go to a meeting.

[aelfsciene.livejournal.com]

Thanks for making this post, Peg. I've been feeling very similarly, only have taken it far enough that I've stopped posting entirely, certain that nobody cares about "my bullshit" as I've started referring to the depression (which, I know, doesn't help at all). And my drug of choice is World of Warcraft. But yeah. This really, really resonated with me, and maybe even shook a couple of things loose, and I wanted to let you know both that I hear you and appreciate your writing about it.

[rachelmanija.livejournal.com]

I agree with this. Loving your beautiful suffering generally manifests as resisting treatment because you're afraid of losing your specialness... and you are getting treated, so that's clearly not the case with you.

[aminaofzaria.livejournal.com]

I just read this poem before I saw your entry.

Disbelief In Yourself is Indispensable - Yevgeny Yevtushenko

While you're alive it's shameful to worm your way into
the Calendar of Saints.
Disbelief in yourself is more saintly.
It takes real talent not to dread being terrified
by your own agonizing lack of talent.

Disbelief in yourself is indispensable.
Indispensable to us is the loneliness
of being gripped in the vise,
so that in the darkest night the sky will enter you
and skin your temples with the stars,
so that streetcars will crash into the room,
wheels cutting across your face,
so the dangling rope, terrible and alive,
will float into the room and dance invitingly in the air.

Indispensable is any mangy ghost
in tattered, overplayed stage rags,
and if even the ghosts are capricious,
I swear, they are no more capricious than those who are alive.

Indispensable amidst babbling boredom
are the deadly fear of uttering the right words
and the fear of shaving, because across your cheekbone
graveyard grass already grows.

It is indispensable to be sleeplessly delirious,
to fail, to leap into emptiness.
Probably, only in despair is it possible
to speak all the truth to this age.

It is indispensable, after throwing out dirty drafts,
to explode yourself and crawl before ridicule,
to reassemble your shattered hands
from fingers that rolled under the dresser.

Indispensable is the cowardice to be cruel
and the observation of the small mercies,
when a step toward falsely high goals
makes the trampled stars squeal out.

It's indispensable, with a misfit's hunger,
to gnaw a verb right down to the bone.
Only one who is by nature from the naked poor
is neither naked nor poor before fastidious eternity.

And if from out of the dirt,
you have become a prince,
but without principles,
unprince yourself and consider
how much less dirt there was before,
when you were in the real, pure dirt.
Our self-esteem is such baseness....
The Creator raises to the heights
only those who, even with tiny movements,
tremble with the fear of uncertainty.

Better to cut open your veins with a can opener,
to lie like a wino on a spit-spattered bench in the park,
than to come to that very comfortable belief
in your own special significance.

Blessed is the madcap artist,
who smashes his sculpture with relish-
hungry and cold-but free
from degrading belief in himself.


Translated by Antonina W. Bouis, Albert C. Todd

[corinnethewise.livejournal.com]

::hugs:: I have very little useful to add apart from echoing many of the very insightful things here. I have had a lot of friends who have had depression or EDs and I've seen relapses but also amazing recoveries. It's phenomenal how resilient we can be. I am hopeful for you.

[jcberk.livejournal.com]

Heaven knows electronic discovery is growing by leaps and bounds. Sounds like it could be possible - I hope so.

[kk1raven.livejournal.com]

You don't strike me as someone who is clinging to misery. Quite the opposite. I know a few people who seem to enjoy feeling miserable, or at least they enjoy talking about how they feel miserable and making sure everyone else knows they're miserable. You don't come off that way at all. If you're going to consider whether you're clinging to something, you might want to think about whether you're clinging to thought patterns or behaviors that lead to feeling depressed. A lot of people who are depressed seem to get trapped in ways of thinking and acting that keep them from doing things to make themselves feel better. That's a far cry from clinging to the depression itself though.