smile more

:: deep breath :: I have Depression.

I have been dealing with it as long as I can remember. Over the last several years, a healthy dose of Anxiety has been subtly (then not so subtly) mixed in, like a whipped topping from hell.

If I had to best describe my depression: I feel like a puzzle piece put into the wrong box. I look like I might fit, but never quite do. A perpetual feeling of being out of place in life, never fitting in no matter how hard I try.

Writing this in a place it can be potentially read and judged by others is horrifying. Having Depression/Anxiety gives me massive amounts of Shame.

Depression? Stop being such a Debbie Downer. Cheer up!

Anxiety? Seriously, just take a deep breath, you’re overreacting.

Why are you so emotional? Is it “that time of the month”?

A close friend’s wife also deals with depression. On occasion, this comes up in discussion when we climb together. He told me he’s never suffered from depression and admits he doesn’t fully understand it. Still, he sees what it does to her, and that is enough for him to understand the ramifications of what she’s dealing with, which he tries everything he can to be supportive and compassionate to when things are dark for her. I applaud this. A standing ovation in fact.

Sometimes I give advice on the dos and don’ts of consoling a person going through this (when he asks, mind you, as I am equally trying to be supportive of his journey).

Do: Listen to them talk, compassionately, without judgment.
Don’t: Interrupt or interject with your own theories or explain why their feelings are irrational or ‘someone has it worse’ or ‘everyone feels this way’ or, hell, all of the above.

For those who read this and agree, you may skip these parts.
For those who read this and think, “what’s wrong with that?” Let me break it down:
When someone is depressed or anxious, I can promise you, we KNOW how irrational or overemotional we’re acting. We have also thought about ‘just getting over it’ or ‘other people have it worse’.
The sunny side is, there is a voice in our heads telling us how stupid we are for being so irrational/overemotional, and worthless, and society has no place for people like us, etc, etc, etc. When you point these things out, it is reaffirming this negative voice in our heads. And guess what? When you affirm it, it gets LOUDER and more judgmental and harsh. You are not helping by affirming negative views of personal perception.
Affirmation is good, but listening is the best thing you can do. If we don’t want to talk, just be there. Sit beside us, hold our hand. No grand gestures needed, just affirmation we are not alone to combat the negative voice in our heads.

Do: Give small compliments here and there.
Don’t: Give a compliment, then expect immediate gratification for the compliment or then become angry when gratification is not vocalized for the said compliment.

Break down: Absolutely NO quid pro quo. If you compliment us, say or do something nice, don’t expect something in return. Don’t point out, ‘ hey I said something nice! Why don’t you feel better or look on the bright side now?!’ This is VERY unhelpful. In fact, it is almost worse because now we feel bad about not being more grateful or meeting your needs. Sometimes we try to meet the quid pro quo which sucks more life and energy out of us, sending us down into a greater spiral of exhaustion.

Do: Be positive, but not overly enthusiastic.
Don’t: Jump around like Tom Cruise, going on about how awesome your life is, then telling the person they just need to “smile more” or they’re “just being negative”.

Break down: Going on and on about all the awesome things happening in your life…wow…great…glad it’s working out for you. I’ll be over here hanging myself so as not to cause any more problems in your awesome life.
Telling us to ‘smile more’, pardon the profanity, but go fuck yourself. If life could be solved with a smile, then we just solved war and poverty. #nailedit
Pointing out that we are being negative, is in fact, a negativity in and of itself. What you have done is reestablish our belief that we are a black hole, worthless to society. Good job.

Do: Take them to their favorite places. Get them out of the house. Remind them of the things they love, remind them of life.
Don’t: Take them to your favorite places, to see your family or your friends (unless everyone is super close and supportive or you both have the same favorite spots/family/friends).

I have developed a series of routines to combat my depression. This comes from decades of an exorbitant amount of books, blogs, articles, therapy, conversations with others, TED Talks, etc. I have tried medication on several occasions; hospitalizing myself each time. I learned it is not a solution for me, so instead, it became a deeply personal battle to keep the demons at bay. Depending on the goings-on in my life, I can have anywhere between 1 to 5 existential crises per year. I used to date a guy who called these another one of my, “mid-year crises” (he was supportive). These happen when I let my routines go to the wayside and allow isolation to set in.

We need people. In that, we all have specific people we go to for specific problems, to either gain insight or validation.
When you have that horrible breakup, everyone has the friend they go to for drinks, to tell us we don’t need that person, and ‘ooo gurl, no he di-int!’
The reliable friend who is there in a pinch and always takes our calls no matter the hour.
The friend who will be brutally honest in a way we need at that moment.
The friend who has a magnetic personality which allows us to forget our problems whenever we are around them.
Then we all have “that friend,” who we should never go to for problems because they are, in fact, the worst. Yet, we still do. Why? To quote Carrie Bradshaw from Sex in the City, “I’m an emotional cutter.”

In one of these crises, I made the error of going to the friend you should never go to. She means well, an amazing mother and businesswoman, but bless her heart, she thinks she’s the most compassionate and helpful person God has bestowed on this planet. This kind of ego has ‘0’ room for sympathy.

I had hit rock bottom. When you hit rock bottom, you don’t just “bounce back”, it’s more of a SPLAT; then you lay there with your broken arms and legs wondering how on earth you got here, and more so, how are you going to get out of this hole with all these injuries? Three years ago I left my old life behind, with all the starry-eyed dreams and naivety packed with it. One of my routines is to stay active and social. When moving to a place where you do not know a soul, this becomes extremely hard to do. I found myself sitting more and more on my couch, binge-watching shows I had already seen several times. Money was extremely tight in the pursuit of the dream, so going out became a “luxury item”. Reaching a breaking point, I found myself fetal on the couch, locked away, contemplating the reason for my existence. Enter “that friend”.

She asked me to tell her what was going on, so I began the arduous task of trying to explain the mental complexity of my crisis: no purpose, no direction, i.e. no hope. I have no major passion to flow into a life goal and thus am floating aimlessly, never fitting in, feeling like a burden on the world rather than an attribute. Nothing more than an imposter of a person on this planet. As my climbing friend will openly admit he has no idea what his wife is going through and thus does not try to, only works to support her, my friend believes she doesn’t know because it is impossible to know exactly what anyone is going through…and if being right is your primary life goal, she accomplished this while being immensely unhelpful…but still right. It doesn’t take long before I feel worse than I did. I got a lecture on how I was using external validation to find happiness instead of finding happiness from within. That happiness comes from personal passions and life pursuits. When I iterated personal passion is what alludes me and is a major theme for my crisis, she went on to tell me that if trying to find a passion was my goal, I moved to the worst town possible to accomplish this, as everyone here already knows their passion and is following it.

…If there is a position worse than fetal, I was there. She had validated all the negative thoughts and emotions I was battling, adding a whipped topping of ‘you made the worst life decision by moving out here.’ (Side note: I had resigned my lease for an apartment I could barely afford for another year only 4 weeks prior.) I had moved to the hell I was trying to solve for and now I was stuck.

But hey, I need to stop being so negative, and smile more! There are people who have it worse than me, I should be more grateful!

I fight demons of depression and anxiety. It is a difficult, never-ending battle, one that is very lonely and I feel an immense amount of Shame for. I have been told I’m a ‘strong person’ because I keep going. As I see it, that is life’s purpose: to keep going.

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