I admire the (temporary?) openness about depression that is being
displayed in the media and online in the wake of Robin Williams’s suicide, and
I want to add my two cents. My credentials are that I am a fellow sufferer, and
have experienced depression (and its knife-wielding twin, anxiety) since I was
an adolescent. I have been hospitalized for it, medicated for it (with both
licit and illicit drugs), and I’ve had various therapies as well. Like cancer,
depression kills a certain amount of its victims; like cancer, it’s an illness,
not a weakness. Even so, I am ashamed to admit that I am a sufferer, which
means I find it easy to internalize as well as somehow externalize – through my
own silence – the attitude that depression is a failure of strength or character.
I am not an expert in the causes of depression, only an expert in the
experience of it, and after four or so decades living with the illness, I know
a few things about it:
There’s no cure, only remission. People who suffer from depression (not
“normal unhappiness,” which was the goal of Freud’s talking cure), are never
fully out of danger because it is depression’s nature to recur. Sufferers of
depression have “episodes” the same way those who suffer from multiple
sclerosis do. It comes, wipes the floor with you, and then somehow returns you
to the world. But it comes back.
Depressives don’t make themselves sick. They
don’t choose depression. They may have a cognitive leaning toward interpreting
events and feelings in a certain way, but they don’t choose to get or stay
depressed. The fact that it runs in families should indicate to fair-minded
people that it has a genetic aspect as well. You may get your blue eyes from
your father and your blue feelings from him as well. Recent research even
suggests that ancestral trauma may be coded genetically, thereby passing a
predisposition for mood disorders down through the generations.
Depression is a surfeit of empathy – a killing empathy – that
makes depressives great friends to everyone but themselves. Having a self is a
rough business and depressives can empathize with others who have to deal with
it, but not with themselves. Fundamentally, people who suffer from this illness
can give love, but when suffering from it, they can’t accept it. That doesn’t
mean they don’t need it, only that they believe they don’t deserve it.
The only treatment is exercise and work. Many
depressives become expert walkers. Solvitur ambulando – Latin
for “it is solved by walking” – has profound application for depression. I
think therapy would be more effective if the therapist and the patient had
their sessions while walking, briskly, around a park. Work equates to purpose,
something that depressives think they lack. Working gives lie to the feeling of
purposelessness and combats it.
Suicidal thoughts become suicidal action when the
thought of your loved ones arranged around your grave is no longer a deterrent.
When a depressive who wants to die thinks of the suffering it will cause others,
it’s a restraint, but it also feels like a trap. It’s the last barrier between
them and eternity, which the depressed person longs for. Once the idea of
others’ pain is trumped by their own, a peace descends and suicide is often
inevitable. I’m not arguing for suicide, only acknowledging its draw. In a
terrible way, self-murder is an act of self-love. It ends someone’s suffering.
The only thing you can do for someone who is depressed is to be
around them and love them despite their illness. Living with a depressive is a
bloody nightmare. They say things they don’t mean, about themselves and others.
They cancel dinners. They won’t look you in the eye. They use the words
“always” and “never” liberally. The symptoms of depression often seem like
they’re directed at you. But it’s not personal. If you can accept this, you’ll
be doing the most you can for the sufferer in your life. Be silent and useful
and remember it’s not about you.
Touch helps. Get a massage. Give a massage. If you can, make love to a depressed
person. Touch is primitive. Your reaction to it is in your reptile brain, but
your thoughts are happening somewhere else. Touch creates some distance between
the body and the self. Depressives are excellent in bed if you can convince
them to take off their pyjamas.
The culprit is the mind. I think,
therefore I am, said Descartes. Therein lies the
problem. Some depressives conclude, as Robin Williams did this past week, that
not thinking and not being is preferable to the alternative. I’m shattered that
he lost his battle, but I’m also glad he’s free of his pain. If you have lost
someone to depression, or another mood disorder, be aware that your lovewas enough. You couldn’t have prevented their death and there’s nothing you
should have done differently. The suicide’s logic has nothing in common with
yours. In the end, death makes mad, perfect sense to them.
Depression is a byproduct of consciousness, and addiction is a
byproduct of depression. No one is depressed when they’re asleep, which is why
being in bed is such a safe place if you’re really down. The reason so many
intelligent and creative people suffer from depression is that when you take
the risk of being fully conscious, you open Pandora’s box and you can’t close
it again. Alcohol, drugs, and addictive behaviours are a bulwark against what’s
in the box. They say people with addictions are escaping pain as if that’s a
foolish or illogical reaction to pain. It isn’t. As the comedian Doug Stanhope
said, “There’s no such thing as addiction, there’s only things that you enjoy
doing more than life.” If you know depression, you know what he means.
To all my fellow sufferers, then, slainte. Your depression exists not because you did something wrong or because
you’re a bad person, it exists because you’re you. Remember the last time you
survived it and how it cleansed you, and hold on to that if you can. That is
the gift of depression: When it leaves you, it leaves you flayed but vividly
alive. Dante’s Inferno (an archetypal rendering of depression) ends with Virgil emerging from
the seven circles of hell, reborn into life by a holy grace. The depressed
person wants to live and wants to love and it is always a surprise to
rediscover the pleasures of the world after despair. The final line of Dante’s
poem is a talisman to be held dear by anyone who has experienced depression’s
pervasive darkness: Thence we came forth to rebehold the stars.
Michael Redhill is a poet, novelist and playwright. His most recent
work, Saving Houdini, is a novel for young adults. This essay, at the request
of The Globe and Mail, was adapted from a Facebook post.
CONTRIBUTED
TO THE GLOBE AND MAIL
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updated Friday, Aug. 15 2014, 4:20 PM EDT
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