Summers Here, So Where Is My Depression?

Photo by David Vives on Unsplash

I’m still stuck on being alone for the summer, with my depression on vacation.

After being so determined to get my depression out in the open, why am I sad that it has taken a holiday? I should be doing back flips and alerting the media. Depression’s absence should be a celebration. I have been working on this for 5 years.

And yet, I miss the times I share with depression.

In the big picture, I haven’t completely figured out my relationship with my depression. I have studied it, learned many of its secret moves, and stand ready to shine the light of day on its actions. Yet, I know there are things about my depression that I do not know.

I still ask myself, are my actions because I have MDD, or do I have MDD because of my actions?

In the end, I am the one who did or did not do whatever the action was. Like retiring early after spending 40+ years planning a different retirement strategy. And that’s the part on which I am still working. It’s hard to be mad at myself for the actions I took because I have major depressive disorder, with suicidal ideation.

But here I am, holding myself accountable for everything I have ever done.

I take full credit for everything that I have done in my life. Afterall, I took the action or did not take the action. Blaming my life on my depression seems like an out. It seems way too easy to let my depression take the blame or the credit for my life.

I can point to my trading commodities, stepping down from a position that would have secured my retirement, and retiring early as three examples of actions I could blame on my depression. And let’s not even start on my lost year.

But in the end, I took the actions, not my depression.

I cannot even begin to imagine what my life would have looked like had I not had depression. The secrecy that I developed each time I got close to leaving the reservation should have been a clue. My depression still hates it when I talk to others. It cannot understand why it is not enough.

With each episode, I know I fell under depression’s wing, doing the things it let me think where the best for me.

My depression didn’t give a hoot about me or my life. All it cared about and still cares about is getting me to be secretive and to only talk to it. Having MDD isn’t always 24/7. There have been weeks, months, sometimes years in between major episodes. Yet my depression is always there, lurking in the background.

My depression is very patient and has sometimes waited years to get involved in my life.

And it never insists or appears pushy. My depression is content to whisper suggestions. It shares possible ideas with me and then backs away to see what I will do. Once it sees that I am interested, it painstakingly massages the idea so I can begin to see it as my own.

Once I own the idea, it always becomes my idea.

I am the one who thought it up, and my depression is happy that I finally had the idea. It doesn’t care that it planted the seeds weeks, months, or even years ago. My depression always needs its idea to finally be my idea. Once I own it, then depression goes to work edging me towards the abyss. That is usually a lengthy process.

But ever so slowly, depression moves me forward, closer, and closer to the abyss.

And then, it begins to apply the secrecy clause to my idea. I begin to feel that others are not as smart as me, so it’s a waste of time to speak with them. Or worse, that they would have another idea that wasn’t 100% mine. What would I do if they weren’t happy with my idea?

I know that talking to anyone except depression makes it mad.

It doesn’t want me talking to anyone else. If I speak with anyone else, there is the risk that I will change my mind, and not embark on the venture depression had first suggested and I committed to. To prevent any attempts to have me see reality, depression employs 10 unhelpful thinking styles.

Boy I was surprised at how many I was already using.

But mind-readers top the list for this category. It turns out I do not need to speak with you. In my head, I can fortune-tell (mind read) your response. Once I know that you are not going to support my idea, I quickly decide that I know what you will say. And then, I no longer need to speak with you. I have wrapped the whole thing up without having to interact with you.

Another time I will discuss some of the other great unhelpful thinking styles.

All or nothing thinking comes to mind, and time travel. I cannot begin to tell you how much time I have spent worrying about what might happen in the future. Worse, I have spent an abundance of time in the past. When I am there, I get to say that I shoulda, woulda, coulda. And I spend a lot of the time shoulding all over myself.

Depression’s unhelpful thinking is tricky, too.

I immediately saw how depression controls big ideas with its unhelpful thinking. But what I discovered about my depression is that it will throw unhelpful thinking into the smallest of ideas. Changing the sheets on the bed, or driving with the radio on. Knowing that depression will do that, I have been on watch for these ideas. I cannot imagine how I would miss all of that misery and secrecy.

Why am I worrying about where my depression is tonight?

I should be overjoyed that I am depression free at this moment. Worrying about where my depression has gone begins to remind me of Stockholm syndrome. It is just that I know so much about it now. Heck, I’ve got a certification in SMART recovery and have written out a WRAP plan. I’ve learned about the Change Triangle and have joined a support group On Our Own, based in Charlottesville Virginia.

So, I will stop here and wish my depression a well-deserved rest.