Describe Depression

Warning: adult language.

"Depression hurts. Cymbalta can help."

I hate that commercial. For years I criticized the need to take medications to deal with depression. All those side effects. How in the world can someone think that taking a medication with all those side effects is a good idea? Who wants to live with diarrhea for the rest of their life? Who wants to develop a shake, a jitter, that never goes away?

I was convinced that depression could be handled by a good diet, good exercise, and a balanced life. I had none of the above. No wonder I was depressed. I didn't eat right at all. Coffee in the morning on an empty stomach. And not just one cup either. Several cups. I needed several cups of coffee each morning or I would get a headache. Several cups of coffee has its own side effect - shaking, the jitters. The irony of it. Take the medication to avoid depression and you get the jitters. Don't take the medication and live with a coffee breakfast and you still get the jitters. So fuck it.

I didn't usually get lunch either. The demands of my job were sufficient that I worked right through lunch most days. As the school year went on, I ate lunch less and less often. I ate foods that were less and less good for me, too. I resorted to quickie foods when I took… when I stole a moment to grab something to eat. Chips and a soda. I often skipped the soda, but not for water.

I avoided just about all liquids. If I drank anything during the day, then I needed to use the restroom during the day. The life of a teacher does not allow for such luxury. Passing periods are short and students are shuffled along and into their next classroom as quickly as possible. I couldn't leave my room unattended. That could be disastrous. My room had all kinds of equipment in it that the kids could have messed with. Graphing calculators go missing when they are not accounted for at every moment of the day. Even with eagle eyes on them the batteries still manage to be stolen. The projector is a favorite to fuck with. The kids can't steal it (at least not easily) but they can still mess with the buttons and disconnect the cords. The same with the Elmo. It's a great piece of equipment, but needs to be watched over. Going to the bathroom between classes was not an option. Going to the bathroom during the class was not an option either.

My diet was terrible. Dinner was usually decent. My husband cooked well and often. I worked so much and for so many hours that he usually took care of dinner. He was typically home well before I was.

Exercise? What's that? The closest thing I got to exercise was hiking up to my second story classroom. Up the stairs in the morning. Down the stairs to walk the kids to the cafeteria. Up the stairs to work in my room through lunch. Down the stairs to pick my class up from the cafeteria. Up the stairs to start the afternoon classes. Down the stairs at the end of the day to walk my class out the door. That doesn't include any of the ups and downs that happened during conference periods. Meetings. Copies. You would think that counts for something. But it doesn't. I was thin enough, but not because of exercise. I was thin because I wasn't eating. I was malnourished I'm sure.

Picture is not mine.
Source: http://www.desura.com/mods/star-trek-continuum/images/black-hole

Depression is black beyond all that is black. It's inky and deep. It's a black hole that sucks you in and it's devoid of all things.

A black hole has an event horizon. An object farther away than the event horizon can swing by the black hole and escape. It's trajectory will be affected greatly but it will not be swallowed into oblivion. An object at the event horizon can orbit the black hole without falling into it but also never escaping it. The object is locked in place, forever attached to the black hole. Never really falling prey to it but also never really being free of it. Anything that is inside the event horizon is doomed. It will orbit round and round getting ever closer to that infinitely small point of everything that is called a black hole. It will never escape. Doomed.

Depression is like that. There is a point of no return. As you approach depression you have the ability, the chance, the possibility of escaping it. You'll fall into a funk and your life will be changed some but you'll swing out of it and be on your way. Hopefully you'll never come across another black hole depression again.

It's possible that you can live your live at a balance point somewhere between completely depressed, clinically depressed, unable to function and might even kill yourself depressed, and living free of depression, a happy, fulfilled life. That emotional event horizon is probably like living a basically depressed life. Always in that state of wondering if this is all there is. Never truly satisfied with anything that life has to offer.

At that point of no return, though, everything changes. If you've ever approached it, then you know. It's a terrifying realization that you have slipped inside the event horizon and there is nothing you can do to stop the fall. Your perception of existence is warped, time is slowed, energy is pulled away. You can feel yourself detaching from the world. On a molecular level. There's the sense that the molecules in my hand are somehow not part of my hand. They are part of the molecules that make up the world. They are part of the world before they are a part of me. The matter that makes up our mundane existence takes priority over the matter that makes up my body. I don't know if that makes any sense at all.

Depression is deep. It's a hole that keeps going. You fall infinitely far and then you still have infinitely far to fall. You're falling into nothing. You're falling through nothing. Try to imagine what existed before the big bang. Nothing existed. But nothing is still something. Like zero. No. Nothing is nothing. If anything goes into that nothing, it is scattered into a million billion pieces. Anything that was me is torn apart, dissolved into nothingness.