Love,
I found a 2009 issue of The New York Times Magazine. The cover article is A Long Journey in the Dark: My Life with Chronic Depression. By Daphne Merkin.
The article is alarming in how exact it is. The words used to describe depression and how debilitating is grows to be are universal and personal at the same. I felt like calling MM to have him read it so he could understand this disorder from someone who could explain it better than I.
Ms. Merkin experienced depression beyond what I think I would tolerate. But there was a line in it that I had to highlight and share. It was in response to a suggestion and almost forced prescription for ECT:
"I'm not quite the pushover you take me to be. It was the first stirring of positive will on my own behalf, a delicate green bud that could easily be crushed, but I felt its force."
And I understood what this was. I understood what this feeling was. That moment when your brain has a change of heart and is defiant, even for a second. This entire article was scary, sad, loving, gentle, brutal all in one. It was honest and mean. It was a real look at depression. It did not make it look romantic and televisable. It was almost difficult to read but at the same time I wanted to read everything because it was what I wanted to say and what I wanted to write about my recent bout of depression that no one detected.
Before coming to Madison, I was in a state of shock and angst that I had not experienced in a long time. It hit me hard and fast. One day I was loving my life. Then the next, I had planned when, where, and how I would take my life, and no one saw this. No one noticed how many times I cried at work. No one saw the Google searches for nitrogen poisoning or suffocation by other means. Mom did not see how obsessive I was becoming with my weight and running and food. Mike did not see my running as an unhealthy habit. Instead I was applauded for being active and working out everyday. Nathania was the first to see the weight and say something.
This article also highlighted something about myself that I hate. And I do mean hate. I do not do things for me. I do not think for me. I am always thinking about being someone else. I am at a graduate school that Mike liked. I had no real preference. I am in an occupation that looked like other people were having fun. I read fashion blogs to strip the style off of the writers and wrap it around my own body. And I pretend to be unique and different when really I'm just a carbon copy at best of other people's wants and likes. But is everyone like this? Is that how we strive to identify with each other, by stealing other ideas. I mean Myspace was a convoluted Facebook and Twitter is essentially the stripped down Facebook. Internet Explorer is the dinosaur before Google and Firefox. Nokia and Motorola were the beginning of cellular phones. The greatest form of flattery is imitation? I suppose, but only if you are the one being imitated. Otherwise, what are you getting from the transaction?
So I guess I want to know who I am or really how I'll know when I arrive at the conclusion. Or is it like happiness- elusive, just out of reach, and another unattainable luxury? Then I have to ask, why are people with the simplest of lives content? Is happiness really just being content? I look at MM and wonder how in hell is he so pleased with himself. He works a job that does not satisfy his desires. He lives with a mutual friend that is like a rough woolly sweater. And yet, he is content. Up until recently he saw no need to become anything more. He was satisfied with himself. I believe that without my influence, he would still be living with his parents at the age of 26. And be perfectly happy doing so. I, on the other hand, am always searching for what will be my next object to chase? What will make me happy?! That could be a good thing- I am always evolving and progressing but is the stress, anxiety and depression and self doubt worth the progression?
Not really about love, but just a mind purge.
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