I've been thinking and breathing and dreaming about writing (possibly at the expense of actually DOING some). I was talking to a professor today and he told me that he had to learn that writing is not fun. I think this is something I have to learn as well, because writing has always been something I have enjoyed. I was one of those kids who wrote stories and poetry and thought that growing up to be a famous author was inevitable. That's partly why I majored in English undergrad. Writing and words felt natural to me. I love the term "wordsmith" because it's poetic and yet has such a practical ring to it. Now I'm faced with the reality of writing's practical side. Grad school forced me to recognize that writing is hard work. And that editing is involved.
I have a hard time with all this. I'm used to writing from a place of passion, and right now, it's hard because I have to work on two projects; one that I'm excited about, and my prospectus for my thesis, which, frankly, I find hard to even think about. I think, perhaps, another reason this writer's block is so shocking stems from the fact I have always been able to, even when I was severely depressed.
This is also something I have been thinking about recently. I think I've alluded to struggling with depression before, but not in detail; I have mixed feelings about putting this on the internet, but one thing I have concluded from the past seven years is that if nothing else, I have the power of sharing those struggles with others. There are many strands to this knot, I'm going to be selective about which threads I follow here, for various reasons. It is hard to pick a 'starting point' to this story; was it when my parents left me in the States to return to Thailand? Was it leaving Thailand? Was it feeling like I didn't belong anywhere and I never would? Was it the PA winter? Was it going home for Christmas and having to pretend I loved college? Was it the tsunami? It was all these things and more. All I know is that when I returned to the States after Christmas 2004, the cold did not leave me.
So let's start like this: I was diagnosed with severe clinical depression the spring of my sophomore year of college.
I didn't think I was depressed. I thought I was being realistic. I thought I was facing the world. I thought I was being grown up. And I also thought there was no one who could help me. I couldn't bear to be around other people, but I was terrified of being alone, because I was afraid I would disappear (something I still struggle with at times). I remember leaving a party one night because I couldn't bear to pretend to be friendly and smile at the jokes a moment longer and seeing my shadow cast by a porch light. The shadow was the blackest black and it reflected how I felt. At that time, I took it as a sign that there would be light to dispel the darkness, but as the semester wore on, it felt more like that light just proved how dark it was. When my mother, terrified and heartsick, suggested I see a school counselor, I think I probably told her that it would do no good. I went because I wanted to make her happy.
The counselor gave me a questionnaire. When I returned it to her, she tallied the results and informed me I was, most likely, severely depressed. I could not believe her. Because to believe her meant that all my perceptions, the very way I saw the world, was flawed; it meant that the darkness was inside and I couldn't trust anyone, even myself. It meant that I had failed in some way, because there was no reason for me to be depressed (not true, but that is how it seemed to me). She asked me if I had ever contemplated suicide. I told her no, of course not! This was a bit of a lie. I had considered that I had the perfect method to die, if I wanted: a simple overdose of insulin and I would just never wake up. Now I can admit that the only reason I did not act on that knowledge was because I didn't want to have to put my parents through the bother of coming back to the States to deal with my funeral. That is how deep my darkness was.
And I couldn't tell anyone. I tried, a few times, which ended badly. (I was informed that I needed to pray more and that I shouldn't be depressed because Jesus loves me.) So I tried to hide it from everyone around me, because I didn't want to bother them either and I thought it was such a huge burden that everyone would break. At the same time, I felt like it was the only thing that other people saw, which turned out to be not true. Last year I was heartbroken to learn that one of my closest friends during that time, the friend without whom I literally would not have eaten, had no idea what was going on with me. I felt invisible and hyper-visible at the same time: people saw but no one could see me.
That is the thing about depression: it is isolating. I felt like I could not function, that any little thing might cause me to shatter into a billion pieces and I knew, I knew there was no one to put those pieces back together. Because of the few bad experiences I didn't trust anyone with the whole truth; not even my parents. (I didn't want them to worry; they were so far away and they felt guilty already about leaving me and they couldn't DO anything anyway.) I was so broken that any movement caused me to cut myself and it seemed like there was no way out, not even death.
Just as it is hard to designate a start to this story, it is hard to write a conclusion. Partly because I'm not done yet, and so the narrative is still going. I will say, I am no longer in that place. Writing this blog post has been hard in some ways because that time is hazy, and I'm fine with keeping it that way. I found a good therapist who walked through the darkest of darknesses with me, and I can truly say I have left that particular patch of darkness behind.
I had to learn to trust people with my imperfections (I am still not good at this). I'm learning to trust myself and believe that I have strengths that are valuable. I have to trust that people actually like me and want me to stick around. I'm learning to be comfortable as a visible part of a community. It is hard work. It will never be finished. (It's a process. I'm a process. That concept is so liberating. It means nothing is finished, nothing is final. There is always another chance, another option.)
There is light, and it does not hurt.
What does all this have to do with my thesis? I suppose, technically, not much, since I'm not writing about depression. But my struggle with depression continues to inform how I function and so in that sense, it is important. I am still unsure of what my 'normal' is, and I am often afraid that any strong emotion, any failure to function, heralds a return to the dark. And I'm afraid that I will fail at this thesis business; and if I fail, I don't know what I will do or what will happen. I always feel kind of precarious, you could say. I have to remember that before I can fail, I have to try. And it is so good to know that I am in a place, mentally and emotionally, where I can try. And that there are people here who will help me even if I fail.
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