This is an excerpt from a memoir I’m currently writing, Thirty Cures in Thirty Years: A Depression Survival Story. It is a lighthearted book about the heavy work of mental health. For updates and availability info, subscribe to the right.

***

The following fall, I started what would become my illustrious, industrious seven and a half-year career as an undergrad.

It’s a new start, I told myself. Maybe it’ll be … good. I didn’t expect to conquer my lifelong sadness or become a different person. But I did hope to kick the shyness habit–preferably somewhere tender and vulnerable–and maybe even find a few close friends.

That first semester, I made small goals for myself: sit next to different people every day. Raise your hand at least once per class. Join things. And surprisingly, it worked. My freshman year of college, I found a group of friends–friends I remained close with till I switched cities and schools two years later. And slowly, I gained a bit of confidence. These changes didn’t make me feel cheerful, necessarily. But they did add a layer of hope and self-satisfaction on top of the heaviness. And this was meaningful. I got back something I’d been missing since my church youth group days.

I got a life.

It was a cheat: my friends were all Christians and therefore, smack dab in the middle of my comfort zone.

But it was a step in the right direction.

****

One of the most embarrassing facts of my life is that at the age of eighteen, on the advice of my mother, I attended bible college.

I didn’t feel ready for the real world yet, and for good reason: I wasn’t.

If I would have been the rebellious kid at church, this fact would be far less embarrassing. I wasn’t, though; I was the most Christian of all the Christians, and so were the others in my friend group. From my first day on campus–August 9th, 1997–I had friends. I was one of the early comers, which meant that I immediately bonded with the few other girls already settled into our dorm. One of them, along with my roommate and two other girls, became a good friend.

My friends and I spent every meal time together, sat next to each other during chapel and church and classes, hung out in the library during the day and in the evenings, went to the common area that had couches and table tennis and just … hung out. Our first semester, especially, we played countless games of ping pong and eventually, learned how to hold our own. My friend group even had a corresponding guy friend group that we spent weekend evenings with. As on the TV show friends, some of us paired up. I developed a crush on the extroverted leader of the guy group which quickly became an on-again, off-again flirtation. This was exciting, but I had a more fulfilling resource, too. At bible college, spirituality was an ever-present comfort. Prayer, and especially worship, were my primary emotional outlet, and at this bible college, worship was done right. Musically talented students led songs at every opportunity, especially during Wednesday chapel meetings. This was some serious kumbaya stuff; in a way, it was like always being at summer camp.

During the two years I spent at that school, I didn’t learn much in the way of academics. But what I did discover was much more useful than that. I discovered that I could be myself–tough-minded, hard working, a little unrefined, not terribly sweet or feminine–and still fit in.

First task complete.

My second goal, overcoming my shyness, was a bit more difficult than finding friends was. The good news: I had a plan. It wasn’t much of a plan, but it was enough, and it was this: I would talk in class at least once a day. I would also sit next to someone new at least once a day (I was often the person responsible for messing up people’s seating habits). Finally, I committed to regularly starting a conversation with someone I didn’t know well.

The plan was effective. Little by little, my shyness wore away. I started surprising myself by even being a bit gregarious at times. Once or twice, I volunteered to lead our Wednesday chapel service–and I even got compliments later on how well I did.

This made me proud.

Many years later, when I was in grad school studying to become a mental health counselor, I learned that this was the kind of thing that a professional would’ve advised, had I had one to advise me. It was a kind of behavioral therapy called exposure therapy. It works because your brain usually can’t continue to feel afraid of things that you’ve already done many times over.

Always do what you’re afraid to do. It wasn’t just good advice. It was therapy.

***

In his memoir, The Hilarious World of Depression, John Moe tells about the first time he visited his doctor to talk about mental health. The doctor asked a few quick questions, then pronounced him clinically depressed. “You can tell from just a few questions?” Moe asked. “Oh no,” the doctor told him. “I knew as soon as you walked in. The questions were just to make sure.”

In spite of my newfound confidence, by the time I entered college, depression’s mold had shaped my body and face enough that Moe’s doctor would’ve diagnosed me on the spot, too. I slouched. I half-smiled when I smiled at all. And my laugh was usually a half-laugh–a one-syllable “heh”. Though life at college was a definite improvement over life at … well, any other grade, my default facial expression was a decent impression of Eyore. I had actually played Eyore in a summer theater production as a ten-year-old. My instructor, during casting, had insisted; she knew what she was doing, apparently. I didn’t mind. But I did mind when people (usually men) spontaneously urged me to “smile more”. Didn’t they know how hard that was? And were they implying that when I didn’t, I was ugly?

During my second semester, I found my first college job. I’d be a cashier at Office Depot–a definite step up from Kmart. While working at the register one afternoon, my manager pulled me aside. This can’t be good, I thought. And it wasn’t. And it was.

“You have to smile more,” Rob said. He stared at me. “You have to make the customers feel welcome.” Rob was exactly the middle manager you’d expect at a retail establishment. Worse than that, he was ambitious. He wasn’t one to phone it in: he wanted his store to do well. In this way, our goals were not aligned.

Though I disliked Rob, I didn’t hate him. I just wanted to get through my damn day. I liked getting a paycheck and genuinely feared being deprived of it. But smiling? Could I … do that?

“At Office Depot, we pay our employees more than minimum wage,” Rob went on. “And in return, we have higher expectations. Our employees go above and beyond for our customers. That’s what makes us different.” I nodded, unsmiling. It was true: At the time, the minimum was $5.15 per hour. I made $6.25.

Subconsciously, I performed a quick mental calculation. I made 110 cents over the minimum, which gave me a good-mood compensation of over 20 percent over my base pay. Would approximately 100 smiles per day equal roughly 20 percent of additional effort overall? I believed 15 percent was more likely. Rob the middle manager was right: I was getting a good deal.

“Are you ready to try it?” Rob asked. Again I nodded, again unsmiling. Maybe I raised my eyebrows a bit in a sort of smile-substitute that I employed when my face just wouldn’t cooperate. Likely, as he walked away, a pained, embarrassed expression took its place. I’d have to figure out a way to pull this off … but how? I imagined faking happiness half-heartedly and getting suspicious looks from the higher-ups, then flunking every performance review. Then I imagined getting fired, and failing as a cashier.

If I couldn’t be a cashier, what could I be?

Fortunately, money has always been a highly motivational force in my life, and on this day, it was more than that. It was … inspirational. When the next customer arrived at my humble checkout counter, I forced a smile in greeting. Did my manager, observing obliquely, give me a thumbs up and a phony smile of his own? Probably not. But I certainly felt like he was watching.

The next customer came. Then the next. I smiled at this one and the one after that. Soon, a rhythm developed. “Hi! How are you? Did you find everything you were looking for?” Beep, bloop, bleep. “Have a nice day!” I ended that shift feeling better than I had when I started. Maybe there was something to this fake happiness thing, after all.

Maybe, smiling was a choice.

The strangest part: the mood altering effects of those few hours of customer service wasn’t a one-off. During my next shift, I hit the rhythm again. Smile. Into the eyes if possible. Greet the customer. Wish them a good day. Be sincere. After all, don’t you actually want them to enjoy their day? Why wouldn’t you?

Being nice feels good, I realized. A great truth. And there was another one: Sometimes–most of the time, even–you can choose your mood.

Many days that semester, and during the rest of my OD tenure, I walked into my shifts feeling semi-miserable. On busy days, by five minutes in, my mood would noticeably shift.

I even discovered a hidden talent for small talk–a talent that would pay handsomely in my later career as a waitress. I liked talking to people. And I loved feeling competent. Soon, I was promoted to the customer service desk, where I balanced cashiering with answering the phone and other miscellaneous tasks.

The confident church girl was back. But this time, she wasn’t only at church.

At work, I could put on cheerfulness in a moment, like changing my outfit, only quicker. Home, though, was harder. Home was where the heartache still was. I couldn’t distract myself like I could at work. And of course, it didn’t come with monetary compensation.

Fake happiness can help, I learned. But it’s far from a cure for depression.

***

“Find out who you are, and do it on purpose.” Dolly Parton.

***

Want to learn how to clean your house twice as well in half the time? Get The Naked House: Five Principles for a More Peaceful Home at your preferred book retailer today.

This is an excerpt from a memoir I’m currently writing, Thirty Cures in Thirty Years: A Depression Survival Story. It is a lighthearted book about the heavy work of mental health. For updates and availability info, subscribe to the right.

***

The summer prior to my Junior year of high school, my mother finally finished building our house in the country. At first, we still drove to town twice a week for church and Wednesday-night youth group. Eventually, though, something shifted–I don’t remember what–and we started attending our local country church; the energetic, high-excitement days of youth group were over.

It was the end of an era.

Our new house was beautiful, as was its setting. During my final two years of high school, I found myself mellowing. The hard line between my school self and my church self softened a bit–I was neither as outgoing at church or as quiet at school. I was a serious, studious, spiritual person everywhere. And deeply lonely, too.

Many evenings after school, my mom and I would watch Oprah together on the couch, eating whatever snacks were available. After the episode ended, I’d remain there and cry while Mom tried to comfort me. Then my sister would join us, and we’d eat dinner in front of the TV while my brother ate in his room. We’d watch till the prime time shows were over, then I would go to my room.

Will I ever be happy? I wondered often, lying on my new solid-pine bed in my new, beautiful bedroom with a window to endless sweet-smelling fields of wheat. Will I ever get married? Will I ever have another group of friends?

Will I ever not be depressed?

I didn’t know. But, lying on that bed, I knew something else: I knew that I would never stop trying. I’d keep being honest with myself, and I’d keep trying.

The problem: it was a very long time till I knew how.

***

“You have to learn to love rejection,” my father told me one day. Were we sitting in front of his fireplace? Was he making me a dirty mug of his signature weak coffee, the kind that frequently contained cat hair?

I looked at him. This wasn’t what I’d expected to hear, yet considering the source–my reclusive, chain-smoking, feral-cat owning father, whose shack of a house was filled with complicated train tracks for model trains–my surprise was mild.

“Everyone thinks you need to have friends to be happy,” Dad added. “But it’s not true. You don’t need anyone. Just be your own man.”

I paused, considering. First of all, Dad, sexist, much? That was my first thought. Then: Maybe he’s right. Rugged individualism had its merits, I knew. And Dad had that special credibility that is often afforded a true eccentric.

It didn’t help that Dad wasn’t the only one exhorting me to remain socially isolated. It was part of the moral superiority package I received from both my parents. My mom was still regularly pulling out her biblical refrain about not casting pearls before swine–not lowering my standards of friendship and instead holding out for someone who was truly righteous.

Was she reassuring me, or herself?

Cognitive dissonance again: I knew she was wrong. And yet … Why did I believe her, anyway?

The larger cultural narrative: friends and family are sort of great. My family’s narrative: We’re loners, and that’s okay.

It was an unhelpful worldview, but a pretty decent defense mechanism, and for a time, it comforted me. Unfortunately, defense mechanisms have a way of outlasting their need, and lack of vulnerability and individualism plagued me for far too many years to come.

In Dad’s smoke-filled living room that day, I wasn’t sure what to believe. But as it turned out, I didn’t need to figure it out. The righteous friend my mom talked about never came.

By default, my parents’ advice won.

***

The spring of my senior year in high school, while driving my mother’s light blue Dodge Caravan to my after-school job as a cashier at Kmart, I had a strange experience. I hated this job. It wasn’t only the boredom–I was used to that at school. It was the boredom combined with the expectation of friendliness and good cheer.

I had no good cheer. My senior year, my tenuous friendships at school had become acquaintenceships, and my best friend, Judith, had moved away for college. And yet, there were my supervisors, wielding their retail-conferred power and reminding me to smile. Though pit-in-your-stomach boredom isn’t generally good for one’s mental health, it can be endured until you’re forced to pretend you’re actually enjoying yourself.

That afternoon in the car, I became aware of a strange sensation. I felt like I wasn’t the person that was driving the car anymore; instead, I was somewhere else, somewhere outside my body. I didn’t know what was happening, and I didn’t know that it had anything to do with depression. I certainly had never heard the term “dissociation.” I just knew that what I was feeling was horrible, beyond regular sadness, even the kind that was accompanied by heavy sobbing and the feeling that nothing would ever change. It was despair, but it was despair that seemed to be stuck somewhere inside me, unable to get out. It was like watching a child in a room that was locked from the outside as that room slowly filled with water. She was staring back at me, begging me to release her, but her words were muffled and I had no idea what she was asking of me or what to do.

I was a child, too, after all.

Many years later, when I learned that other people have this feeling, too, and that it is a sign of serious clinical depression or trauma-related repression, the experience made sense. At the time, though, I didn’t understand what it was, and I knew no one around me did, either. So, I didn’t tell anyone about it.

Earlier that year, I’d stopped crying with my mom on the couch after Oprah. I’d learned to move my feelings down, stay busy and distract myself. It wasn’t the worst option. I read a lot and made a lot of plans for the future. I worked on being a better Christian. I made a lot of rules for myself. I tried to be perfect. It gave me something to do. I spent the rest of high school just waiting for it to be over. Anyway, I knew that real life—the things that mattered—would start in college.

I was right.

***

Throughout my school years, I made little progress in my quest to overcome my chronic depression. But I make progress of other kinds. I learned how to be honest with myself–self-reflective and thoughtful in my choices. I also developed the identity of a strong, determined person.

Finally, I learned that if I couldn’t feel good, I could, at least, feel hopeful. I could build a foundation for my future that would bolster any happiness to come. I might not be a happy person yet, but I was a strong one.

Maybe that would be enough.

***

“Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity.” Seneca, paraphrased.

***

Want to learn how to clean your house twice as well in half the time? Get The Naked House: Five Principles for a More Peaceful Home at your preferred book retailer today.

This is an excerpt from a memoir I’m currently writing, Thirty Cures in Thirty Years: A Depression Survival Story. It is a lighthearted book about the heavy work of mental health. For updates and availability info, subscribe to the right.

***

The following fall, I entered high school. Surprisingly, the first few weeks weren’t too bad. The kids I’d joined for lunch during middle school had become, if not friends, buddies. I never felt fully accepted by them, but we passed the time together. When I think of those kids now, I wish I would have appreciated what I had: They were artistic, unconventional and hella smart. On one level, I knew this; on another, I could only see that they were sinners. Cognitive dissonance is such a bitch.

It wasn’t only confusion about others that bothered me; I couldn’t quite figure myself out, either. At church, I was radiantly confident and perfectly clear where the line lay between right and wrong. At school, I was devastatingly lonely and desperate to fit in, even if that meant swearing once in a while. I often wondered what each of my lives would think about my other life if ever they should meet. They rarely did.

Freshman year passed without major incident. I used plenty of unoriginal coping skills for my depression–boredom food, random crushes, beauty treatments. I also continued to developed a few healthy ones–books, baths and friends. There’s a picture of me holding a mug and resting my Converse All-Stars on Judith’s dining room table, smiling confidently. There were blond streaks in my pony-tailed hair. In the picture, I am pretty, and looking back I realize I was never ugly. It was the confidence, and the smile, that made the difference.

Then, of course, there was the ultimate coping skill: religion. My belief system gave me much-needed hope–but there were strings attached. Church gave me a place to practice being my best, most outgoing self, but it also gave me a … problematic … worldview. I feared the wrath of God if I listened to non-Christian music or had a crush on a boy. I was wracked with guilt over things I hadn’t even done, but just thought or felt. Everything, it seemed, was sinful. Could a more effective tool for exacerbating my puberty-fueled identity crisis be invented?

***

One of the many clashes between my identities came during my Sophomore year when I attended a weekend camp with my youth group. During the lengthy Friday and Saturday night services, amid evocative music and other carefully crafted bonding experiences, the participants were asked to share their sins and repent. I’d always had a tender conscience, and a strong sense of personal responsibility, which is why at the time, repentance was an attractive option. It would cleanse me of my sins, but also demonstrate, publicly, my goodness and humility. This was an offer I couldn’t refuse.

Of course, at the time, I didn’t view the group dynamics or my expected response this way. Instead, I saw my choice to take the microphone in the front of the room and confess to “swearing” as a deeply honest expression of my values. The retreat drew me closer to my church friends while challenging my interactions with the rest of the world: It’s us or them, my community seemed to be telling me. Not surprisingly, I chose my church friends, and by extension, God.

It seemed like the more prudent bet.

The interesting thing about this experience was that, briefly, it worked: For an entire week following the retreat, I felt a deep inner peace. I was blissed out in that way meditators describe sometimes. It felt like being in love, but without all the nerves.

It was the best feeling I’d ever had.

That Monday, I returned to school and life as usual. But something felt a bit off. I didn’t know how to interact with my friends anymore–what would Jesus do, and all that. Noticing my near-silence, one of my friends said, “What’s wrong with you? I haven’t heard you swear once all day.” I shrugged my shoulders and tried to play it off. She didn’t press the issue, and neither did my other friends at the table.

That day, I pondered an existential question: Was my deepened spiritual awareness compatible with my life at high school? I didn’t think so. I was faced with a decision: continue to try to fit in with my school friends, or ditch them for God? I chose the latter, and withdrew from the best school friendships I’d ever had in order to honor my newly minted inner stillness with outer calm.

Anything else would be hypocrisy.

Additional social isolation wouldn’t bother me too much, I figured, as long as I could maintain this spiritual high.

But there was a problem: As the days wore on, the feeling began to recede. I became concerned: How could I hold on to this blissful feeling? Clearly, I’d have to be careful. I would avoid all sin and read the Bible every day. I would repent regularly and maybe even witness about Jesus now and then. But would it be enough?

Somehow, I knew it wouldn’t be. I was right.

It didn’t happen right away. But by the end of that year, I had stopped going to dances and spending time with them after school. We still ate lunch together but I sat on the end of the table so I wouldn’t be in the way and I didn’t talk much. 

I was a loner again. 

And I was sick of trying to pretend otherwise.  

***

Though this spiritual experience might have been my most profound to date, religiously inspired euphoria wasn’t new to me. On at least four other occasions, and on several occasions following that weekend retreat, I had briefer significant experiences with the Divine.

Several of these occurred at other Christian retreats. (Those camps. They know what to do.) Maybe it really was God that blessed me with the feelings of peace and love. Or maybe the situations were orchestrated in a way that encouraged belief that such feelings were possible.

Belief is a powerful thing, after all.

These spiritual experiences weren’t problematic in and of themselves–for the most part, they were lovely and life-affirming. It was the interpretations provided to me that increased my already significant feelings of guilt and alienation and decreased my chances of finding my way to mental health.

An example: One weekend, at a prayer retreat I attended with my mom, brother and sister, families were invited to wash each other’s feet, as Jesus had done for his disciples. As I kneeled before my mother, touching her beautifully creased and tanned skin, I burst into spontaneous tears of love. Afterwards, she told me that I now knew true repentance. I hadn’t known true repentance before? I wondered. There are tiers to this? My siblings hadn’t cried that day. Had I surpassed them spiritually?

At another retreat, as my sister and I doodled on sketch pads and otherwise tried to calmly endure the boredom of a long and featureless meeting, my mother turned in our direction, then knelt over her chair to pray. I glanced at her face, and as I did so, I was struck suddenly and hard. The look on her face was one of deep pain.

Immediately, I began to sob, then joined her on the floor. I told her over and over that I was sorry for ever hurting her, and that I loved her. Because I did. I really, really loved my mother, and the experience we shared could have remained pure. Instead, the following day, my mother said this: “Last night, you received the baptism of love.”

In her eyes, I had leveled up. Again.

And so, it will come as no surprise when I say that after the youth retreat that fall, my spiritual identity was further strengthened, and the rules that went along with it, more carefully adhered to. Pray more, sin less. That’s what Godly People Like Me did. It was my new plan for becoming the person I wanted to be, and for feeling better.

From that week on, and through the end of high school, I tried as hard as I could to be a good person. I went to church twice a week. I devoted myself and my future (Christian writer? missionary?) to the betterment of my soul. Nothing is ever simple, and some of the takeaways of my faith were positive; I generally treated others well and didn’t make any seriously detrimental life choices. I maintained a few school friendships, but my efforts towards them were minimal. Virtue would be its own reward.

Wouldn’t it?

***

“It is not things themselves that disturb us, but our judgments about them.” Epictetus.

***

Want to learn how to clean your house twice as well in half the time? Get The Naked House: Five Principles for a More Peaceful Home at your preferred book retailer today.

This is an excerpt from a memoir I’m currently writing, Thirty Cures in Thirty Years: A Depression Survival Story. It is a lighthearted book about the heavy work of mental health. For updates and availability info, subscribe to the right.

***

My eighth grade year, my sister and I switched schools, joining the kids we would live near when our country house was ready. On my first day, I sat in biology class reading Seventeen magazine with what I hoped was diffidence. I wondered if the new start would make me new, too.

The new school didn’t have recess, but it did have lunch periods and mid-morning breaks. Though I quickly found a table to sit at during lunch–it wasn’t hard to pick the other geeks out from the crowd–the breaks confounded me: how would I pass fifteen minutes inconspicuously? It was a daily struggle. Often, I lingered in the bathroom. Sometimes, I sat by the lockers and pretended to read. Then one day early on in my eighth grade career, after exiting the bathroom, my worst nightmare presented itself: there in the main corridor where our lockers were located, seemingly all of the other kids had formed two rough circles.

I scanned the circles quickly. One contained all of the more popular kids, while the other contained everyone else. Only two girls sat on the bleachers, off to the side: April and April. Best friends. Unpopular, but kind.

I knew that if I joined one of the circles, no one would mind. I also knew that if I joined the two Aprils, they’d probably welcome me.

I didn’t do either, though. The distance between my locker and the other kids was too great. So I looked back at my locker and pretended to look for something. Then I returned to the bathroom.

Maybe they’ll think that I was having my period, I thought. Not surprisingly, this idea was little comfort.

Ten minutes passed. Finally, the bell rang. I had made it through another embarrassing moment.

***

The incident was not an isolated one. Despite improvements in my home life, my depression was worsening. Middle school, for me, was the deepest valley of my sadness, and high school was the beginning of the slow, long climb toward higher ground.

These are hard years for most people, right? The self-consciousness and hormones. The fear of not fitting in. But the harsh combination of loneliness and puberty was not the only contributing factor to my declining mental health.

Genetically, I was likely at a disadvantage. My father’s depression was as much a part of him as his joblessness and alcoholism. Sundays were his drinking day, my mother told me. She also told me of the times he would call her on those days, gun in hand.

Self-esteem, too, was a big part of the problem. I was never particularly pretty and I had no sense of style to balance out my aesthetic shortcomings. Later in life, confidence would become my most attractive feature, but that day was many years away. Our family didn’t have the money to purchase me a new look, either; as I write this over thirty years later, I still have occasional nightmares that I have nothing decent to wear.

I didn’t like my glasses, so I simply didn’t wear them, even though my vision was in the legally blind category. How many years did I spend squinting? When that year I finally got contacts, another blow to my self-esteem came: I discovered what I really looked like.

I’d been doing my makeup all wrong. My hair was even worse. But the really bad news: I just didn’t look good. This realization hurt, but not just because attractiveness is a cultural requirement for female sufficiency. It hurt because of its perceived symbolism. Something was wrong with me–indelibly, intrinsically wrong.

And I was powerless to change it.

***

Years later, during my grad school residency, I entered the school cafeteria to see most of the tables filled. At each, students chatted amiably, bonding over chicken and rice. The only spot left for me seemed to be at an empty table.

An empty table. This again. Would I eat alone, as I had throughout my school years? Though technically, I always sat next to other kids, in every cafeteria in which I ate, my place was at the far end. I was ignored. As a thirty-nine [?] year old woman, I should have known that someone would join me at that empty table. But my reaction to the situation wasn’t logical; it was [word]. A wave of desperate loneliness came over me, a physical memory, and unlike some other waves, it was too high for me to breathe over. After an almost imperceptible pause, I joined the food line, hoping no one would speak to me.

Someone did speak to me. I didn’t reply, though. I shook my head and they seemed to understand. They turned away.

I’m okay. I’ll get through this, I repeated to myself forcibly. No one is looking at me. Just get your food and sit anywhere.

I returned to the empty tale, sat down and stared at my plate. Soon, the dean of the school, an unfailingly kind man, the kind that you trust immediately, joined us. This was too much. After pushing the food around my plate for a few moments, I excused myself and went to the bathroom, bringing my phone with me. I locked the door, sat on the floor and called my husband, David. He’d know what to do.

And, to his everlasting credit, he did. “Yeah, that happens,” he said after I told him about the awkward situation.

I took a few deep breaths. “What should I do?” I asked.

He said, “Just go back in and pretend it never happened.” His tone was respectful but also casual.

“Yeah,” I said.

“You can do this,” he said.

It was exactly what I needed to hear.

When I returned to the table the dean and a fellow student who had joined us were discussing the merits and drawbacks of publicly funded early learning programs. I joined the conversation, disagreeing with the woman who opposed them before learning that the dean had worked closely with one of these programs for years. He and I continued talking long past the time the others excused themselves. Was there a hint of surprise–maybe respect?–in his eyes when he realized that I had fully recovered my composure? I knew that he knew that I had powered through a difficult moment. Still, the force of it shook me.

This wouldn’t be the only time being alone in a crowd would overtake me in that sudden, whole-body way. And most of them didn’t end this well. Even today, I often have to breathe through the first half hour of any social occasion in which I’m surrounded by strangers. Sometimes, just breathing isn’t enough.

***

In summer, I often sleep in a tent in my backyard. I look up at the trees and realize with gratitude that compared to them, I am small. One evening as I lay under the blankets I listened to a comedian describe her experiences with her several serious mental health disorders. In the midst of the expected self-deprecating jokes, she said that depression isn’t normal sadness. Depression is not getting out of bed. It’s genuinely wanting to discontinue living because not only your mind but your physical body hurts so badly. Anything short of that, she said, is just the blues.

I thought, That can’t be right, though. I know that feeling of hurting physically from depression, and I know what it’s like to lose the appetite for living. But most of the time, I want to stay alive. I appreciate what I have and who I am. But also, there’s a sadness that never fully goes away.

I know from my training and work as a therapist that there’s a difference between Major Depressive Disorder, the kind the comedian was describing, and the kind I have, Persistent Depressive Disorder (formerly called Dysthymia). I’m thankful that my depression isn’t a debilitating thing–not anymore, anyway. But having lived with the condition from before my earliest memories till the day I write this–over forty-five years in all–I don’t underestimate its power, its tenacity. Persistent Depression isn’t the fire that burns the house down, leaving you to rebuild once it has flamed out. It’s the water in the basement that you have to siphon out each day, lest it creates cracks in the foundation.

My favorite poem is “The Heavy Bear” by Delmore Schwartz, and I would quote the whole thing here if I could. Since I can’t, I will just say that “The heavy bear who goes with me … Has followed me since the black womb held.” He “Moves where I move, distorting my gesture,” and I don’t quite know who I’d be without him.

Sadness goes with me, but it’s not the kind you feel when the home or person you love is no more. It’s the sadness of yet again entering a cafeteria in which you have no place to sit.

***

Want to learn how to clean your house twice as well in half the time? Get The Naked House: Five Principles for a More Peaceful Home at your preferred book retailer today.

This is an excerpt from a memoir I’m currently writing, Thirty Cures in Thirty Years: A Depression Survival Story. It is a lighthearted book about the heavy work of mental health. For updates and availability info, subscribe to the right.

***

“What can I say? I’m depressed. You gotta do what you gotta do.” This was the first joke I made about my depression. It was also the first time that I self-identified, out loud, as a person with this disorder, and if doing so wasn’t actually a treatment attempt, it was at least one step closer to one.

I made the comment on a Saturday afternoon during the eighth grade after bringing a large stack of Peanuts comic books home from the library. Comics weren’t usually my thing, but recently, I’d branched out. While stacking the books next to the bath, preparing for a bit of escapism, my mother commented good-naturedly on my odd reading selection. Feeling a bit defensive, I spontaneously divulged this painful fact of my inner experience.

For the first time, I told someone I was depressed.

Recalling her reaction now, it seems a bit … inadequate. She laughed. Not a mean laugh, just a shoulder-shrugging kind. And there was something else, too, in her reaction that day. Was it helplessness? Or fear? Maybe, too–yes, definitely–there was relief.

Of course, looking back, I see that she could have done more for me that day than to simply acknowledge and reinforce my acceptance of the pain I was experiencing. Some follow-up, at least, would have been helpful, but alas, this was not to be. Due in part to her spiritual beliefs, and in part to her make-do small-town upbringing, she didn’t believe in counseling or medication; she believed in God’s power to heal, and in our power to believe harder and do better.

Mom wasn’t skilled at confrontation or open dialogue, either–any uncomfortable conversation was almost palpably painful for her. She embarrassed easily and passed on this trait. Which is why I sensed that my newfound ability to joke about my problem brought her some relief.

She wouldn’t have to be the one to say it first.

Her laugh told me something else, too: she already knew what I was going through. How long had she known? Who can say? But one thing is certain: the fact of my depression did not surprise her that day. Only my admission of it did.

So now, I knew that Mom knew I was depressed, and she knew that I knew that she knew. The knowing didn’t help, though; it contained no hint at next steps for either of us. Maybe she talked to a friend.

Maybe she prayed.

I never felt resentment of my mom for her seeming helplessness in this difficult parenting situation, though. During my bath that day, I even noticed some relief of my own. A joke. A joke helped. Note to self: this isn’t a disaster. Mom’s laugh told me that she understood, at least.

And that was something.

***

“Remember that you are an actor in a play, of such a kind as the playwright chooses … If it be his pleasure to have you act a poor man, a cripple, a ruler, a private citizen, play it naturally.” Epictetus.

“Many a true word hath been spoken in jest.” William Shakespeare.

***

Want to learn how to clean your house twice as well in half the time? Get The Naked House: Five Principles for a More Peaceful Home at your preferred book retailer today.

This is an excerpt from a memoir I’m currently writing, Thirty Cures in Thirty Years: A Depression Survival Story. It is a lighthearted book about the heavy work of mental health. For updates and availability info, subscribe to the right.

***

On a fair-weather day towards the end of my seventh grade year, I sat alone on the schoolyard bleachers as Freya and the other girls in our class huddled nearby. Though it was our second week of softball P.E., not much softball was being played; the games we preferred were more subtle.

Suddenly, one of the huddling girls, Janice, walked over to me. The action jarred me out of my boredom and mental fog.

Why is she coming over here? I wondered. Is she going to talk to me? And what’s that in her step and in her jaw? Defiance?

“No, thanks,” I said. I returned her defiance, but mine was topped with embarrassment instead of friendliness. Still, there was power here, I told myself. It wasn’t often I got to reject others before they rejected me first.

“Do you want to join us?” Janice asked. It wasn’t a peace offering; it was an accusation. Albeit with a thick layer of hearty good cheer over top. I felt the sound of a ball connecting with a bat, but I didn’t hear it. The kids on the field were just standing around.

Besides, what choice did I have? I had to tell her no. I’d taken my stand against the clique long ago. Changing my mind now would be impossible; the script had already been written. They were Them, and I was just me.

But Janice didn’t leave it there: “What do you have against us, anyway?” she asked. “We never did anything to you. You just think you’re better than us.” 

It was a fair assessment. I did think I was better than them. This war had never been theirs. It was mine alone.

I glanced at the nearby huddle. Every girl was staring at us. My accuser waited a moment for a reply that never came, then rejoined her friends. And then there was a moment that I didn’t appreciate at the time: Freya’s voice reached me. She said, loudly, “Don’t bother her, Janice.”

Maybe Freya wasn’t so terrible after all.

Maybe Freya was just popular because she was cool–not because of some deep character flaw. Later, she would compliment me on my beautiful, thick brown hair during a classroom exercise about self-esteem. But on the sidelines of the softball field, I didn’t–couldn’t–reach any of these mitigating truths.

I merely sat alone, humiliated.

Murmurings and glances from the direction of the group flowed over me, and as was my habit, I focused on simply getting through the next few minutes, one minute at a time. Not long afterward, we were called back inside to class, and I walked alone, trailing further behind the others than usual.

The anger that followed lasted several days at least. I might’ve called it “righteous indignation,” but it was wasn’t; it was powerless rage. I catalogued every possible rationale for my dislike of these prepubescent ladies. They were sinful. They were shallow. They’d rejected me, too.

In time, though, I found my way to the truth of the situation. They were right; I was the problem. I was the one who aggressed first, and what’s worse, I wasn’t good at this. When they finally returned fire, my line quickly caved.

Self-awareness, however, brings consolation prizes. Mine was a moment of clarity that happened not long after this incident.

***

Memories are strange. In some, sensory details feature prominently, while in others, only disembodied, timeless thought remains. One of my most meaningful recollections is of the latter type. It happened sometime during my middle school years.

There is no setting. No plot, really, either. I was probably in my bedroom when it occurred–but which one? I do remember the rough sequence, though–the thought that led to the next thought and then the one after that, till finally culminating in a momentous life decision.

Thought one: I’m a sinful person. I knew that one was true; I hadn’t been going to church all those years for nothing. Besides, there was the way I treated the other kids at school. I hadn’t been quite fair to them, had I?

I had my flaws. But according to The Way Things Were, flawed people could never be happy. That, then, was my second thought: Sin causes guilt. Which was followed by thought three: Guilt causes depression. Or maybe, Guilt causes God to withdraw His presence and favor, leading to deep and abiding dissatisfaction. Something like that.

It was that thought–that third one–that everything hinged on. It felt so true–so immutable–at the time. Looking back, I want to kick myself, or haul myself off my bed and through a window, then into some other life, just for thinking it.

Guilt. It was my Achilles’ heel. For many years, it caused me to suffer. And, as it turned out, unnecessarily. Until I let go of the idea that I was perpetually guilty of something (something …), my ability to discover helpful solutions was nearly nil.

You can’t find a solution when you have the wrong problem.

It led, logically, to thought four: If I want to be happy, I have to be perfect.

Then, thought five: I cannot be perfect.

What was the way out of this predicament? As I remember middle-school Mollie’s sadness about the inevitable and ongoing pain of life due to humanity’s sinful nature, I see that it was desperation that led to the next steps of my thought ladder.

Thought six: I can, at least, be more perfect than I am now.

Thought seven: But how? I have to be honest with myself about my failings. No matter what. If I don’t know what my sins are, I won’t be able to repent and change.

And there it was: the turning point. The first thought on this long train of thoughts that hinted at a solution, a way through. I couldn’t be perfect. But I could improve. And the first step to improving was brutal honesty.

Thought eight: It’s difficult, being honest with yourself. Admitting that you’re the one who messed up. But if I do this one thing, and do it consistently, I at least have a chance of someday feeling good.

Thought ten: I won’t always do the right thing. But I will always tell myself the truth.

It wasn’t a casual decision. It was a solemn pact. Brutal honesty would be the first guiding principle of my life. The idea was a sequoia of wisdom on a landscape otherwise barren of thriving, solid ideas. It showed that I trusted myself to not crack under the pressure of self-knowledge.

It showed that I knew I could do hard things.

***

“Be strict with yourself and forgiving with others.” Seneca.

“Everybody has to lie. But you pick out somebody you never lie to.” Ernest Hemingway.

***

Marriage is awesome … most of the time. Get Fights You’ll Have After Having a Baby: A Self-help Story at your preferred book retailer today.

This is an excerpt from a memoir I’m currently writing, Thirty Cures in Thirty Years: A Depression Survival Story. It is a lighthearted book about the heavy work of mental health. For updates and availability info, subscribe to the right.

***

Throughout my school years, while physically in school, I deftly maintained my loner status. In other places, though, things were changing.

When I was in the sixth grade, our family switched churches, and Lulu and I started attending a youth group. To our great and lasting relief, we became instant friends with the small cohort of fundamentalist Christians who were around our age, including the mature, well-spoken Judith who was a year older than me and became my best friend. We talked about everything–finally, I got to really talk–and since youth group met on Wednesdays, we saw each other and the rest of the group twice a week. After years of loneliness, my sister and I finally had kids to invite to our birthday parties, to go camping with in the summer, and to pass notes with during church.

We had friends.

It was the best thing that had happened to me in a long time. Religion wasn’t all bad for my mental health, then.

But it wasn’t all good, either.

***

Though still managing my depression with food, books and baths, I now had access to more potent potential cures: spirituality and friendship. Church gave me hope. But there were strings attached. My religious community provided me with a place where I could be my best, most confident, most outgoing self, but it also gave me a … problematic … worldview.

With an increased focus on religion came an increased feeling of guilt: I feared the wrath of God if I listened to non-Christian music or had a crush on a boy. Everything, it seemed, was sinful. The good news: if I could just stop sinning forever, I would likely be happy.

***

The church was a confidence booster for me, and my mom must have felt the same way. Along with providing her with new connections, the community strengthened a central part of her identity. She was a prophet, she declared soon after we attended our first service. And we believed her. And maybe she was.

One day, when I was eleven or twelve years old, she told my sister, brother and I that she’d had a vision of our new home in the country. First, though, we had to build it. But no worries: God would provide. She wasted no time getting the project underway.

As she researched land, contractors and blueprints, she also sold our childhood home. Then, the summer before my eighth grade year, after some months of living in friends’ basements and extra spaces, we bought an intermediate house in a different part of town. The house wasn’t as nice as the one we’d grown up in, but no one complained: it was located less than a block away from my best friend Judith and her younger sister Anne.

For the several years that we lived in that house, the four of us girls were inseparable. We baked cookies, watched scary movies, jumped on the trampoline, shared secrets–all of the things I always wanted to do with friends. At home and at church, I genuinely liked the person I was becoming; however, school remained difficult. As I entered the building each day, I also entered a fortress of shyness and sadness.

And until 3:15 p.m., I couldn’t escape.

***

One warm afternoon during the summer before sixth grade a friend of my mom’s went on a cleaning spree. Thinking of Mom’s two preteen girls, she brought us several large boxes of discarded magazines.

“Magazines!” Lulu and I said. Lulu was just a year younger than me, and we had both arrived at the age of crushes and self-consciousness. Though normally my mother forbade us from reading teen magazines, she couldn’t resist the free gift. Lulu and I brought the boxes out to the front lawn and dug in.

It was a treasure trove. One by one, my sister and I plowed through the magazines, skimming, reading, skimming again. The older girls in the pages and their daily concerns (lipstick shades, celebrity updates) fascinated me. I wanted to be like them. Of course I did.

It might’ve been my second time through the boxes that I slowed down enough to read a different kind of article–one of those socially conscious offerings that the editors seemed obligated to include at the rate of one per issue. It was about a girl who had been diagnosed with depression and was now receiving counseling and other support. In large print, there was a callout highlighting her moment of truth: “While riding on a bus one day, out of the blue, I burst into tears. And that’s when I realized I was depressed.”

My first thought: Ha! Crying on a bus? That’s not depression. That’s just … crying. I cry all the time: on the bus, in the car. Sometimes, secretly, I cry during class. She did it once, and suddenly she has a serious mental disorder? You’re not selling me on this, folks.

Depression wasn’t crying. Depression was not getting out of bed. It was losing a job, or attempting suicide, or becoming institutionalized. Anything less than this seemed a bit … dramatic. Anything less was just the pain of life.

Then I read the article.

Thank you, mental health educators.

The realization came slowly and by degrees. Isn’t it like that sometimes? At first, I filed the article in my head under “teen magazine’s weak attempt at a public service announcement, the one most girls skip on their way to the advice column.” Later, my internal dialogue shifted: If she has depression, then I definitely do. But clearly, that’s ridiculous. Then (how long did it take?), eventually, there was another quarter-turn: Oh. Maybe I do have depression. That would explain a lot, actually.

Maybe I have depression.

I have depression.

I wasn’t a martyr or a tragic figure. I wasn’t destined by God to suffer. I was a normal person whose emotional needs weren’t being met. The understanding that eventually dawned did little to solve the problem. But knowing was at least a starting point.

***

My first purposeful attempt to treat my depression was … inadequate, to say the least. It took place on Thanksgiving day of my seventh-grade year and was inspired by, of all things, a long bath. Even at that young age, I had begun seeking comfort in baths on a regular basis, outlasting the water’s heat in an attempt to remain in that place of comfort as long as possible. When I recall the experience, it’s not the tongue-in-cheek remedy that I drafted that stands out the most; rather, it’s that I remember the occasion at all.

I have only thirty or so clear, specific memories of my childhood home, and most of them deserve to be remembered: nighttime fears. Christmases. Punishments. The day I discovered my grandmother “acting funny” on her favorite chair in the family room in the midst of her fatal heart attack.

I remember my first phone call, made on our wall phone in the hallway nook. It was to Sydney after she moved away. I asked if her favorite color was still our favorite, purple, and she told me that she’d switched to blue. I also remember particularly enjoyable afternoons with my sister, playing post office and coming up with dance routines.

But why do I remember this experience–this simple bath? I remember it because it was important. That bath was the first time I purposely and knowingly considered how to manage my depression, and without the benefit of the internet, grownup involvement and proper mental health care, options were limited. Which is why my plan involved turkey.

The day of the bath I soaked for a long time, and after getting out, I lay on the bed. The familiar, welcome smell of my mother’s turkey dinner–now nearly done–came over me, and I realized something: I felt pretty good.

I feel … good, I thought. Better than I had in recent memory. Elevated to humor, I decided, half-jokingly, to create a recipe for treating my depression right then and there. I might have even written it down.

This was that plan: Step one: Get a turkey. On a day off from school, put it in the oven. Step two: Once the smell of the turkey starts to fill the house, draw a bath. Step three: Get in the bath, and stay in it for two hours. Then drain the bath fully while you’re still in it. Listen to the water as it slowly leaves the tub, and notice your state of complete relaxation. Step four: Get out of the tub and lay on a comfortable bed until dinner is ready. Step five: Eat the turkey.

It wasn’t a Turkish bath. But it was a bath with turkey. Maybe it was just crazy enough to work.

It wasn’t. But other crazy things were. And though I didn’t find out about them till much later, at least now I was taking action. I wasn’t just accepting my lot in life as I had for most of my childhood.

I was starting to make plans.

It was an inconvenient strategy, but it was important. It was my first.

I had no idea how many more strategies–both successful and not–were to come.

***

“The man who moves a mountain begins by carrying away small stones.” Confucius.

“He who controls others may be powerful, but he who has mastered himself is mightier still.” Lao Tzu.

***

Marriage is awesome … most of the time. Get Fights You’ll Have After Having a Baby: A Self-help Story at your preferred book retailer today.

This is an excerpt from a memoir I’m currently writing, Thirty Cures in Thirty Years: A Depression Survival Story. It is a lighthearted book about the heavy work of mental health. For updates and availability info, subscribe to the right.

***

When I was in the fifth grade, I checked out the same book every month for the entire school year. Some months I read it little by little during free reading hour, but other months I just kept it in my desk, comforted by its presence and pretending it was mine. When I did read it, I scratched the edges of the pages compulsively—a comforting habit. As I did this, some of the paper would flake off under my fingernails, and I would flick it to the floor, then start scratching again on the next page. By the end of the year, the book was in a sorry state of repair.

The book was called The Bears’ House–Marilyn Sachs was the author–and it was the first great book I ever read. Years later, I discovered that I hadn’t understood the book; clearly, the mother was severely depressed and the children were severely neglected. Sachs’ masterly subtlety and her use of the first person limited point of view meant that she never used those words. Instead, she perfectly captured the loneliness of a child who had no friends and who ran home from school every day at lunchtime to feed her baby sister Kool-aid from a bottle as her mother slept through the child’s cries.

But it didn’t matter that the subtler aspects of the book’s substance escaped me. I didn’t read it because of the plot; I read it because it was sad, and because I liked the main character. Her name was Fran Ellen, and she was always alone, and it didn’t seem strange to her to be that way.

Somehow, that made me feel less strange, too.

By the end of that school year, when I had to turn the book in for the last time, much worse for my having loved it, The Bears’ House was more than a book to me.

It was an education, and a friend.

***

That year, I gave up on going to the playground where my aloneness might draw attention. Did I reject them first, or did they reject me? Maybe it was a little of both. At recess and at lunch, I would wander the halls or apply lip gloss in the girl’s bathroom, killing time by sitting on the white-painted radiator by the obscured-glass window that would have offered a view of the playground and the other kids.

Other times, I would sit on the concrete steps on the side of the school building, around the corner from the schoolyard. They were comfortingly solid and hidden and I don’t remember anyone ever finding me there. And other than a few moments of sudden joy, or satisfaction, or a spontaneous feeling of confidence brought on by some special circumstance, that is who I was back then: the girl sitting on the back steps, alone.

***

One afternoon that year, I returned from recess and joined the line at the drinking fountain. Standing there, waiting my turn, I started crying. No precursor. No inciting incident. I was just … crying. No one in line behind me said anything.

Soon, Natasha walked by. Natasha, my almost-friend–the only person in school I suspected might like me. She was different, too, but in a different way. She was a confident tomboy with an attitude. Seeing my tears that day, she had the decency to stop abruptly and ask me if I was okay.

I appreciated that. Someone noticed. I existed. But when I didn’t respond, she added something to her query: “What’s wrong? Is it … the drinking fountain?”

The drinking fountain? Natasha. Don’t you see that my problem is bigger than that? I’m not a little kid, crying because she’s thirsty and the fountain doesn’t work. I’m suffering here.

I didn’t say any of this to her, though. I didn’t know how to say it, and she wouldn’t have understood. I simply shook my head in defeat, and she walked away. Her comment incited enough shock and embarrassment in me that I was able to suppress my tears, drink some water, and return to the classroom with the rest of the kids.

I went on with my day as if nothing had happened, but something had happened: I’d been confronted with a hard truth. People didn’t feel the way I felt about life. They didn’t see the despair in it all. My perspective wasn’t understood, and I wasn’t, either.

Maybe I never would be. Maybe I was a tragic figure, like people in books. Maybe I was destined by God for suffering.

But that wasn’t all bad, was it? At least I was special. I had depth. That much I knew. I had hoped that Natasha saw it, too, but it seemed she didn’t. “What’s wrong?” she had asked. Didn’t she know that everything was wrong?

The whole world is wrong, Natasha. The other kids. The grownups. The unfairness. The bleakness. The suffering. The drinking fountain, Natasha, had absolutely nothing to do with anything, but if it did, it probably sucked, too.

Natasha doesn’t cry like this, ever, does she? Not ever. Only I feel this way.

Why didn’t a teacher see me cry that day? Or another day–one of the many? Why didn’t they notice I had stopping going to the playground, that I spent every recess hiding in the bathroom or on the side steps? Why didn’t my mom wonder why I never asked to bring a friend home from school?

I will never know.

***

My fifth grade teacher was a kind and insightful one, and looking back I see her efforts towards me were more effective than I then appreciated. She made small talk with me–even confided in me about small things–and tried to make sure I felt included. For group projects, I was placed with the weird kids, including Natasha, and every once in a while I found myself accidentally feeling confident.

For the first few months of the new school year, Natasha and I were buddies. We passed notes during class and occasionally I would even join her on the playground at recess. She and I and another girl, Sandy, knew each other from the year prior, and the other girls in our combined fifth/sixth grade classroom were a year older (our struggling Catholic school had only a handful of students per grade). And so, it seemed natural for us to attach ourselves to each other–at least, it did for a time.

It wasn’t long before the beautiful Sandy was drawn into the older girls’ clique, though. It was hard to watch, but I’d expected it. The leader of the sixth graders was the school’s most popular girl and child model, Freya. She collected admirers. No one was safe. As I made no attempt to ingratiate myself with her (I knew a losing battle when I saw one, and besides, she was an asshole), she went after everyone around me instead.

Now it was just Natasha and I, and I began to wonder how long she’d hold out. We hadn’t experienced the gravitational force that was popularity yet. Could we just ignore it, much like we ignored the boys?

Already imbued with the hubris of religion, I saw the rivalry as good against evil. Which is why it was so hard losing Natasha to the other side.

***

It happened quickly. One day, in the girls’ bathroom, as I sat on the radiator, killing time, Natasha made a dramatic entrance.

“I’ve been looking for you,” she said.

“You have?”

“Yeah. I wanted to play. Have you been in here the whole recess?”

I nodded my head.

Looking for me, I knew, was Natasha’s way of siding with me–at least temporarily. Lately, things had been coming to a head. So rather than joining her, pretending I was okay, I gave expression to what had been on both our minds.

“You can’t go back and forth,” I said with the conviction of the utterly wrong. “You can’t just hang out with them and then me and then them again. You have to choose.”

It was kid logic. So of course, Natasha saw its sense immediately. She agreed to choose, but said she’d have to think about it first.

Towards the end of that day, during a short break between lessons, Natasha came up to me and abruptly said, “Hey, Mollie. I choose you.” 

“Really?” I asked. 

She nodded, businesslike. I sensed that she had convinced herself it was the right thing to do.

I smiled, and till the end of that day, we were best friends. Then, the next day, Natasha spent recess with Freya and the others. 

Later than day, she found me again. With a touch of defiance, she said, “I just wanted to let you know, in case you haven’t already figured it out, that I changed my mind.”

I nodded sadly, but I understood. This was never going to go my way.

I was no fun.

***

With my support system at school pared down to one person–my teacher–I needed additional ways to prop myself up. The good-versus-evil story that had given me legs in my conflict with the popular kids was a great candidate, with handy evidence: these people weren’t even real Christians. I was good, and they clearly were not, and so it was just as well that we didn’t hang out.

I didn’t want to be friends with them, anyway.

“They’re bad influences,” my mom told me. “Don’t cast your pearls before swine.”

It was scripture.

And so, by the time I got to the sixth grade, I wasn’t just a loner.

Now, I was a snob, too.

***

Marriage is awesome … most of the time. Get Fights You’ll Have After Having a Baby: A Self-help Story at your preferred book retailer today.

This is an excerpt from a memoir I’m currently writing, Thirty Cures in Thirty Years: A Depression Survival Story. It is a lighthearted book about the heavy work of mental health. For updates and availability info, subscribe to the right.

***

When I was in the first grade, I had a best friend. Of course, there wasn’t much competition for the title. My other friend, Joanne, had, in an act of great disloyalty and performed with great indifference, moved away several years prior.

Sydney was petite, blonde and unarguably pretty, made prettier next to my less graceful figure and plain face. I was shy—terribly shy—and she was … well, normal. We wouldn’t have been friends in school.

She was my neighbor, and our 1980s-era parents didn’t drive around to playdates, so in a way, she was stuck with me. In summers especially, we played together nearly every day, even though it was clear that at times, I annoyed her terribly.

I followed her around. I copied her, as kids do. She was the alpha to my beta. Yet, in those simple days void of personal reflection, the strategy worked pretty well. Most of the time we had fun together, choreographing backyard dance routines and teaching ourselves how to do cartwheels. We remained close, until one day in the summer before the second grade, she announced she’d be moving—in a week.

Other than events whose significance I wasn’t aware of at the time of their occurrence, this was my first defining life moment.

Our last playdate came. We spent it in my backyard. I don’t remember what we did, but there was a swing set and, if I recall correctly, clear open skies. Maybe we swung side by side, noticing the beauty of the day without noticing we were noticing. Kids do that, too. Before her parents arrived to pick her up and whisk her off to their new city, we discussed how we would say goodbye.

“Will we cry?” we wondered. “Will we kiss? What will we say?” But when, all too soon, her parents beckoned her to the car, the moment wasn’t as sad as it was awkward. Not knowing how to express our sadness, we quickly hugged and said goodbye, and after she left, it wasn’t sweet sorrow. It was just sorrow.

My best friend, my only friend, was gone.

***

A few weeks after the move, I got an unexpected letter. It was from my summer camp counselor who had heard that I wouldn’t be attending camp that year.

When my mother came to read it to me, I was in the backyard on our swing. I wasn’t swinging now, though. I was staring down at the ground, noticing how the gentle movement of my feet traced lines in the dirt.

The first thing I noticed when my mother interrupted my thoughts that afternoon was the uncharacteristic timidity of her voice. Was she … embarrassed? Why is she embarrassed about a letter? I wondered. This must be a pretty big deal.

It was from Mrs. White, she said. She gave me the already opened letter.

“I know it’s sad when a friend moves away,” I read silently. “But I hope you’ll change your mind and come to camp anyway. We want you here.”

The letter was nice. But my mom’s awkwardness as she handed it to me made me wonder. Did Mom feel sorry for me? Did she think I was sad or something? Had she discussed my feelings with other people?

Am I sad? I don’t know. I hadn’t thought about it till then.

“So what do you think, Mollie?” Mom asked gently. “What should I tell her? Do you want to go?”

I looked back down at the ground, missive still in hand. “No,” I told her. “It’s not that much fun anyway.”

Mom didn’t press the issue, and I was glad for that. She returned to the house and I returned to my thoughts.

I am sad, I realized. I’m not crying. I’m not physically hurt. But I am sad, and people can tell. And it’s not just right now.

I’m sad a lot.

It was true. And to me, it was a significant realization.

I was sad, and other people could see it. They knew.

***

When my father, who suffered from depression much of his life, would describe me as a baby, he’d say that I often had a “worried, thoughtful expression” on my face.

“There was a little wrinkle between your eyebrows,” he’d tell me. “You were so cute.” Maybe to my father, my seriousness was a sign of intelligence. Or maybe he appreciated that I took after him.

Either way, I wonder: did I already understand what I was getting myself into?

I was a serious kid. Maybe … a bit too serious? In pictures from young childhood, I see genuine smiles, but I also see contemplation, confusion, chronic boredom and unanswered questions.

My mom called me “sensitive,” but I knew the label covered up something else–something bigger. I’d been lonely for a long time, and now my one friend was gone. There would be no one to fill in the gap that she left–not for a long time.

***

One afternoon before I was yet school age I sat in our living room, re-reading the handful of children’s books we owned. Where was Mom? She might’ve been on the phone. For hours on end, she would gossip with her friends from church and Avon (a Mary Kay-style multilevel marketing company) while my older brother, younger sister and I would watch television and play outside. In later years, as her own depression grew, she gave up all three pursuits: makeup, church, and friends. For both of us, our social lives were a reflection of our sense of well-being.

On our eighties-chic light blue carpet, I spread out the books and studied them, one by one. Then, bored of the activity, I lay quietly and thought. Recalling saying goodbye to my brother that morning as he caught the bus for school and wishing for someone to play with, I had a strange thought: Is something wrong with me? What if I’m … retarded? That was the word we used then for people with Down Syndrome. I tried on the idea, slowly turning it in my mind. What if I’m retarded and no one wants to tell me because they’re afraid it will hurt my feelings? It was my first thought experiment.

After considering the evidence, I assured myself it couldn’t be true–my mom always told me I was smart and praised me for teaching myself to read at age three. So why did I feel so different? And why didn’t I feel good and smile a lot like the other kids? And what was I feeling, anyway? I had so few answers, and so many questions, most of which I didn’t even know how to ask.

And who would I have asked, anyway? What would I have said? Throughout childhood, the idea of confiding in someone about a serious personal difficulty just never occurred to me. I was different, I figured. I’d always be this way.

No sense in making a big deal about it. 

***

Other early memories corroborate the narrative of myself as a fundamentally lonely, withdrawn child: The time I relieved my bladder at my desk because I was too shy to raise my hand and ask to use the bathroom. The times I excitedly reorganized my bedroom and carefully planned my outfit for the rare playdate my mom set up for my sister and I with the kids of one of her friends. How many of these were there altogether? Four? five?

One day at recess (was I in the second grade?) a boy pointed to my feet and said, “Don’t you need new shoes?” He was right: the soles had completely worn through and one of them flapped a bit, separating from the fabric uppers, as I walked. I liked those shoes. I was comfortable with them, and I hadn’t even thought to ask my mom for another pair.

One Christmas, I received the present I’d been hoping for–a talking spelling computer. When I tried to use it and realized that, right out of the box, it was broken, my mother told me she would replace it as soon as she could. I nodded a reply, but somehow I knew she never would, and she never did.

One day in the third grade I cried in class, devastated, after being scolded by the German nun who had taught that grade at our small Catholic school for as long as anyone could remember. I had reversed the i and e in the word “friend,” and the teacher’s severity was not only embarrassing–it was a betrayal. Though the kids didn’t like me, the teachers always did, and being humiliated by her felt like losing an ally.

Often, basic tasks of self-care went undone. There’s a memory of my mother frantically insisting that my sister, brother and I brush our teeth before a rare dentist appointment. I was a bit annoyed by this, and also a shade doubtful: Why are we brushing them now? It’s too late, Mom. He’ll figure it out.

I didn’t brush my hair regularly, either. When finally my mother decided things had gone too far, she wet my hair with No More Tears shampoo (a splurge of a purchase that she showed me proudly) and worked through the knots one by one.

To her disappointment, there were tears.

***

The last time I remember being truly happy during my youngest years was when, a year or two after her move, Sydney came to town and visited for an afternoon. We played in the living room, hanging various important documents all over the walls of our “office.” But what I remember the most is the pit-of-the-stomach sadness I experienced when her mom finally said she had to go.

Sydney and I begged for ten more minutes.

“Ten more minutes,” her mom told us. All too soon, she came back. Then Sydney left, and it was over.

I didn’t know when I’d play with a friend again, but I guessed it would be a long time.

I guessed right.

In that moment, something inside me broke, and though it healed, I was never quite the same. From that moment on, I was no longer a child.

I no longer believed everything would be okay.

***

I wasn’t right about that, exactly; eventually, I would be okay. But it would take a long time to get there. In the years to come, I’d try numerous remedies for my lifelong chronic depression, and though they wouldn’t all work, some would.

Have I tried thirty cures in as many years? Or have there been more than that? Either way, for me, self-improvement has been a lifelong job. Fortunately, it’s a job that I have since figured out how to do–most of the time. And it’s a job that I like most of the time, too.

Anyway, mental health, I’ve learned, isn’t free for anyone–even for people who are naturally cheerful.

It’s always earned.

There are no exceptions.

***

As an undergrad, I majored in English and History, specializing in ancient Greece and Rome. A few years ago, I revisited some of the authors I might not have fully appreciated as a twenty-something. This included works of stoic philosophy like The Trial and Death of Socrates (the trio of dialogues individually known as The Apology, Crito, and Phaedo), Meditations by Marcus Aurelius and Letters from a Stoic by Seneca. Other authors I read or reread around this time echoed some of their themes: Ralph Waldo Emerson. Henry David Thoreau. Augusten Burroughs. A guy named Mark Manson wrote a book called The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck, and it was every bit as profound as the title suggests.

By this time, I’d been a self-help writer for about fifteen years and a mental health counselor for about five. Many of my books and stories coalesced around the themes of depression treatment and of the mental fortitude such a disorder calls for. What do I most want to say? I’d often ask myself, as all writers do. What is the one thing I want everyone to know?

Inspired by my recent reading, the answer came easily: I want to help people see themselves as survivors, not victims. To take responsibility for their mental health–to see it as a job.

And here, now, was Socrates: “He who is not contented with what he has, would not be contented with what he would like to have.”

And here, now, was Seneca: “Difficulties strengthen the mind, as labor does the body.”

And here, now, was Marcus Aurelius: “You have power over your mind—not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength.”

I’m a stoic, I realized. I just didn’t know it till now.

And so, this is a book about depression–my depression, specifically.

But it is also a book about survival.

***

Marriage is awesome … most of the time. Get Fights You’ll Have After Having a Baby: A Self-help Story at your preferred book retailer today.