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.
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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.
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