14) Let's Talk About Depression

In my previous posts, I've mentioned that I've struggled with depression off and on, but I haven't really talked about it in any depth. I think it's a big issue right now during COVID - people out of work, cramped up at home with domestic partners that they may not be on good terms with, too much responsibility, sickness, not being able to pay the bills. Feelings of inadequacy and "no end in sight" are major underlying causes of depression, so people who have the gene are especially susceptible right now.

But what specifically has gotten me thinking about this subject, and the need to talk more openly about it, is an email conversation I recently had with a friend. He was trying to process the death of one of his friends, who had chosen to take his own life. In that conversation, I shared some things about my own struggle with depression and occasional thoughts of suicide and I realized that - if you don't fight these particular battles - not only does suicide seem absolutely insane, but depression itself can be a very confusing concept to wrap one's head around. Even I, who am pretty open, often hesitate to talk about it. As I've discussed previously, in our society we often shame people who are in pain - and even though this is emotional pain - the shame is nonetheless just as strong. I want to explore that a bit - what's behind depression, the roots of the shaming, and alternative ways of thinking about depression and suicide that are kinder and more compassionate. I'm going to devote this post to the topic of depression and the next one to suicide. I know these are really tough topics, but hang in there.

Before I talk about my own experience, I just want to clarify that it is just that - my own experience. I don't speak for anyone or everyone out there who has this illness - not by a long shot. If you want to get another perspective, there's an amazing blogger who writes and illustrates about her own ups and downs with depression - I referred to her earlier in my post, "Pain and Shame" when I was talking about her brilliant pain scale - but I'd absolutely recommend that you read what she's written and illustrated - she's hilarious and so insightful: https://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com/2013/05/depression-part-two.html

So how is depression like other illnesses and how is it different? To be honest, depression is very similar to my migraines in that I'm genetically predisposed to inherit them - migraines on my mother's side, depression on my father's side, and both of them are invisible. Depression is emotional pain; migraines are physical pain. Both of them are difficult to treat, and can hinder my ability to function normally. Both of them have caused me to consider ending my life, and the relationship between the two - while mysterious - is powerful and yes, I would say deadly. We all know that chronic pain sufferers are far more prone to suffer with depression, and there is a good reason for that. But none of my serious bouts of depression have been connected to my migraines - my moments of extreme pain, and despair, tend to be fleeting. The serious depression - which has only happened a few times in my life - is connected to something else. But I did want to make the connection between physical and emotional pain because I think it's important. 

Men and women tend to have have different "triggers" for depression, but usually the common denominator is that we don't feel we're enough - that we're good enough, that we're smart enough, good looking enough, lovable enough . . . fill in the blank. Usually this is a message that somehow got in our heads at a young age, and got stuck. This is true for me. All of my bouts of depression have been about identity - not having a clear picture of who I am, and what my worth is. I'll give an example. 

Back in 2007, I was living on Capitol Hill in DC, had an amazing job that was really taking off, and had just started dating a guy that I'd been set up with through some mutual friends. My life was pretty perfect. About four months into the relationship, the guy just disappeared. It was a month before I found out he had gone to Africa for work and just hadn't bothered to tell me. So he was a jerk. No big deal, right? Move on to the next guy. But what happened was my second serious bout of depression, which was so bad that I started almost to disassociate from my own body when I was awake. I heard a voice in my head - something that has never happened either before or since that episode. It was like a record playing over and over, saying the same message, "No one will ever love you. You're worthless." This lasted for about three-four months, and then I came out of it - mostly by working myself to death during that time. 

But about two years later, I saw a therapist and started talking about my depression, and it was over the course of working with her for a year that I uncovered some forgotten memories from when I was young - probably three, four years old, when I would be hiding while my dad yelled at my mom, and said things along the lines of "You're worthless. No one will ever love you." What had happened was that I had internalized those messages so that they were about me, so that something that should have been no big deal - some guy acting like an idiot - became about me being worthless, rather than about him being an idiot. My dad sometimes threatened to leave my mom in the years when my sister and I were quite young - that was one of the ways he emotionally abused her - so any form of abandonment is a trigger for me. 

We each have feelings of inadequacy that we struggle with, and if we have the depression "gene", those feelings of inadequacy are often the triggers for depression and a belief that we will never be good enough. My dad has struggled with this for most of his life, and his father before him. During my high school years, which were pretty rough for a variety of reasons, my dad would have these nightmares where he would talk in his sleep and you could hear him wrestle with his demons - it was heartbreaking. He was impossible to be around when he was awake, but in his sleep he was like a small child crying out for help. The feelings of inadequacy and helplessness that kept him from holding down a job - which of course led to more feelings of inadequacy and helplessness - that increased the depression that made it more difficult to hold down a job - were overwhelming for him. 

I didn't really have an opportunity to know my grandfather - my dad's dad - until just a couple years ago when my aunt helped move him up from Southern California into an assisted living facility in Berkeley. He's in his 90's now, so his mind is a lot in the past. During one conversation that we had over lunch, he recalled his experience as a young naval officer in training at Annapolis. This is something of an infamous story in our family, because we all know the ending - which was that my grandfather was made to feel like such an outsider for being Jewish that he had a psychiatric breakdown. It was interesting to hear the story straight from the horse's mouth, so to speak, because there was far less emphasis on the trauma and more on the good times. I think my Grandpa is only wanting to spend time in the good places as he nears the end of his life - and bravo for that. 

But it's undeniable that the message he gave to my dad, as child and a young man, was that he (my grandpa) was rejected. My dad didn't experience love or acceptance from his father, and it is a credit to him that he gave us - my siblings - as much love as he did. The amazing thing is that - in spite of the traumatic memories I have from when I was young - all of my first memories are with my dad, and they are beautiful memories. I have a scarily good memory, so I can remember really far back to when I was one or two years old. My mom got pregnant with my younger brother, Josh, when I was just one, and her pregnancies were always so difficult that she was pretty much in bed for most of the nine months that she was pregnant. So my dad did everything for my sister, who was three, and I. I remember him cooking dinner with me on his hip, grocery shopping with me in the cart, changing my diaper, coming in to get me in the morning in my crib (yeah, I told you I have a freaky memory). Never a cross moment. Even after Josh was born, I still called for my dad when I woke up. I still wanted him to comfort me and read to me at night. I don't know where this well of love and tenderness came from in my dad, but now that I've had years to process all of the good and bad from my childhood, I realize what a miracle it is that there was so much good. 

I will never fully understand the relationship between trauma and depression, especially generational trauma passed on through families. But I am confident to say several things. First, there definitely is one. Second, learning to be kind to yourself and each person involved in the trauma is a huge part of the healing. I will always have a tendency toward depression, but I think the more I understand my family, my identity as part of that family, and the reasons why I sometimes doubt my self-worth, the less I will believe the false narrative when it plays in my head. Even when the same events occur in my life - such as losing a job (major trigger) - that occurred in my dad's life - I have learned that, as practitioners of meditation know, "we are not our thoughts."