Frustrated Writer

 
 “Do you not see how necessary a world of pains and troubles is to school an intelligence and make it a soul?”
― John Keats, Letters of John Keats

I hesitate to try and write about depression. So many others have already lent their voice to the “Depressives choir”. But I thought I’d add my voice and hope that you can nod your head in agreement with me. (Or shake your head and mutter “rubbish”)

A medical definition of depression gives us this “a persistent low mood, a loss of pleasure or interest in activities, and low energy lasting for at least two weeks.” (Mayo clinic) By that definition, I don’t have too much to worry about. I get the occasional “grey day”, but they fade. Thankfully. I gladly take my antidepressant medication and mentally toast Pfizer, or whichever multinational produces my medication. I am ambivalent about anti-depressants. I appreciate them and the work they do. But I resent needing then. What do I have to be depressed about? Happily married to my brilliant wife, a roof over my head, a wide range of friends. All indicators for good mental health. Yet still I get my grey days where all I want to do is to have a duvet day.

And that’s an issue for me. Two “good” days when I feel full of optimism and energy. I went for a walk with my trusty walking frame the other day – 2×20 minutes to the top of the hill and back down again. 40 minutes in all. I was delighted. Finally, I thought, I’m getting back to fitness. Then today, my legs ache and I have no energy. Bang! went all my sunny optimism. I can’t even do a 40 minute walk. Then guilt and anger come in “What specimen of humanity am I when a 20-minute walk up to the pub is too much? My 90-year-old neighbour does it three time a week.

I’m currently having “Acceptance and Commitment” therapy. A third wave of CBT therapy. I’m not too sure about it. I never was too sure about CBT. I lean more towards Freud and the unconscious. The essence of acceptance and commitment seems to be making a choice to think positive thoughts rather than succumbing to yet another bout of the “poor old Me’s”

I like Keat’s comment about the value of pains and suffering in soul making. There is a value in good old fashioned “soul making”. It creates inner strength and a willingness to keep on keeping on. That’s one reason people go on pilgrimages ,choosing to walk 30 miles a day rather than just drive. The body imposes a certain discipline on the mind. (And that’s a good thing up to the point where pain is intolerable. And first cousin to depression is anxiety – “An anxiety disorder is a mental health condition involving excessive, ongoing fear and worry that are hard to control and interfere with daily life” The combination of anxiety and depression can be crippling. When in the grip of these two muggers the individual is reduced to a worried and needy 10 year old.

We have a friend who is now quadriplegic following a fall when out walking. In an instant he went from doing a 20 miles cross country walk to being paralysed from the neck down. He is remarkably stoic, (I‘d be howling for a one-way trip to Switzerland and a peace giving injection. Not so our friend. He endures with a sense of humour and a wittiness that makes me feel a chief wimp. What do I have to complain about?) And that makes my case. My lonely misery can feel just as overwhelming as my friend’s paralysis. I feel inadequate even mentioning him in this piece. But 30 years of working in the field of mental health have taught me there is no one response to pain. One person crumbles to dust, others, like Keats, sees suffering as redemptive and educational.

To return to me. I find myself more afraid of the misery that sets in if I’m left too long by myself, than by the absence itself. Gone are the days when I could spend a week by myself sitting reading all D.H. Lawrence’s novels. I’ve lost the knack of being self-sufficient. (It’s the irony of being married or similar. One gains a companion but loses a particular relationship with oneself. It also sets one up for loss. Eventually one’s partner will die. Leaving behind many years of companionship. And leaving room for depression and misery to be one’s companion. (Which takes us to Simon and Garfunkel’s line “I am a rock. I am an island. If I never would have loved, I never would have cried…”) But we’re built to be in relationship – with God or our fellow human beings. I’ll end this piece with a quote from Nathaniel Hawthorn “Caresses, expressions of one sort or another, are necessary to the life of the affections as leaves are to the life of a tree. If they are wholly restrained, love will die at the roots”