Life with Major Depressive Disorder
Life with Major Depressive Disorder
TW: depression, suicide, self-harm, vulnerable feely stuff.
Long ago, when I was a kid, and into my teenage years and twenties, I lived with a monster inside of me.
Actually, let me rephrase that: I still have this monster inside of me. It’s just that, back then, I didn’t know the monster existed.
As a whippersnapper, I presented as shy. That’s how folx perceived me. Shy, sensitive, quiet.
In high school, I was the person who could probably blend into the background of a yearbook photo, or default his way into being the last put into groups for the class science experiment.
This feeling continued into college, where I often felt like my perspectives on, let’s say a John Keats poem, was somehow not right, or off the mark, met by silence or off-handed remarks.
If only they all knew how difficult it was to speak up in the first place!
The world, and people within the world, felt like too much. Felt unfamiliar. I felt out of place. My shyness, my sensitivity, my quietness was all part of the camouflage — part of me and also keeping me from me.
It was though I only passed as human. A monster in a human suit.
But this monster had no name. It had no physical representation. No context.
Nobody knew about the monster. Not even me.
Not until I was diagnosed with Major Depressive Disorder a decade ago.
Oh hello, monster inside of me.
I think about my 30 years, living a life presenting as human, uncomfortable in my skin, an unknown monster at the helm — and I want to cry.
I ponder my time as a teenage drunk, an anorexic, the dumb shit who actually started a fight club in college and nearly got kicked out his first semester, the human who didn’t know how to show up in the world because he didn’t know who he was — and I want to scream.
I consider my childhood and the armor I built to protect my last vestige of softness and sensitivity, a protection that saved me and also kept me from seeing what damage the monster had sown. I consider all the wandering, from New York to Alaska to the time I lived out of my car, running away from who I was, running away from a monster I had no frame of reference for, no safety to see. I consider the grief of now knowing who I am now, and who I never was then — and I want to cry some more.
I ALSO consider the coconuts . . . the trunks and the leaves! (for my Moana fans)
When I was diagnosed, the lights came on. Even if I had an inkling that the diagnosis was coming, finding out I had depression was still a gift I’ll always cherish, a validation of all the time spent feeling so lost and uncared for and unseen and unheard.
That was about a decade ago. Or less. I don’t know. I’m terrible with time and WHEN IS WHAT. The point is, I’ve had some time to live with a diagnosis, with knowledge, with space to take in just what it means to be a wild meat sack who has clinical Major Depressive Disorder.
And for me, that has meant so much dark and so much bright, and all the mush in between, some of which I’ve I’m going to share with you here.
Here’s my mush, also known as Life with Major Depressive Disorder.
Life with Major Depressive Disorder means that my depression is treatment resistant. Many medications don’t work for me. In fact, no medication has really worked except one: Viibryd. And even that one, which I upped earlier this year, has been pretty spotty.
Life with Major Depressive Disorder means that, because of my spotty Western meds, I’ve been honored to meander through the mycelium network, take a few trips, a handful of microdoses, and I think my darkness is a shade lighter for it.
Life with Major Depressive Disorder means that I experience regular, ongoing, persistent suicidal ideation. Which means I often think about how might this one random inanimate object be used to suffocate the breath from my lungs, or how I could make quite the SPLAT jumping off that bridge.
(Side note: Life with Major Depressive Disorder also illuminates or exacerbates — pick your poison — my gallow’s humor. I’m sorry.)
Life with Major Depressive Disorder means that one of my go-to coping mechanisms is to self-harm, the most recent of which episodes had me punching my quadricep as hard as humanly possible WHILE DRIVING and listening to NOFX’s Punk In Drublic album of course (see: previous note about teenage drunk).
Life with Major Depressive Disorder means that I can convince every ounce of my being, without a shred of evidence, that I am not worthy of love, and that I deserve to be in pain.
Life with Major Depressive Disorder means that sometimes my monster shows up in ways that surprise me, and I revert back to my childhood, I hide myself, I forget everything I’ve learned over the past decade, and it feels like I’m all alone again.
Life with Major Depressive Disorder also means that I know my monster, and even though monsters have a negative connotation, my monster ain’t so bad. My monster is part of me, this is true. But my monster isn’t all of me.
Life with Major Depressive Disorder means that I was able and had the privilege to start therapy, a tool that has saved my life more than once.
Life with Major Depressive Disorder means that I have spelunked deep within the confines of my heart, and my goodness is it vast and plentiful and humbling to learn that there’s still so much yet to explore.
Life with Major Depressive Disorder means that I don’t want to be seen even though I’ve spent my whole life undoing that same feeling.
Life with Major Depressive Disorder means that I have a roadmap, even if the roadmap is covered in coffee stains and crinkled to hell and might not be relevant tomorrow.
Life with Major Depressive Disorder means that I have learned (and continue to learn) about the beauty in between the dark and the bright. That’s the space where I really find myself most often. Better make do with the telescopes and the microscopes and the big listening ears from The Adventures of Baron Munchausen!
Life with Major Depressive Disorder means that, while at times I feel isolated and like no one will ever understand, it also means that there’s a window into the hearts of so many others who are struggling — if only I have the courage to look.
Life with Major Depressive Disorder means that I can be overprotective of my heart, even to the point where I’m cold to those who truly love me.
Life with Major Depressive Disorder means that my tolerance for horror films is very high.
Life with Major Depressive Disorder means that I have been told more times than I can count that I “just need to get over it” and that I “just need to stop being so negative” and that I “just need to give it to god” and that I “just need to drink this celery juice.”
Life with Major Depressive Disorder means that, on the lower days where everything is the worst and everything sucks, the trauma from childhood rears its ugly head into my noggin, like a plucky viewfinder from your nightmares.
Life with Major Depressive Disorder means that I can be difficult to be around, and probably a big dump of a burden, but if I can let them in I realize they have much more love to give than I give them credit for.
Life with Major Depressive Disorder means that I’ve been at death’s door, even ding-dong ditched the door a few times, and am here to talk about it, here to live beside it, here to know in my heart that this living thing is for me.
Life with Major Depressive Disorder means that sometimes the vibrant wildflowers of these Southern California desert trails feel muted, less akin to the bringers of life they are and more like the harbingers of death my depression thinks they are.
Life with Major Depressive Disorder means that “sick days” from work don’t seem to look like anyone else’s sick days and honestly makes me feel like I have superpowers.
Life with Major Depressive Disorder means that I grieve for the time it took to get here, and within the same breath am reminded I am alive because of it.
Life with Major Depressive Disorder means that today I am here, alive, breathing, with you — co-companion to a monster or not.
And I’m so grateful.
