OH goodness. It has been quite some time since we had ourselves a little chat, and the last chat was a bit of a downer, I suppose. I will say, that I had a great response from it. I got exactly the response I was looking for: People that were silently dealing with the same mud I was wallowing in came out of the woodwork to talk to me about their own struggles. It's good when we share.
I'm sitting here listening to Big Star with my sleepy dog beside me, like a personal heater, and the rain is plinking on my tin roof. It's 66 degrees right now, in November, and THAT, my friends, is why I love living in the south. It's humid and misty, but not unpleasant in any way. My windows are open, and the rain smells good.
As I was driving home last night from Relapse through patches of dense fog, I was reminded of my time in Shenandoah National Park a few years ago (....10?). I was working at a gift shop/camp store/cafe as a slave to Miss (a carton of cigarettes a day) Dolores, but that's a different story entirely. On my coveted days off, when I wasn't rushing down to the nearest town off the mountain to drink real Dr. Pepper (Dr....Best? is just not the same) (and, yes, these are the things I voted on as important...10? years ago. Shut. Up.), I was exploring the park.
The great (hahaha) thing about Shenandoah National Park is that it sits on the top of a 105 mile ridge of the Appalachian Mountains. It sits on top. ON TOP. So, anywhere you might find yourself exploring, you are going to be going down, and to return to your starting place, you are going to have to go up. It took me a while to figure this out. I was determined to spend the summer running the trails.
It was a lovely foggy day up on the ridge at Skyland when I set out on one of my seemingly simple jogs. I was running along the drive, headed for a trail head a mile *down the road. It was so easy. I felt like I must be hitting a runner's high awfully soon in the run, but I was pretty much a bad-ass, so this did not surprise me in the least. I took a little break at an overlook of an ancient hemlock forest. I read the information marker, and played a balancing game with the stone wall that separated the highway from the drop into the forest below. It was here that I saw my first bear of the summer.
Everyone had been talking about bears. People would run into the store randomly shouting about how everyone needed to run out to see the bears eating the garbage (ah, the great outdoors), but I was stuck behind my stupid counter restocking film (stuff that was once used to make pictures), or gum. GUM. I wanted to see a bear, dammit. Instead, I just stuffed my face with fudge when Delores wasn't looking. BUT TODAY! Today, I saw a bear. A bear cub, my friends, a cute bear cub, foraging on the side of the road, the edge of the woods, across the highway from me. THIS was an accomplishment. Not only had I run a delightful mile (entirely down hill), but I had stopped at just the right spot to see a bear.
I stared for a moment, then slowly tiptoed away (despite the noisy vehicles on the drive). I kept balancing on the stone wall. Someone may have slowed down to warn me of the dangers of my behavior, but I didn't care. I had totally just seen a bear. On my left, Skyline drive wound along the ridge, and on my right, a thick fog rested on the tops of some of the trees down in the valley.
I found my trail head and made my way...up. Tried running a little, realized I wasn't quite the athlete I had assumed, but finally made my way to the overlook....I assumed. I knew where I was because I had been to the overlook via a different route a number of times, but this time it was a bit of a mystery because of the fog. I sat on the edge of the cliff, and rested my body against the wall of cloud in front of me. I was sitting in a cloud. It was misty and cool, but not cold. I knew the cloud was hiding the drop directly in front of me, and that felt amazing. I was sitting in a blind cloud on top of a mountain, a huge invisible drop beneath my dangling feet.
I suppose there should be a point to this, a wrap up. But there isn't actually. It's just a story. A day I spent in the woods/not the woods. Shenandoah was like that. This bizarre amalgamation of actual wild-life and the people that are terrified of it watching it from the comfort of their cars. I saw many bears after that. They mostly hung around the employee dorms eating our trash. I never really saw one in the true wild, but I saw plenty of deer. One of my first days in the park I was exploring a trail early in the season that was delightfully empty. It crossed the AT at one point and got pretty narrow. This is where I saw my first buck. It was standing in the middle of the trail, inches from me. I had to keep going forward to get back to the dorms, so I slowly made my way towards the buck. He watched me the whole way, but he never moved. He allowed me to slide myself between him and the drop off the trail into the hollow. I could'v touched him, but I didn't. I didn't make any noise either. We just watched each other. I don't know why, but I too was a bit nervous as to what he would do.
Then I went back to my dorm, ate some fudge, and listened to the guy in the room next door watch episode after episode of Who Wants to be a Millionaire.
Wednesday, November 16, 2011
Tuesday, August 30, 2011
Bleak House
I'm about to do something that might not be too safe. I like to present myself to the public of the world wide interwebs as a person of clear mind and outstanding character, a girl that laughs in the face of adversity and walks with a spring in her step. I certainly don't want to make anyone uncomfortable or come across as melodramatic and lame. I have been known to be both of those things, and I do not wish to propagate that personality aspect with this particular blog. I just want to be honest, and I just want to share. Maybe someone out there needs to hear this. I don't know. I could certainly use it.
I suffer from a delightful disease that was once called "depression," but has now been upgraded to "major depressive disorder." I guess that sounds more medical. Maybe because so many people like to whine about how "depressed" they are, the mayo clinic (or whoever's in charge of that sort of thing) decided it might be easier to give it a more technical/medical sounding name. It IS, after all, a medical condition. I have a history of it, and I come from a long line of afflicted who, if not properly diagnosed because of their generation, were terribly misunderstood. It is, as they say, in my blood. And this one is heavy.
I bring it up now because I seem to have slipped deep into a bout of it over the past few months. It's a funny feeling watching things slip out of your grasp, sinking, but spinning uncontrollably. I could not tell you, if you asked, when it started, or give you an outline of my descent. The pictures are never that clear. That's what it is: a fuzziness in your brain, a cloudiness, that fogs the reality, the logical order of every day life. Maybe it happens in slow motion, but a blind slow motion, not one during which you see all the little nuances of every single move made. Slipping into depression is like sinking slowly underwater. It's comfortable, yet suffocating, calm, yet terrifying.
I feel it in my whole body. Every muscle aches. Sometimes I think I can't even move under the weight. Every single decision I make throughout my days, is tossed up against this wall that I watched building around me, yet said nothing. It's a heaving of myself into each task, and it's exhausting. Sometimes I have to convince myself that I have to talk. I have to will myself to communicate. I have to fight myself to keep from crying.
And sometimes I do cry. I cry until I laugh at myself because I know exactly where I am. I made it home a few days ago and sat myself back in the far corner of my house, and I cried out loud, "I don't want to be sad anymore," and then I laughed, and I breathed, and my dog licked my knee.
And it's no one's fault. It's not even my fault. It just is. Just hovering there, completely unrelated to the earth's rotation. Simply a wire or two in my brain that is malfunctioning. But it's very lonely.
I suppose that's why I'm writing this. Depression is terribly lonely. Sometimes I don't even want to be with people because it feels more lonely than when I'm alone. Because I have no idea what to say. Because it takes so much energy to keep from responding to "hello" with "I'm so tired of being miserable." I can't find anyone talking about depression online except doctors talking about how we need to talk more about it. To whom? Who among us is able to take on, even for a brief moment, the cross we, the depressed, flail beneath? Who would we want to do that to?
Yes, I take medication, and, yes, I am a believer. Sometimes it takes work, to find the right drug and the right dosage, and sometimes everything changes, and you have to go back to square one, but it's worth it not to feel this way. It's worth it to have hope that the world isn't quite ready to write you off. I'm also a believer in therapy. NOTHING feels quite like having an hour a week during which to talk while someone listens. So few people really listen to each other. So many people need someone to listen to them. Someone that takes the weight for just a moment, and then helps you grow strong enough to bear it yourself. The weight is always there. We do have the capability of carrying it, and that's a relief.
So, I hope someone reads this, and feels relief. I hope someone stumbles upon this, and it soothes the dull pain of waking up to depression again and again.
Even with medication, depression is a tough road to travel, but it doesn't last forever. It can't. As soon as this room becomes too dark, a light will find its way in.
I suffer from a delightful disease that was once called "depression," but has now been upgraded to "major depressive disorder." I guess that sounds more medical. Maybe because so many people like to whine about how "depressed" they are, the mayo clinic (or whoever's in charge of that sort of thing) decided it might be easier to give it a more technical/medical sounding name. It IS, after all, a medical condition. I have a history of it, and I come from a long line of afflicted who, if not properly diagnosed because of their generation, were terribly misunderstood. It is, as they say, in my blood. And this one is heavy.
I bring it up now because I seem to have slipped deep into a bout of it over the past few months. It's a funny feeling watching things slip out of your grasp, sinking, but spinning uncontrollably. I could not tell you, if you asked, when it started, or give you an outline of my descent. The pictures are never that clear. That's what it is: a fuzziness in your brain, a cloudiness, that fogs the reality, the logical order of every day life. Maybe it happens in slow motion, but a blind slow motion, not one during which you see all the little nuances of every single move made. Slipping into depression is like sinking slowly underwater. It's comfortable, yet suffocating, calm, yet terrifying.
I feel it in my whole body. Every muscle aches. Sometimes I think I can't even move under the weight. Every single decision I make throughout my days, is tossed up against this wall that I watched building around me, yet said nothing. It's a heaving of myself into each task, and it's exhausting. Sometimes I have to convince myself that I have to talk. I have to will myself to communicate. I have to fight myself to keep from crying.
And sometimes I do cry. I cry until I laugh at myself because I know exactly where I am. I made it home a few days ago and sat myself back in the far corner of my house, and I cried out loud, "I don't want to be sad anymore," and then I laughed, and I breathed, and my dog licked my knee.
And it's no one's fault. It's not even my fault. It just is. Just hovering there, completely unrelated to the earth's rotation. Simply a wire or two in my brain that is malfunctioning. But it's very lonely.
I suppose that's why I'm writing this. Depression is terribly lonely. Sometimes I don't even want to be with people because it feels more lonely than when I'm alone. Because I have no idea what to say. Because it takes so much energy to keep from responding to "hello" with "I'm so tired of being miserable." I can't find anyone talking about depression online except doctors talking about how we need to talk more about it. To whom? Who among us is able to take on, even for a brief moment, the cross we, the depressed, flail beneath? Who would we want to do that to?
Yes, I take medication, and, yes, I am a believer. Sometimes it takes work, to find the right drug and the right dosage, and sometimes everything changes, and you have to go back to square one, but it's worth it not to feel this way. It's worth it to have hope that the world isn't quite ready to write you off. I'm also a believer in therapy. NOTHING feels quite like having an hour a week during which to talk while someone listens. So few people really listen to each other. So many people need someone to listen to them. Someone that takes the weight for just a moment, and then helps you grow strong enough to bear it yourself. The weight is always there. We do have the capability of carrying it, and that's a relief.
So, I hope someone reads this, and feels relief. I hope someone stumbles upon this, and it soothes the dull pain of waking up to depression again and again.
Even with medication, depression is a tough road to travel, but it doesn't last forever. It can't. As soon as this room becomes too dark, a light will find its way in.
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