So, there have been several times in which I have found myself being pulled under by the quicksand of depression, and I think I will probably always struggle with anxiety and self-doubt. At times, these issues have taken over every aspect of my life—almost like a vine, opportunistically taking over an old building.
Sometimes I have been strong enough to ask for help. Sometimes I have been strong enough to pull myself out of the mire. And at other times, I have been so lost that the only solution has been time.
During the worst times, just about every relationship in my life has been damaged or impacted. Even when people love you, they sometimes grow impatient, because it’s hard to be a good friend when you can barely find the strength and courage just to get out of bed each day. And in the middle of these black holes, everything is so awful that you don’t believe you have anything of value to offer anyone else. If you feel so worthless, why would it occur to you that anyone else could need you.
I know I made that assumption the last time I found myself circling the drain.
After my miscarriage, my depression and hopelessness was exacerbated by hormonal shifts about which I was clueless, and helpless against. And at the time, it seemed like everyone around me was either in the middle of healthy pregnancies or becoming pregnant.
A good friend experienced a scare during her pregnancy. She wanted to go to lunch with another friend and me—both of us had experienced pregnancy loss. In the moment, it didn’t occur to me that she really wanted to be around me. I was feeling so useless that I thought she had only asked me along to be polite. She needed me, but I couldn’t be there. I know it seemed selfish to her and to my other friend, but I really believed I was “saving” them from me.
Depression and anxiety are a perfectly toxic cocktail. They are like the mean girls in your middle school. They take everything that’s happening to and around you, and twist it until all you are left with is a rope, and you don’t know if you will use it to hang on, or to let go.
You become so isolated that the only things you believe are the things in your toxic inner monologue. Your need to be alone is the only thing you trust, because you don’t want your darkness to spread.
Depression and anxiety are the worst kind of prison, because you just don’t believe you are worthy of help, and without help, you may not survive. So, you have a really have a hard time breaking free. And just like a prison, the world around you keeps turning—without you. If you do finally escape, you often find that almost everyone has moved on—without you. You have been left behind.
During my last major battle with these demons, I lost almost everything—my job, my friends, my physical health, and if it hadn’t been for my belief that my husband and my dog needed me more than I needed “to leave”, I would have lost my life, too.
In the years that have come and gone since this period in my life, I have experienced occasional, but transient periods of sadness or the blues. I knew that I would be more susceptible to postpartum depression after my daughter was born, and I was able to ask for help when it hit. After having lost so much before, I refused to allow myself to spiral again.
For a long time, I looked at everything I lost before as penance. The friends who no longer wanted to be around me were the price I owed the universe for being such a toxic wasteland of sadness, and such a terrible friend.
Even in the process of moving away from the “battlefield”, I believed the whispers of the demons that had inflicted so much damage. I believed it was all my fault, and that the reason I had lost so much was because I failed—I failed to keep my shit together. Somehow, I was supposed to be some pillar of strength, and I was supposed to look at what felt like death, and deflect it like bullets bouncing off of Wonder Woman’s bracelets.
It doesn’t matter how irrational that belief sounds as I write it. And sometimes our beliefs become our truths. I still struggle. My friends have always been my life’s blood—even when I have had very few. For the most part, biological connections have failed me. As an adult, I have built a “family” out of my friends. When I lost almost every single one, I didn’t lose friends, I lost sisters.
In the years since my personal “war” I have tried to repair what I can. When I think of damaged friendships, I see chipped or broken pieces china. I try to gather every piece I can, and piece them back together as closely as possible to how they were before. When pieces are missing, I do the best I can.
I find it humbling and overwhelming when people I loved, but loved poorly occasional support or comfort for more simple struggles—mostly “mom” struggles. Because of how awful that period of loss and sadness was, I easily find myself so embarrassed that I don’t know how to express my gratitude when friends return.
Some people may kindly point out that taking on all the responsibility for how depression and anxiety damaged or destroyed relationships is a symptom of the disease. That’s true. At the same time, I understand how the people I loved—and still love—felt. They may not always have thrown me the floatation devices I needed as I struggled, and they may not have realized the depth of my depression, but there were times that they needed me, too.
One of the hardest parts of depression is the feeling that you don’t matter to anyone else. When you feel that way, you aren’t able to realize that you are affecting anyone else. How could you be affecting anyone when you don’t matter?
And that’s why I work to repair what I can. When you get better, you also develop some clarity. You understand that while feelings are uncontrollable, and they are deeply hurting you, they are also hurting others.
In the instances where I have been able to repair or make new friendships, I find myself feeling and behaving hyper vigilantly. If I am thinking of someone, I try to let them know. If something feels off, I try to address it. I’m not always successful. It’s a work in progress.
And I still struggle with bad moments. The pain and loss from before are always just under the surface. When plans with a friend fall through, I am quick to believe it’s because I don’t matter as much to that person as they do to me. And I often have at least a passing belief that they are right. When I reach out to someone, and they don’t reach back, I usually feel that it’s because I have done something to push them away, hurt them, or that I am just not valuable to them.
These are the demons—the mental pot stirrers. These are the thoughts that can start to pull you back under. If you’ve never felt it, it sounds crazy. But that’s kind of the point—feelings don’t pay attention to reality. And just because you can’t see a physical wound, or a person doesn’t have a cough doesn’t mean they are well.
Living with depression and anxiety isn’t living. It’s life being put on hold, paused, and sometimes even stopped. It’s like being trapped in the trunk of a car, and not being able to pop it open. The driver would save you, but they cannot hear you.
Even if we aren’t dealing with depression, it’s easy and only natural to get caught up in our own struggles. It’s hard to find balance and give people grace when we are trying to manage our own problems. But it’s worth remembering that sometimes people need us most when they aren’t able to say so.
As the Scotsman Ian MacLaren wrote, “Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.”
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