There is a fruitful
side to depression.
Amid the fog of
despair, the crippling numbness and soullessness, the dark vortex of depression
feels constant, endless. There is no light at the end of the tunnel, because
there is no tunnel, only a perpetual riptide dragging you ever further from shore.
You clamber to stay afloat in an ocean of dejection. No longer can you see the
land, the solid ground of happiness, ambition, future. The sharks are circling,
licking their lips at the life you bleed into the water, and you are tempted to
let them take you.
Before you give up,
before you stop struggling to keep your face above the surface, and sink into
the abyss, bleeding and broken and letting the sharks devour your forsaken
carcass, look up. The lifeboat is there. You may not see it at first, but keep
kicking, keep your head up until you do. It will come. Don’t seek it out, don’t
waste the precious little energy you need to keep afloat searching for the lifeboat.
Just stay afloat, stay put and keep your eyes open, it will come to you.
When at last the lifeboat
arrives, it appears not as a lifeboat, but soon you recognise it. You feel the
tug as it slowly drags you back to shore. Do not toil to hold on, or you risk expending
the little energy you have left and letting go before you get to shore. Simply let
it take you, keep hold with a gentle grip and let it take you. And enjoy the
view as you are towed back to the coastline of a contented future.
This may all sound a
little too metaphorical for your liking. And if you suffer from depression,
believe me, I know you’re probably reading this and thinking, it’s all well and good to say this crap, but
this doesn’t do a thing to help me! I ask you to reread the last sentence… “And
enjoy the view as you are towed back to the coastline of a contented future.”
I’ve
been there, I’ve been out in that ocean, and I couldn’t see a way back. I couldn’t
see how the numbness, the emptiness of my soul, could ever thaw. But it did.
For me the lifeboat was
a combination of moving closer to the support network of family and old
friends, a little bit of yoga, and the acceptance of a death I had spent years
trying to overlook.
When you find your lifeboat
–and you will– the thaw will be slow. It will take time to heal from the amount
of bleeding your soul has done. The reason I want you to read the last sentence
over and over, many times if you need to, is because that’s where you will find
the profit behind your years of suffering. Enjoy
the view. Enjoy the view of the world around you, and you will find new
wonder in the simple things. Enjoy the view of the people around you, and you
will see you are not alone in your struggle. But most of all, enjoy the view of
yourself. The blood in the water is you,
parts of you that have been exposed. After years of pain and anguish, you can
see inside yourself. Examine these parts of yourself, analyze them, decide
which parts you want to let go and which parts you want collect on your way
back to shore, and put them back in place. And they will be even better than
before. You will be better than
before.
This is the fruitful
side of depression.
You will come back to shore
knowing yourself in a way someone who has not been there can never do. So hold
on, your lifeboat is coming. Hold on, and you will come back to shore and you
will love yourself. This is your reward
As long as you don’t
forget to enjoy the view.
