The chronicles of a depressive
For approximately one and a half weeks I have been under the influence of some dark and inescapable depressive episode. I say approximately ‘one and a half weeks’ as time is fluidic and less concrete a concept when one is undergoing the sort of episode I am currently experiencing. This brief article is for just about anyone, whether the depressed among us or the uninitiated who desires to take a glimpse behind the internal cognitive load of the depressed individual.
However, a brief warning, some of what is discussed here is necessarily graphic and without the mask of stability that so many of us present to the world. This is a world of self-harm, instability, lament and colourlessness, thus if one is not ready for such unpleasantness or one desires to retain an image of the world free from such horrors I exhort you to retreat from reading any more.
Only in the stigmatising nature of ignorance and darkness can depression find its proliferation uninterrupted, I hope in this article to shine a narrow beam of personal experience and share with others the realisation that they are not alone.
The descent of man
‘Can you put your finger on what it is that precipitated this episode?’ Jesus! Not really.
Well-intentioned people ask this sort of question. It arises, I think, out of a sheer terror of meaninglessness. If I can assign some reason to this individual’s depressive episode, I might avoid ignorantly stepping onto the same mental landmine. Often, one may not be able to trace the exact reason. Who can say what subtle unconscious existential crises are at work? What was the last straw that broke the camel’s mind and will?
More often than not the mind’s complex processing of events and internal mental states means that for the depressive individual, no pinning down of catalytic circumstance is possible.
It’s hard to pin down when the descent began, often the descent begins without the conscious mind being involved at all. As I sit here, typing with whatever mental reserves thirteen hours of sleep have imparted to me, I cannot precisely pin down the moment this episode’s descent began. I can only say that it was not precipitated by ‘the blues’ or feeling a tad sad or anything so cliche. Rather, one becomes gradually aware of some internal upset of the usual equilibrium of mind.
There is a gradual ‘dimming’ of the switch which we label ‘functioning’. Each step of the descent seems almost benign, a simple choice one is not really aware of having taken — that is symptomatic of some greater inner mental strife. Let me demonstrate this by the simple act of brushing one’s teeth. If I ‘forget’ or ignore to perform this act one day, is that indicative of a deeper issue? What if I choose not to eat dinner on some specific day? What if I’m irritable or less than patient with my family? Have I begun the descent or am I merely an asshole — both?
If I had to pin some theme of the descent down into a single word, I would pick the word ‘apathy’. Without pathos, without ‘suffering’ without passion, as with so much of our language, this excellent word finds its origin within the Greek language.
I find that my identifying a depressive episode or at least descending into the abyss begins when I identify the apathy which accompanies my depression. I begin to decathect from reality to draw away from the tethers that bind my moorings. These tethers can only stretch so far, and before long snap and I’m cut adrift on a sea of apathy merely gazing back at the shoreline and people that beckon me back.
Isolated, apathetic of survival and lost I begin to lose the capacity to experience those sensations which endows life with meaning. Let’s look at this curious process together.
What gives life meaning?
Reader, what’s your favourite thing to eat? Imagine tasting it now, imagine what drink or beverage would accompany it. Picture the moment of that first bite and the physiological/psychological impact. Now picture a surgical technique, a beautifully precise incision and lobotomisation of your ability to enjoy your food. Whereas before the taste was rich, complex and stimulating, now there is only bland banality. But the ingenious incision has gone further, it has dimmed down the colours of foods, the expectation of eating and the joy of eating. This process has reduced the act of eating to the pathetic motivation of merely continuing the exterior shell’s survival. This brief illustration has to now be carried over to reading, writing and listening to music. To any former pleasure which served to provide meaning to life has all been pathologically reduced to meaninglessness.
And herein lies a key difference between the lay expectation of the depressed individual and reality. There often need be no great sadness. In fact, sadness in the presence of this profound loss of meaning is quite normal I would say. Sadness may accompany the descent; it need not be the precipitating factor in of itself.
Self-harm
I was a self-harmer in my late teens and early twenties and have remained free from self-harm for roughly fifteen years or so. It is only this particular episode which has renewed the desire within to mark my skin once more. At the moment if I was given a scale with one being the complete absence of desire to self-harm, I would say I’m at about six and a half on the scale. Although I have no desire to die or commit suicide.
This may come as a surprise to the uninitiated who automatically assume one suggests the other. In fact, most of my experience with self-harm served as a catharsis and purgative rather than any serious attempt at suicide. Thus, my self-harm should be considered within this broader context rather than the narrow confines of lay expectations of the links between suicide and self-harm. That said, self-harm is concerning since it can so easily lead to the ‘last’ and most devastating step in the process.
I know I’m at about a six and half on the desire for self-harm scale as I spent a little too long gazing at the knives in Morrisons today as I picked up a box of chicken goujons and ice. By the way, I love chicken goujons (although I am endeavouring to move closer to vegetarianism on the food spectrum) but as discussed eating them brought little pleasure. I previously used a knife with a jagged blade rather than smooth. I’m being quite open here, and the experience would be uncomfortable were it not for the apathy I’m feeling and thus I’m thankful for that at least.
I shall say little on the psychodynamic effects of self-harm whether for good or bad as I’m endeavouring to be responsible here on what effect my words could have on others.
There are arguments enough against self-harm, not least the mess one inevitably has to clean up especially if one does these things under the influence of drink.
That said, right now the fantasy of self-harm is omnipresent and its seductive reality as an option is something I’m actively having to rebuke though I’m finding arguments against self-harm hard to come by. Although, I’m hoping to sublimate this problematic desire into something constructive hence the reason for writing this article.
Loss of will
I will end this narrative soon, as I honestly am struggling to even type. The will is simply not there. I have uni work (studying for a BSc in forensic psychology…go figure!), I’m a husband and pet owner, son, brother and man. But, I find that I have little will to be any of these with any sincerity or any real dedication at the moment. Although I did manage to briefly glance at the potential for voluntary in-patient treatment at one of the UK’s excellent mental health facilities so yay me. Plagiarising Nietszche I might posit that I have lost the ‘will to function’ rather than the will to power. This is to be expected with the apathy already mentioned.
Closing thoughts
If I have strayed into eloquence at all during this discourse, I’m afraid given my present mental status that this is not to be repeated and thus I leave it here except for one final glimpse behind the curtain.
I think of my depression as some grotesque beast that I have hitherto managed to keep tethered behind one of the locked rooms of my mind. But now it stalks every thought, every cognition and every pleasure waiting to taint whatever comes to mind with apathy and contempt. Although depression is not in reality some other being which has taken up refuge within my thoughts. In truth, depression and me are both in symbiosis, so I am both hunter and hunted within this framework. In some contexts it is useful for me to talk about my depression being separate from me and in other contexts I acknowledge it’s being woven into my fabric, entwined between codons of genetic material which comprise my being.
The ascent of man?
The ascent of this particular man begins when I’m ready to tour the inner topology of my mind and locate the loose beast and return it to the darkened recess from which it escaped. However, at this present time, I’m not ready to begin this formidable enterprise. I can only spectate and observe the damage done to each thought and gather whatever resources and strength I shall need for the task ahead.
“Suffering is one very long moment. We cannot divide it by seasons. We can only record its moods, and chronicle their return. With us time itself does not progress. It revolves. It seems to circle round one centre of pain.” — Oscar Wilde
(Mental note to self: Make sure GP reads this; may review citalopram usage and up dose if needed.)
Daniel Sumner
