I feel like there's a hole in me that I'm always trying to fill, that I'm incomplete, a piece missing - I can't do anything useful until the hole is filled, until the hunger is satisfied, but it rarely is. I'm incomplete, a jigsaw piece is lost. And many things take more from me than I have to give, the hole gets bigger and I am secretly, invisibly, completely broken.

The Left Hand Of Darkness

Below is an exerpt from 'The Left Hand of Darkness' by Ursula K. Le Guin, which I have just finished reading - I didn't want it to end. It's set on another world - the alien visitor is speaking to a practitioner of 'foretelling', an accurate art which the people of this world have attained. 

'Faxe, I don't think I understand.'
'Well, we come here to the Fastnesses mostly to learn what questions not to ask.'
'But you're the Answerers!'
'You don't see yet, Genry, why we perfected and practice Foretelling?'
'No-'
'To exhibit the perfect uselessness of knowing the answer to the wrong question.'
I pondered that a good while, as we walked side by side through the rain, under the dark branches of the forest of Otherhord. Within the white hood Faxe's face was tired and quiet, its light quenched. Yet he still awed me a little. When he looked at me with his clear kind, candid eyes, he looked at me out of a tradition thirteen thousand years old: a way of thought and way of life so old, so well established, so integral and coherent as to give a human being the unselfconsciousness, the authority, the completeness of a wild animal, a great strange creature who looks straight at you out of his eternal present....
'The unknown,' said Faxe's soft voice in the forest, 'the unforetold, the unproven, that is what life is based on. Ignorance is the ground of thought. Unproof is the ground of action. If it were proven that there is no God there would be no religion. No Handdara, no Yomesh, no hearthgods, nothing. But also if it were proven that there is a God, there would be no religion.... Tell me, Genry, what is known? What is sure, predictable, inevitable - the one certain thing you know concerning your future, and mine?'
'That we shall die.'
'Yes. There's really only one question that can be answered, Genry, and we already know the answer.... The only thing that makes life possible is permanent, intolerable uncertainty: not knowing what comes next.'

Shameful

Loneliness is so shameful - to say I am lonely is to express a terrible vulnerability that is repellant to others. The person who complains that they are lonely creates an uncomfortable void around them; this sort of openness, this vulnerability is embarrassing, unsettling. Social isolation increases around the lonely person, and the loneliness is compounded. Shame itself, shame of loneliness, causes us to shut off parts of ourselves and to shy away from connection. And then the loneliness generates more shame.

I would like to be able to say, 'I am lonely', but it would be like setting off a bomb that repels everyone around you - except the predators - it would be counterproductive. 

Hyperbole and a Half: Depression Part Two

Hyperbole and a Half: Depression Part Two

Just... yeah. This is lovely.

Sometimes it's difficult to read or hear about other people's experience of depression - it always seems to have a beginning, a 'time before'. I suppose they are descriptions of depressive episodes. All the tests for depression ask if you feel worse than 'before', if you don't enjoy what you 'used to' enjoy. When I read these I feel alienated - it's not that I've always felt the same, but I've had pretty consistent low mood for a long time, with frequent depressive episodes. I always frame my current experience with being 14 or 15, major depression with derealisation which you can read about in a previous post. Everything before that is hazy, and everything after is absolutely a journey from that point. A crashing-through-the-undergrowth, messy, awful journey, but with few places as bad as that first starting point. 

Reading Allie's blog, I question myself. Is this still even depression? Am I obsessed with how I felt at that time, and unable to accept that I can move on?
I have made a lot of progress over the years, and am currently coming out of an episode, so I suppose I can't inspect myself at this moment, and expect to find all of the markers that mean I am 'genuinely'  ill.
It's possible I have a personality disorder, and that's all mixed up with anxiety, and behaviour, and not just depression. But I do worry that I'm just lazy, that I want to avoid having to deal with anything difficult, that I'm weak and self obsessed, and not 'really' mentally ill. This picture of somebody 'faking it' 'for attention' reeks of stigma osmosed from the media, but still I wonder if that's just a conceit I've invented to excuse myself.

Even if that is the case - and I am in fact stuck in the past, an emotional hypochondriac - can I be excused, for having started my adult life in a place of profound darkness, and for therefore carrying it as my main frame of reference?

Work, work, work

I lost my job last year - I was called into a disciplinary and dismissed after becoming more and more anxious and depressed, and feeling victimised, isolated, exhausted and unable to concentrate.

I have always been affected at work by depression, anxiety and avoidant tendencies - I think I hoped that if I went to university and got my design degree, and was then doing something that I really cared about, that I would be happier and be able to deal with things better. The problems remained, however - interpersonal, energy, mood, concentration, memory. And whilst I was no longer bored, the pressure, short deadlines and long hours made me very ill.

I have tried being self employed, but the lack of external pressure or structure has been a hotbed for depression, and I am absolutely useless at charging an appropriate amount for my services, am a terrible procrastinator and am plagued with terror about responsibility and finances. I get lonely and stuck with my own twisted thoughts.  I don't think being fully self employed is for me. I also don't think I could work full time - maybe not ever - as I get so exhausted in the afternoons, I feel even lonelier, I feel naked and exposed like I have no skin, and under pressure I can panic and completely underperform. I am claiming benefits right now - and was running my business alongside as 'permitted work', but it is taking a break right now as I can't bear to look at it - and I am doing a little bit of design here and there, but still vastly undercharging. I know I am undercharging, but I can't seem to stop doing it.

I have been experiencing a lot of guilt and confusion about claiming benefits - I also play a sport as a hobby, and I make it to practice 3 times a week and play competitive games, although the anxiety is sometimes pretty crippling. If I can do that, I can work, right? That's the voice I always hear, the voice of the ATOS assessors, and the voice of the general public, and maybe my own voice. Another part of me says - it is only a few hours a week, nothing like a full-time job. It is completely voluntary, and if i don't want to go, I don't go - so it is very different to work. We are constantly told that exercise is good for mental health, so it has that benefit, and it gives me structure and social connection. I still feel very guilty and strange though.

I have started taking a new medication, and am feeling better than I was, although still very exhausted, and my mood feels fragile. I am not working - only voluntary and a small amount of nominal freelance work - and am spending time on Facebook, writing this blog, playing my sport, and contributing to my league doing a bit of voluntary work (a very small amount!). I also meditate and have started practising yoga at home using a DVD. I try to meditate often, I go for walks, and I am writing letters and seeing the doctor, trying to get real help. I am functioning. So I could get a job, right?
I am functioning in a bubble though, tiptoeing round the eggshells. I know with certainty that going back to full time work would trigger another major depressive episode, and just now, almost certainly part time work, too. So - if I could in theory work, but it would almost certainly trigger a major depressive episode or an anxious breakdown and the absolute need to run away and protect myself from the situation - does that make me unfit for work? Or does it not quite meet the criteria?

A friend of mine who has suffered with M.E. / C.F.S (an illness I am familiar with, as my partner is plagued with it) and recently had an injury, has had some help from a trust which helps people with disabilities or mental health problems to get back into work. I have no idea if I count as having a 'disability' or not, but being dismissed from work and having them directly cite my mental health difficulties [anxiety attack] as the cause has maybe helped me along that path. I have always gone into a position intending that this time, this time I would be able to cope with it - but maybe I can get more help.

I have always felt dismissed by medical professionals, or have not fully believed in my difficulties, even whilst trying to convince everybody else of them. I feel like there's nothing really wrong with me, all whilst standing on my soapbox and declaring all my profound difficulties. At work, I have always just tried to carry on (but not really done a very good job, and ended up running away). I almost always end up disclosing the fact that I have 'anxiety' to my employers, as my concentration and mood and energy declines and I start to make more and more mistakes and cry in the toilets more and more - but it has always been difficult to get across exactly what this entails, and usually ends in confusion, and in the situation worsening and my leaving. I have never known of anything that I might reasonably be able to ask an employer for to make my life easier. Afternoon naps? Flexible hours? Being able to leave whenever I want because I am tired or sad? I could not reveal my difficulties for fear of being declared incompetent and fired (which did finally happen, anyway).

But I am starting to feel more hopeful, that if I fight for the right support, and believe that I deserve help and support, that maybe somebody or some organisation can help me to thrash out a way of presenting my difficulties to an employer, and a way of dealing with my depression and exhaustion. A larger organisation (e.g., larger than a 2-3 person family business) might have the right HR and standards in place to allow me some leeway and support. A supportive employer who could see my talent and work ethic but work around my low mood, anxiety and energy levels would be ideal. A part time job, maybe half days or 3 days a week, with maybe a bit of freelance work - I might be able to work with that, taking things delicately and carefully. I have always dreamed of having a sort of mentor relationship, working under somebody I respect creatively - but it is probably a very lucky person who finds such a relationship in their work. It is possible that I should stop trying to aim so high, swallow my pride and get a more menial job - but I have done this before, and I am not at all convinced that it would be any better. I am very ambitious and prideful though, and full of vision, which maybe doesn't match up to my actual capacity to perform. But my portfolio looks good - I don't know, it is very confusing.

 I've certainly never felt that I have a 'disability' before - I have wanted to, but have felt like such a fraud. However, these problems have been around forever, and will probably always be around. I've managed to produce some very good work despite them, but there are a lot of things I find very difficult which make working very hard. It would be nice to be able to be upfront about my difficulties and needs. I have no problem with being open, but first I need help working out exactly what my difficulties and needs are. I am getting there, but it's an uphill struggle, and I am wary and scared about being pushed into work without a means of defending myself, and being unable to perform.

Sneaky

Depression is a stealthy beast. Anyone who knows it will tell you how it can creep up, silent and subtle. It slinks along behind you, beside you, gathers over you and whispers dark secrets in your ear. And still you may not see it, even as it slowly weighs you down. You know all the signs. You know this creature well. But so devious it is by nature, it slips by in secret every time.

One of depression's self defense mechanisms is the intense self doubt which it fosters. I am aware that I suffer with depression. It is in my medical records. It is acknowledged by every doctor I meet. I am prescribed medication for it. I am vocal about stigma around mental health issues; I am open about my illness. I refer to it as an illness. But I don't believe it, at a deeper level. I am not sure that it is an illness. I am not sure that I am suffering enough to warrant compassion. When I am depressed, I don't believe I deserve sympathy. I feel like a fraud. I cannot really be 'depressed'! (I hear the word as spat by a dispassionate judge). Sometimes I wonder why 'depression' is named as an illness by medical professionals, when their behaviour and every piece of evidence seems to say otherwise, that you are simply living incorrectly, that your attitude is wrong, or that you are emotionally lazy. The line between 'illness' and a less clinical unhappiness or dissatisfaction, and the question of culpability, is a matter of contention, and I am not sure on which side I stand - but I am profoundly confused by this dichotomy. I do tend to think in 'black and white', it is hard to choose a point in the middle. I see all of the points on the spectrum equally clearly, but my mind recoils in horror at the notion of choosing a conceit; which equally, seems imperative and necessary. I am one or other other - nothing in between - but which one?

I know that I am feeling very bad, that I am struggling, and that's all that really matters, and that means depression (with the telltale symptoms of lack of interest, shame, guilt, loneliness, tearfulness, numb, and so on).  I 'know' that I am depressed, but the alternative explanation looms - the idea that I am simply weak, a hypochondriac, a lazy, self obsessed brat. I talk as if I am certain that I am ill, that my issues are clinical, that I am deserving of treatment - as if I am certain that I am not lazy of mind, self indulgent, melodramatic.

I know the depth of my depression when it is on me, I am aware of how low I am on the scale. Or I think I know - I am sure I know. I see the signs.

However, depression is deceitful. Only when relief comes, only when some light and air comes back into the world and your mood lifts for a while - do you truly see how low you were, how tightly the black dog had its jaws around your neck. It is an impressive trick - to have you deny yourself and not know it, to know your suffering and yet be blinded from it. To starve yourself of kindness.

You sense the shadow that crouches over you, but... the name of the beast, the true knowledge of it is somewhere at the back of your mind, the tip of your tongue. You cannot quite recall it. You might know it, know it by name, the thing blocking out the sun; if only you would raise your head and look up. And yet you never look up.

Derealisation

I experienced some pretty profound depression around the age of 15. My dad recently mentioned a letter that my counsellor apparently sent to my headteacher, because at the time I had been put on 'daily report' because I wasn't performing as I should have been. I don't really remember this at all, but my memory in general is very patchy, especially around painful experiences, or even happy experiences. I certainly didn't realise that correspondence of this type had gone on between my counsellor and my school, and felt pretty embarrassed about it when I heard.  I don't remember being on report, either. Apparently the letter said that I was experiencing 'morbid thoughts and derealisation'. The word 'derealisation' had never been mentioned to me before my dad brought this up on the phone a few weeks ago - at least not in my memory, which doesn't mean that it didn't happen. But when I looked it up, I recognised the description. I think generally my experience of it was pretty subtle - I know some people will feel more literally that the world is not real. I think I had experiences like this in a limited way, from time to time, but generally speaking I related more to the secondary description on Wikipedia: 'feeling as though one's environment is lacking in spontaneity, emotional coloring and depth'.  I had always characterised what I experienced as being part of depression, as being depression itself - what happens when depression gets that deep and low - I didn't realise that it is a symptom in its own right. I always compare my experiences since then to this time, and no matter how I've felt since then, it can never be as bad as those few years. 

Often, the world seemed colourless and grey, bald and white, devoid of meaning. Other people seemed empty to me. Sometimes I felt completely empty, flat and without emotion or real feeling, with no reaction to the outside world, and I could see absolutely no worth in anybody or anything. I was untouchable, nothing could move or sway me. I was a mannequin, muffled and shrink-wrapped, absolutely starved of real emotional content or personal connection. 

My moods were very changeable, and I remember comparing the movement between this depressive state and a more normal state to somebody turning the light on and off; I imagined a table with many objects laid out before me. The objects were the people and things in my life. When the light was on, they had colour, depth and meaning - I could see them and interact with them, they had an effect on me. But when the light was off - nothing changed, really, everybody and everything was still there - but they were grey, entirely grey. I could see their outlines, but they had no meaning, I did not care about them at all. They could not reach me emotionally, they were ghosts, they were of no interest, they were far away, they were in shadow. 

My English teacher lent me a book of poems called 'Ariel' by Sylvia Plath, and it spoke directly to me. 


'The nights snapped out of sight like a lizard's eyelid:
A world of bald white days in a shadeless socket.
A vulturous boredom pinned me in this tree. 
If he were I, he would do what I did. '

- The Hanging Man, Sylvia Plath

I saw the world as white, clinical. I/the world was a terrible void of emotion, meaning or interest. I loathed myself; how could anyone be so flat, so unreactive? Where did my soul go? Where was my emotional core? I loathed everybody else - where was their pain, their despair, their emotion? I could not see that the people around me had an inner life. For all I knew, there was nothing inside them, nothing in their hearts or minds. Everything was worthless, flat, grey. 

Other times, - rare times - colour and light and pain would flood in and fill me with sensation, with what I termed to be 'meaning'. I felt things; I was alive, I was moved, I was filled with sorrow or melancholy as I listened to music late at night in my room - better than the terrible numbness. I would constantly search inside myself in vain for this authentic emotion, for this real experience, and the more I searched the more it eluded me. Or I was excited, manic, filled with nervous energy - loud, impulsive, jovial - but always on the edge, hating myself and my behaviour, terrified of when I would crash.

This only served to make the numbness, the grey, all the more terrible when it came. This greyness made me believe that I felt nothing, that I was empty, that the world was utterly cold, plain and white, that there was nothing in it that meant anything. These profound changes in my perception - like turning off and on a light - made no sense to me. I could not understand why one day I would wake up in one world, and the next another entirely. There was no rhyme or reason for the change in temperature, in the quality of the light, when nothing externally had changed at all. Why did I sometimes not give a damn about the people around me, about what they said or did or whether they were there or not? Was I completely evil, empty, blackened, dried out, hollow, unreal? I could not understand. I wanted to die. 
This led me to almost fetishize emotion and feeling and experience itself - I called it 'meaning', and for many years painful honesty and emotional over-sharing has been a big problem for me, as I attempt to force this genuine experience of the world. I have idolised the experience of emotion, the sharing of innermost thoughts and secrets, the deep soulsearching and digging up of important feelings, because I desperately needed to be reassured that I had an inner life, and that other people did, too. I would test them - trying to find out if there was anything behind the mask.