My Dear Depression: A Love Letter
All the things you’re never supposed to say to mental illness.
You.
You are a constant companion, a lifelong presence that is so intertwined with my own the lines that separate us have disappeared. You have become me, and I, you.
I remember you first showing up for me when I was 14 — after my uncle died. He was the first person I knew to pass away. Mum was so broken that cancer had taken her baby brother when he was only 31 — we all were.
After that, I started to wonder what was real: Pain? Loss? Joy? Heartache?
You listened to me, to my fears, my insecurities, my grief, and created a safe, warm space for me to retreat. When the desire to step out into oncoming traffic grew too loud for me to contain, you berated me softly until I lost my nerve — I didn’t have the guts to die, I was a coward. Besides, I just wanted to know what it felt like.
I wrote about you, fantasized about you, and the things we’d do together — or not do. I thought you were better than this life, that you would take me somewhere in-between, somewhere far away from everything I’d ever known.
You planted seeds of dark romance in me that blossomed blooms of despair throughout my life, never allowing me to love anyone more than I love you.
Even myself.
The unpredictable life cycle meant riding out the seasons, waiting, wondering when you’d show up again.
We played this game for many years, you and I. You wove in and out of my life embracing me in that same safe space over and over again. It evolved as I did, bringing the welcome familiarity of isolation, detachment, and protection exactly when I needed it.
When they broke my trust, again, and we fought, and there was blood, you stayed with me in the bathroom when I swallowed 12 blue pills; you whispered protect yourself when I picked up the filet knife I’d snagged from the wooden block in the kitchen and sat, my back against the clawfoot tub, grazing the razor-thin edge across the translucent skin of my forearm, never piercing, just testing; you told me I was safe there, their banging on the door fading away as they lost interest. You smothered me in nothingness, an escape, relief, for one blissful night until I woke the next day, confused, groggy, and alive.
My little secret.
No one ever believed me, that you were there.
Sometimes I even wondered if you really were; had you gone the way of Frederick, my childhood pal who lived in the third window from the back on the right-hand side of the school bus?
Were you Frederick, back to torment me after all of these years?
Mind over matter, they said.
Try to focus on other things, they said.
Just snap out of it, they said.
Sometimes I did. For a while, medication meant we didn’t see each other as often, exercise and yoga taught me how to live around you, not be consumed by you. But I could still feel you pulling, tugging at me through it all from deep in the tomb of my psyche.
We do make a rocking team, you and I.
We were promiscuous and bold, flirty and fun, never considering consequences, never worrying about tomorrow. You were my favourite drinking buddy, always together whether solo or social. You and booze gave me the misguided confidence that I was over you and would never see you again. Until the next day, when your tenacity reminded me that I’ll never be free of you, no matter what I put down my throat, up my nose, or in my cunt.
When they hurt me, betrayed my trust deeper than I’d ever been before, you welcomed me into my repugnant pit of despair. You didn’t judge me when anger, agony, and shame brought a desperate need for emancipation, release from pain. The orgasm came while you whispered sweet, lurid nothings in my ear, telling me I was right for losing myself in you again, soothing my disgust into weariness. When the tears came you held me in your deep, dark bosom while I wept for everything I didn’t even know I’d lost.
You’ve been a cushion, a soothing anesthetic that cradles me through the very worst terrains of self-loathing, worthlessness, and despair.
When Poppa died, and then Jodi, I was shattered, pieces of me littered all around. You found me here, broken and bleeding, and picked me up when I couldn’t stand on my own. You took me back into the darkness and blanketed me in denial while I figured out how to move on.
After years of living with you but trying to pretend I wasn’t, I got a mistress. Her name was endometriosis. She, too, had been in my life forever, under the surface, slowly wreaking havoc on my insides.
It was a dance, for a long time. I, weaving my way through your warps, living my life in the spaces between the two of you, but you never met. Until everything unraveled and became a tangled mess of threads, experience, time.
She destroyed me, wholly, fully and completely. She took away my ability to know myself, to move, to trust my intuition. She was elusive and cruel, so doctors never believed me or told me to get pregnant or have a hysterectomy or try these hormones or take painkillers or — , and people told me to take a pill and do yoga. I never realized how much you were there for me before, until she came undone.
She demolished my body, eviscerated my self-esteem, and told me I am a worthless burden.
Something deep in the darkness stirred, and you came back. Your favourite thing, even in the comfort of our dark romance, is to remind me of this:
I am a worthless burden.
Again you sat with me — after she stripped me of everything that made me me — as I swallowed more pills, smaller this time, but stronger. You wavered when I realized my mistake and shoved my fingers down my throat, but you stayed with me, sobbing on the floor, an intimate part of me I can never be free of, no matter how hard I try.
For so long you’ve been a comfort, engraving destructive thoughts on my psyche, deep grooves built into my bones, worthlessness curling up and twisting through the folds of grey matter in my head, validating my need to believe that at my core I have nothing to offer and am a waste of space. We created this universe, you and I, a symbiosis where I feed you negative thoughts and you grow, sometimes so large you engulf anyone in my orbit.
I need you to survive; you know the only authentic version of me that exists. We’ve spent endless days on the couch, bingeing on bullshit, simmering in sweat, marinating in misery. You give me everything I need, yet somehow you’ve taken everything from me.
When I feel a sprinkle of guilt, shame, or despair, you sense that seed and water it with your aphotic affection until my garden of gloom is lush with self-loathing.
Twenty years is a long time to go with no acknowledgment. People finally listen when I tell them about you, and how much a part of me you’ve become.
Like anyone could have done something to stop me from falling deeply, hopelessly into life with you. Everyone is afraid and worried about me now, now that our obscene history is slowly spilling out. Now that they know how close I’ve come to disappearing with you. Sometimes I wish I’d never exposed our secrets to the world. I want to curl them up in my hand and put them in the pocket of my heart and hold you there forever.
Doctors finally listened when I told them about you (again), but giving you a name and acknowledging all you’ve done to destroy me under the guise of comfort didn’t provide the validation or relief I was seeking. It simply acknowledged the existence of a lifelong courtship I knew to be real, confirmed that I was right, and sent silent screams through my soul.
Meds are helping again, I need you less desperately.
Sometimes.
I can still feel you there, lurking under the surface. Reminding me if something is too much, pricking at my ever-present belief that ceasing to exist is a viable option. You hide out, inside my brain where you live, courting my mistress and settling in the hollows of my heart, taunting me with your familiar fare. You dance with my hormones, attacking me at my most vulnerable before I bleed and make me wish I could crawl into a hole.
I cannot live with you, I cannot live without you.
But I can love myself more than I love you, my dear depression.
And that makes all the difference.
