End of an Era

Assumption: You can't quit. Ever.

Knowing when to call it quits and bowing out gracefully is a valuable skill for navigating life. It's been a swell ride, but the time has come to close the book on Demystifying My Depression.

My most recent depression this past spring–episode number 14 and counting–concluded with its typical personal revelations. Many of them were evaluations of my goals for starting this site, ones found on the About Page:

1. Remind myself of the good times + the all the things I'll inevitably need to relearn when I stumble into the abyss again.
My main reason for writing was for myself: to act as a living document that I could return to for help while depressed. I read some of the articles on this site while depressed and found them to be painfully idyllic. Turns out the things I write when I'm on the upside are of little use to me while I'm on the downside. Every episode is different and an opportunity to learn something completely new. As a result, the drive to continue writing on this subject as a personal aide has declined.

2. Encourage others who experience similar mild-moderate distress that they are not crazy + to perhaps view their own anxiety, depression + suicidal thinking in a less intimating light.
Over the last two years of meeting and conversing with many other people with depression and anxiety, I discovered that just because we share similar symptoms, doesn't mean that our experiences are the same. Depression and anxiety come in all forms, varieties and intensities. Mine may seem severe to me, but I've met people who have it worse and I've met those who have it better. The sources are just as varied and not at all straight-forward as many falsely believe.

I've worked a lot to discover my sources (genetic predisposition, temperament, religious upbringing, high-stress career, etc.), analyze them in great detail and take the steps to undo the damage, as much as possible. I did that work through counseling. It took several years to find the counselor and style that fit me, which was a meandering and confusing process. Nothing worthwhile is easy, I guess. In a similar vein, you can't short-cut that process for yourself by reading what another has discovered.

My self-work will be on-going but I'm pleased with the progress that I've made in being more healthy and less inhibited. Writing has been a great way for me to make sense of my life, but I feel that the bulk of the processing is now complete. There comes a time when one has to stop analyzing and start applying. I'll always reflect and learn something new each time I experience an episode of depression, but it's something that I can explore in a personal journal. Though I'll continue to live by the motto developed here of 'challenging assumptions and living life uninhibited', it's time for me to start living again.

3. Help those who feel like helpless bystanders to understand what their loved one is experiencing + discover the few small things they can do to provide space for recuperation, processing + healing.
The knowledge, revelations and best practices that I have published here are not a substitute for doing the work on yourself through counseling, namely because my discoveries won't be directly applicable to your experiences as they are to mine. Having said that, I do recognize that these articles serve as a glimpse into one anxious and melancholic mind. For those who don't think the same way, any insight at all helps, which is one of the reasons that I will leave this blog online as an archive.

4. Inspire all of the above as well as those simply over-stressed to challenge assumptions (their own or those of community, society, culture) + live life uninhibited.
Counseling via CBT (cognitive behavioral therapy) has taught me how to see the illogical and unreasonable thoughts that I had about myself and the world around me and to challenge those misconceptions with tools like logic and reason to see a clearer picture of reality. I quickly found it easy to apply those skills to life. I've changed in ways that I could not have imagined because I've been taught to look critically at everything and to think for myself.

The poorest piece of advise that I had been given over and over again throughout my life has been, "You should stop thinking so much." We are the only beings on the planet with the highly developed capacity for thought. This sixth sense, if you will, of consciousness, memory and other-awareness provides us with the unique ability to reason (by observing our surroundings, learning from our experience, evaluating options, predicting outcomes and continually adapting in novel ways), to communicate our thoughts and to empathize with our fellow mind-bearers. To under-utilize this capacity of mind or to allow it to be stifled seems to me to be the greatest shame.

I modeled this blog off of some of my favorite self-help gurus. I've discovered that I'm not one of them; that's not such a bad thing. I don't want to mascaraed as if I have the answers. I don't. And, no one else does either. 

Once I fully let go of the expectation of looking to others for the answers, it's as if the world opened up and became a lot less burdensome. In a paradoxical way, life doesn't seem as complex, oppressive or bewildering anymore. I don't have as much fear of the future because I have confidence in my own abilities to figure things out for myself rather than always seeking the answers in anyone or anything else.



It's quite liberating and I hope that if nothing else, these articles have served to inspire a bit of hope that you are capable of thinking for yourself, too. It takes work, but it is certainly the most worthwhile work you can do.

Revelation: Futility of war
Of course, I could adapt these goals and this site could evolve along with me. I've done it in the past, I could do it again. Except for the fact that I've grown tired of being the token depression girl. Being known for depression is as silly as being renown for my brown (now graying) hair. Depression is a part of my identity, it's what makes me me, but it's only a small piece, not the defining characteristic.

I frequently become enraged when I stumble over the many, many articles online about "battling depression" and "overcoming anxiety." This war is no ordinary one with clearly defined, independent opponents. Sadly, a civil war waged within cannot be won; you may not even be able to survive the self-destructive ordeal. In the same way, you can't 'overcome' yourself. 


Revelation: Benefits in the madness
Instead of waging war against my melancholic self, during this episode of depression I started to see the benefits in the madness. Since I started experiencing depression, I always viewed my other melancholic self as an enemy that would swoop in unannounced at the most inopportune time to wreck havoc on my otherwise full-of-potential life, often destroying any opportunity and relationship that I had worked very hard to procure.

While in this episode, I wondered if maybe this jaded, reclusive other was really my true self and the over-optimistic spitfire was really the well-meaning yet burdensome other who was trying way too hard to over-compensate. That train-of-thought was short-lived, but I did come to recognize that I was treating my depressed self as a enemy that must be destroyed and favoring my non-depressed self in high esteem.

Since that realization, my former foe is a new-found friend. I'm learning to appreciate that other half of my personality that I had been shunning, the one that is jaded and cynical beyond years, but that is also more intellectual, philosophical and worldly. I recently read that depressed people simply have a more realistic view of the world. Not to say that it can't go too far and that it doesn't have it's draw-backs but being too irrationally optimistic about the future is equally as problematic as being too pessimistic.

As I stopped fighting that part of my personality and started learning more about it, I've found fitting roles for those times that I find myself in a depressed state of mind. I tend to devour books on all kinds of interesting subjects (history, science and literature) and I think that I make a better editor while down, too. The person I am while on the upswing is a better writer because of the application of the knowledge I acquire while down. It's only because of the down-time and the quest for knowledge while depressed that I can be creative while not.


Revelations: Making peace
I'm coming to appreciate and, dare I say, like both parts of my personality. Everyone has these various parts; everyone deals with times of depression and sometimes wishes they were dead. You may feel like it's only you, but it's not. Most people just aren't as open about it as I have been, but everyone deals with those feelings.

The halves of my personality may be a little more pronounced since I spend more time in each of them for four month stints, but I've restructured my life quite a bit to manage both so that they're not so intrusive anymore. Those melancholic or fretful tendencies are never going away, but they don't have to dominate my life either. Case in point, this last depression was not nearly as severe or as long; only three months in duration rather than the typical four. The low wasn't quite as low; I didn't have to go to the edge and face my own oblivion to begin clawing back out of it. And now, the high isn't quite as high either; I'm not trying to idyllically save the world or anything anymore.

For much of my life I was seeing the facets of my personality as strictly black and white, disjointed aspects of me. Instead of demonizing one and idolizing the other, when viewed collectively, the black and white make gray; I'm a complex, multifaceted, complete person because of all the different aspects of my personality.

Since depression and anxiety are mere parts of my personality, I can't tell you about my secret 'cure' for either of them. I've come to the conclusion that there's nothing really 'wrong' with me. I've learned the hard way that civil war within results in only pain and suffering. As in life, diplomacy is the better option. Instead of being commander-in-chief, I've taken on the role of peace-keeping ambassador for both aspects of my personality, for the greater good and prosperity of all. 


Revelations: Strengths in the weaknesses
When you've been through depression, you've been through pretty much the worst that life has to offer. Part of my jagged edges and cynicism stems from the irritation I saw in the superficiality of others. People don't like to think too deeply about anything, mainly because it is depressing to do so. For anyone who hasn't faced it regularly, depression is scary. I've come to be more understanding of why others don't think about such things as I do. That rant I made above in point 4 about not thinking, that well-meaning advise was given to me because that's the coping mechanism that most people use to avoid becoming too depressed.

For me, depression happens to be like second nature, so I don't shy away from thinking about the bleak, the uncertain or the meaningless. Though it is a bit of a shock to realize that there is no point, no purpose, no great plan to life, not thinking about it doesn't make it better, it certainly doesn't make it untrue. In fact, I started seeking out writers who have felt the same way. I knew that I could not be the only person ever to realize that life is meaningless, the universe is completely indifferent to my existence, everyday is exactly the same and there's no hereafter. What I found was the way I think about life is an asset.

I've come to the conclusion that this life is the only one I've got and it's up to me to make my own meaning for it. I'm not wasting any more time with things that are not beneficial, that distract from life or that add unnecessary burdens to an existence that is already challenging enough on its own. I found that there are a lot of things in this life that do excite, intrigue and inspire awe and wonder. It's not all bleak after all. I'm reading like a fiend and enjoying all different thoughts, theories and perspectives that I've been closed to for much of my life. I may find a direction from my reading to pursue more seriously or I may just continue to enjoy learning a little bit of everything as a past-time. The future seems a little brighter than it's been for the last 10 years to me.


Revelations: My people and my place
In my search and my reading, I also found my people: writers of literature, the majority of whom lived with mental illness. Though it can lend itself to melancholy, the tendency for introspection and insight into the human condition is exactly what makes a lot of history's greatest writers and thinkers great. We all want to know why we're here, what our purpose is, what it's all about. Writers seem to have a way of exploring those universal questions for an audience, doing so gently within the relative safety of a story. I have existential crises every 4-6 months. There's lots of material for stories. I still make self-discoveries through my writing, regardless of format.

Throughout this blog, I have made many discoveries that could not have happened otherwise. I learned that I don't want to be a non-fiction self-help writer, but that I do have a knack for writing which I happen to enjoy, too. I also learned the high price of 'fame' even if only as a minor internet celebrity through this blog. It's been a hard lesson to learn, but there's a reason why some aspects of life are to remain personal. I'd like to continue writing in multiple arenas, but in the future I will write under a pseudonym as I embrace my new-found identity as a social media recluse. I've found life to be much better offline.


A big thank you and well-wishes for all
I appreciate all who have followed along for the last 20 months of my crazy life. Thank you for your feedback on these articles and thank you for sharing your stories with me.

For those current readers (and future archive viewers), I hope that you take the time to do the introspective work for whatever you are facing. I hope that you begin questioning what you think you know and that you find the courage to make the (sometimes) challenging and costly life adjustments to improve your overall health. I hope that all this mental illness stuff goes from dominating your daily life to merely being a small facet of your experience. I hope that you possibly even discover your own benefits in all your madness. I hope that you learn to think for yourself, to question everything and to be confident in your own conclusions. And I hope you learn to appreciate both the difficult times and the good ones because without the former to provide perspective the latter would lack meaning. What I hope most of all is for you to live a full life, uninhibited.