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Readers of All the Way to Heaven often ask: "Did the clinical depression you write about go
away forever? Or does it sometimes come back?"
No, my struggle with depression has not gone away; this illness continues to be part of my
journey. And I'm not unusual. Psychiatrists say that "depressive episodes" recurring more
than twice in someone's teens or twenties, are apt to keep reappearing throughout that
person's life.
This certainly has been true in my experience. That dreaded gray mist still settles over me
from time to time, obscuring shape and color and meaning for me, making it hard to smile,
impossible to get the smile down inside.
But the depression has never come back in that original totally incapacitating form. Best of
all, it no longer terrifies me! I think there are three reasons for this.
First, I name it. When the early symptoms appear - a feeling that nothing has value, the
conviction that I never have and never will do anything that matters to anyone - I recognize
them and give them a label. "Oh, this is depression."
The pattern is so familiar by now that it's like meeting a person I know only too well. "Here
comes that old uninvited house guest!"
Having named him, can I slam the door before he gets in and settles down? I can certainly try
the time-honored methods. Call a friend. Pray. Read something uplifting. Do something for
someone else.
And techniques like this work fine for me in fending off ordinary blues. When it's depression,
though, the most helpful thing is simply to give it the right name.
Second, I remind it that it will not last. The mist can't shroud the sun forever, the skies
above me will clear. That was the terror of my earlier illness, the conviction that the
misery was going to be endless. It would never go away. I'd never be well, never be able to
walk casually about like the people I watched from my attic window, beings from another
planet with plans and purpose.
But this was a lie. I did rejoin the planet after a while, and the wait gets shorter each
time. because my unwelcome guest can no longer fool me into thinking he's come to stay.
And Third, I talk about it. Not with everyone, of course. I had a college friend who dragged
around making a display of her gloom. She was looking for help, but in fact driving it away:
even friends eventually started avoiding her. Maybe I'm not quite the actress I think I am,
but I flatter myself that I keep my bouts with depression out of sight.
But to two or three tried and trusted friends -- and how privileged I am that one of them is
my husband --I do talk. What I talk about are the feelings. I don't try to account for them,
or do amateur "analyzing." I just describe them. These good listeners don't refute my
negative statements. ("Why, look at all the good things in your life!") Or make light of them.
("You'll feel better after a good night's sleep.") Or offer cures. ("Have you tried St.
Johnswort?") They just let me talk.
And describing these feelings to someone else gets them to some degree outside my own head
where they're careening around creating a ruckus, to a place where I can look at them
critically.
Recently I came across a magazine article about the depression that afflicted Abraham Lincoln
throughout his life. I'd known that this great leader was often sorrowful, but not that he
suffered suicidal impulses so strong he didn't dare carry a knife in his pocket. This was
clearly an illness, one that modern psychiatry would attempt to treat and cure. And yet, the
article's author, Joshua Shenk, argues, Lincoln's depression "fueled his greatness." From
black despair grew identification with the sufferings of others. From self-alienation grew
commitment to a cause greater than himself.
Although I, and my college friend, and the people who write me about their own dark nights,
probably won't have influence much beyond our own families and neighborhoods, Lincoln's
history builds my faith. To think that even depression can serve a purpose - give us
understanding, perhaps, or tolerance, or compassion - this confirms my trust that nothing at
all, in God's ecology, is wasted.
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