The Big Black Dog of Depression

I have fought the big black dog of depression for more than forty years. It never gets any easier. The problems it causes change as my life changes with my age, but the difficulty stays the same. When I was younger, I was upset a lot, frantic to straighten things out, things that couldn't be straightened. I was also frantic to find answers to questions that couldn't be answered. I found that living with ambiguity and uncertainty was something I could not do. It triggered depression. Now I don't try so hard to do the impossible; I just live with the depression.

Depression is so much more than life's normal sadness or the blues. With depression, you feel empty. Like you are no one. You find you can no longer enjoy things you once enjoyed, no matter how hard you try. You may feel you are living in slow motion; you may need to sleep too much or you may not be able to sleep at all. You will feel fatigue or exhaustion from doing nothing beyond that which you have ever felt from doing something. You have no energy or strength. You may feel guilty and not know why. You may feel worthless and not know why. You may have difficulty concentrating. It may be impossible to make decisions. There is a sense of desolation, of despair, of hopelessness, of sorrow that goes far beyond anything that is normal. You may be tired of being you. You may be tired of being. Depression can even be fatal.

"Depression is a fierce enemy, making it a struggle just to stand up, get dressed and walk around," says Brigette Weeks in Daily Guideposts. "And living with it, the name of the game is to look and act ordinary." That isn't always easy. Sometimes it's impossible to hide the depressions, but you'd be amazed at how often people just don't see it.

For me, the hardest part is the emptiness. When I am empty I cannot talk, I cannot write. Whatever I say feels false and phony even when I know it is sincere. I try so hard to go on as though nothing is happening, and often no one knows but me. But I know, and the cost of performing is high. What I want, what I need is more time to turn inward until I feel strong enough to face the world again. I try to do this while never neglecting the relationships in my life. If I know I'll need to go to bed early and won't be able to be on Facebook for chatting, I'll call a Facebook friend on the phone for a more personal touch instead.

But it is inevitable that there will be people who say you let them down, you didn't chat enough, you didn't come enough, you didn't write enough. And when you are doing all you can do and you can't do any more, then there is a finality to their complaints that you cannot help. You can't do more. And then the emptiness grows even larger; it threatens to swallow you whole. The guilt and shame of failing at friendship pull the floor from under your feet. You are in free fall. Down and down, with no floor. What is there to stop the fall?

Thank God I love politics. I am trying to focus on the poor people in Egypt whose peaceful revolution has turned violent and ugly, through no fault of their own. I am trying to read a little book on the will of God. I have to walk my dog two or three times every day. And I talk to my mother every day. These are my lifelines.

I am in a bad way now. I have let down a friend, who had been one of my lifelines, by needing to sleep and not chat on Facebook. She has decided on her own that her friendship must be too much for me, and so she drew back. I don't think this is just, and I cannot handle that. I have no coping skill for that. I don't let you into my heart easily. I am very careful. I don't have a Plan B. And when you pull back, the empty space you leave is devastating.