That Dark Spot
Yesterday was my wife’s birthday, and I wanted to show up for her as a beacon of joy, light, and love in the way she deserves. On the date that marks the first time a person filled their lungs with air from the miracle that is planet Earth, said human, imo, deserves to be recognized as the gift they are by those who love them so deeply. Alas, I was not my usual party-party-hype-girl. See, I have been feeling very sick with a gnarly virus. Each morning I crack my eyes open, and think, “today is the day I will feel like me again”. Then, as I haul myself out of bed to start the coffee maker, I realize after a few short minutes, that I still do not in fact, “feel like myself”. In the scheme-of-life-timeline, three weeks of viral yuck is but a drop in the bucket. I know this, and yet…
I could feel something different brewing in my soul yesterday. Now this wasn’t just a case of waking up on the wrong side of the bed; I had felt it building for a few weeks as a deep sense of longing. I kept telling my wife that I felt an empty loneliness that was bringing me to tears on a regular basis. I assumed it was because I felt so physically ill, that my emotions were following suit. While this was likely the case, it feels no less “real” when your emotional state is forced in to submission by your physical health status.
The first sighting of this new, terrible sensation yesterday, made itself visible through my behavior towards a customer service rep who was on the undeserving receiving end of my angry rant about how we should receive functioning service given that we pay our bills for said service. In short, I was a total asshole to someone who was not personally behind the disfunction of my internet connection as of late. I got myself so whipped up, that after I hit that red call “end” button, I made it count extra with some angry stomping on loop in our upstairs hallway. It was at this time the birthday spouse lightly suggested to me, that may-haps my phone behavior had been a bit cruel and unkind. Reader, I knew this, but I am obliged to inform you that I did not receive this feedback with an open mind and heart. I ask my partner on a regular basis to check me when I am acting a fool, and while she was doing the very thing I rely on her for, I decided I would thank her on her birthday by moving in to my second act of demented behavior. This included, but was not limited to, me yelling at her that I was NOT MAD AT WHAT SHE HAD TOLD ME AT ALL, OK, followed by a theatrical storming out of the room. The emotional show culminated in a much needed hot shower, that may or may not have included a few (read: many) tears of embarrassment and shame.
I knew better than to behave like that, and I usually act with more tact and class when I’m frustrated. When I fuck up, I am pretty quick to say so, and begin the repair process with whomever I have wronged. But I could feel that thing I mentioned above, that change in my soul, start to throb again and a strange thing happened to me in that moment: I realized I didn’t want to talk about it. I wanted to keep it to myself. I wanted to squirrel it away, and not let anyone know what was blossoming. Dear reader, I realized in that hot shower of warm water, aided in part by my own wet tears, that I felt very, very, very, depressed.
Depression is not a state I encounter often. I mean, of course there are situational events that hold hands with darkness, sadness, grief and malaise that I experience. I am not a singular-feeling piñata, stuffed with only happiness after all. But, it is a rare event for me to feel unmoored in darkness for a reason I cannot put my finger on; and that is exactly where I found myself yesterday. I headed to my previously scheduled therapy appointment, and found myself not even wanting to tell my certified doctor who specializes in metal health how I felt, because it was so scary. It was an overwhelming sensation of wishing I could untether from my life, so I could collapse in to a metaphorical float tank of sensory deprivation freedom. I kept imagining this sensation as a stone buried deep within my rib cage; nestled somewhere between my two lungs, each of which had been working extreme overtime hours between coughing fits, to provide me the oxygen I require for survival.
As I was driving in my car late afternoon, running errands and trying to scratch a few pre-holiday items off the ol’to-do list, I was playing Love on repeat. Every time I’d click the back button on my steering wheel to start it again, I’d imagine that black stone getting glossier with each tumbling pass through my mind. I could feel myself wanting to give in, and just let this moody obsidian grow from a pebble, in to a body-sized slab. It felt painfully good to feel so bad. The darkness started to feel comforting and I knew I needed to tell my wife that I was having trouble finding stable ground to rest upon during this day.
Talking about it did a few things: a-it took away the privacy of harboring such darkness inside, b-it made it so I felt even closer to my wife, because I let her in to a room I had hours before locked the door to, and c-it helped me trust that I could help myself by asking for help, when I was actively feeling sucked in to the quicksand of depression. I made it through yesterday. I even managed to have a genuinely wonderful sushi dinner celebrating my wife last night. When I woke up this morning, and cracked my eyes open to start the literal (coffee) grind, I felt healthier, lighter, and ready to greet the day. Maybe I needed to feel myself getting pulled down too far, to force myself to ask for extra love and support? Maybe my body needed me to tell my best friend that my personal balance was being tipped in to a frightening new zone? Maybe I needed to look across the dinner table at my wife, enjoying one of her favorite meals on her birthday to rattle me out of my self-imposed cage of darkness? Whatever the reason, I am here and it is my job as a person who writes about the human experience to shout out, “Yo! This shit is scary! Tell someone!”
You can know that the dark spot is not where you live but when it’s taking over, even for a day, you owe it to yourself (and those who love you) to shine a spotlight in to that dark. If you can, when you recognize your vignette is being covered in shadow, try speaking your version of the words: “I need help walking through the world today”, out loud.
If you or someone you know are feeling like the darkness is being relentless, and you don’t have someone to talk to, please know there is 24/7 help waiting for you when you dial: 988. You are loved, and we all want you here.