Depression | Bethany Bassett

Tag: Depression

Beware of Mantras

Posted by: Bethany in Uncategorized 6 Comments

Growing up quasi-Amish taught me how to bake bread from scratch, sew my own dowdy jumpers, grow organic wheat grass in a pan on the windowsill, and hide. Good lord, was I skilled at hiding. I had a lusciously guilty stash of sugar cubes that grew over the years to include Thin Mints, Warheads, Pixie Sticks, and some fundraiser candy that called itself World’s Best Chocolate (and really was! at least to a chronically deprived sweet-tooth…) and none of my five hundred siblings ever found it. Talent, non?

I also learned how to hide my feelings, my opinions, my idiocies, and my problems. It’s a little-known fact about families who isolate themselves from the world: rather than creating a safe haven, isolation breeds like an insidious form of bacteria until you can no longer reach outside your own skin. No one allowed in, period.

I can’t begin to tell you how powerless I was raised to be. I have a lifetime of poisonous mantras stashed in my mind: Do not ask for help. Your feelings mean nothing. We do not talk about that. Doctors want to harm you. Policemen want to harm you. Your instincts are wrong. NO ONE CAN HELP. Honestly, the two best things I’ve ever done to fight off those mantras were meeting Dan, who tirelessly chiseled away at my mind with rock-solid compassion, and starting this blog. It’s not easy, of course. I constantly want to censor myself (and I often do, if you want to know the truth), and I revert several times a day back to Your feelings mean nothing. We do not talk about that. No one can help, no one can help, no one can help, no one can help.

Writing about depression, in particular, feels like stripping in front of the entire world. It comes with a host of other confessions like failure and weakness that I would much rather keep hidden, and it looks so raw and grotesque out in the air. Hi, I’m Bethany, and I can’t manage to take care of two teeny-tiny little girls and one teeny-tiny little apartment by myself and oh my god, am I actually admitting this aloud?

But your comments and e-mails have given me exactly the boost I needed to shrug off my Amish mantras and do something unimaginably frightening: Ask for help. I went to the doctor today, all of my own volition, and I told him the truth. And now there will be tests and further appointments and possibly referrals, and though we know nothing yet, I feel hopeful. I don’t know how to explain what hope feels like after this long, but thank you. Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you.

24Jul

Debthany Downer

Posted by: Bethany in Uncategorized 6 Comments

My head is a mishmash stew these days, marinating fuzzy inklings into unfocused ideas. My daily life looks like yawning and claustrophobic mint and dust and poop in unfortunate places and half-shuttered windows and pajamas. All spinning, connectionless.

—

“Hey, how are you?”

“Fine, thanks. I mean, I had a full-blown panic attack yesterday over the fact that I had to remain alive for the rest of the day, and the day before that, the girls fussed so much that my sanity took off for Fiji, and the day before that, I felt too much like old concrete to officially get out of bed, and the day before that was some kind of mid-July vortex of antisocial unproductivity. Of course, the day before that was great—do birthdays count toward the statistics?—but today, I’m floating in a time warp, watching my body stumble around in search of my head. I mean, I’m fine. Fine. Thanks.”

—

About a year ago, I started reading the blog of a beautiful, free-spirited woman who wrote about her daily life in terms of intuition and enlightenment. On bad days, she wrote about being gentle with herself and allowing healing to manifest itself. On good days, she wrote about the change in her perception, some profound new way she was going to go about her life. I enjoyed reading her blog because she found so much significance in the mundane, and who wouldn’t love enlightenment at the end of PMS?

But recently, I’ve started finding her posts tedious and aggravating because nothing ever changes. She is always searching inside herself and coming up with bright, sparkly answers to life that make absolutely no difference the next time she has a bad day. Of course, she has every right to share her emotions. In fact, I think what bothers me the most about her journal is that it’s what mine would be if I were an optimist. Like, at all.

See, I don’t really go up-up on the upswings; I just level out into something like normal. I stop saying things like “Stomachs are retarded” and “I’m going to murder whoever invented 7 a.m.” and “Life, the universe, and everything are horrible,” but I don’t really come up with happy hopefulisms because what’s the point?

(Just think, I was trying to keep this post from sounding too depressed… Hello, Debbie Downer! I apologize to any of you who now wants to go climb into a hole for eternity.)

I never know what to write when I’m having Downer Days (or weeks… or months…) because I shouldn’t still be having them. The world is spinning, creation is evolving, and I should be changing for the better. No more sudden depression, no more losing myself in a swampy labyrinth of hours. I should be coming up with bright, sparkly answers that stick to my psyche like flypaper and accumulate over time to a bright, sparkly me. Surely everyone else is just as sick as I am of the constant ups and downs (and downs and downs and downs), but what’s a girl to do? Pretend she’s not a sloppy mess too much of the time? Lie her way into false perkiness? Ignore herself until the top of her head blows off?

Honesty is particularly heavy at times like this. Every word I come up with is a burden that I’m reluctant to hoist on others even as I’m buckling under the weight. I just have to think that one day, I will figure all of this out—I will—and then these words I scribbled from the darkness will be a path, stepping stones offered to other shadow-people as a gift.

16Jul

Dichotomous Days

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Tension:

Lead-blanket tiredness, every single morning and sometimes until bedtime. I hung onto today by a thread of willpower and finally gave up at noon, when I put my haggard self to bed. (Coffee helps, though I suddenly stopped liking the taste last month. Coffee in a chocolate-coconut frappuccino courtesy of my blender-wielding husband definitely helps. Sleep, exercise, and nutrition do not.)
Owning a house during a major housing slump and losing our renters. Taking care of our house when we lived in it was enough work, but figuring out the details from across the ocean? Without the extra income? Wondering how soon the place will fall into ruin without tenants and become just a pile of bricks swallowed by crabgrass? There’s a chance that worrying about this has impacted my sleep…
Huge possibility of having to move to another city next summer. I knew this home wouldn’t be permanent, but I’ve come to love our friendly little neighborhood and the old, old streets of downtown, not to mention the people who have welcomed us into their families. (Benefits of moving: Will be closer to Florence, Dan’s brother, and IKEA. Very much closer to outlet mall. The other city is still beautiful, AND we may finally get a large-enough house. Oh, and the transfer has the possibility of being long-term. Really, I need to just get over this and be excited already.)

Ease:

Summer-colored fruits and veggies, fresh or bread-crumbed or slathered in yo-cream or drizzled with balsamic vinegar. I love how easy it is to eat healthy in warm weather—salads and fruit drinks every day, and we’ve reduced our grocery budget by €40 a week. I feel all earthy and bright at the thought, like I’ve just discovered a secret.
August just around the corner. We spent our vacation budget (uh, for the next five years) on Sophie’s emergency room trip, so we’ll be coming up with fun and relaxing things to do around here. Which, really? Could not make me happier. I mean, we’re already in Italy; might as well enjoy it! I’m planning to serve meals on paper plates and read books somewhere breezy.
A certain member of the family finally being potty-trained. After what felt like seventeen years of Pull-Ups and puddles and uncontrollable weeping (on my part), we have autonomy. Also, another member of the family recently contracted mobility, and the crawling, cruising, and self-congratulatory giggles are almost too fun to stand! Almost.
Exciting new changes coming soon, like school for Natalie! And hopefully well-scheduled days for me during which I can write and write and write! Plus, a significant raise and talk of a winter ski vacation with the in-laws. Exclamation point!

C’est la vie, non?

11Jul

Eat Me, Uncle Moneybags

Posted by: Bethany in Uncategorized 3 Comments

Growing up, I learned to hate the song “Count Your Blessings.” (Please tell me some of you are old-fashioned enough to know it too?)

Are you ever burdened with a load of care?
Does the cross seem heavy you are called to bear?
Count your many blessings, every doubt will fly,
And you will be singing as the days go by.
(Lyrics by Johnson Oatman, a 19^th century preacher who probably got beat up a lot as a kid)

No matter how many times I sang it, its birthday wish mantra never worked. The magic elixir of contrived thankfulness turned stale when I swallowed it, and nothing ever got better as a result.

—

Dan and I lay awake in bed far, far too late last night talking (a bad habit that’s always been too delightful to shake) about the life we could be living right now had we just accepted it. We wandered through shadowy conjectures of a big suburban house and a six-figure salary. Bulging pockets. Unlimited comfort. Dollar signs popping out of our eyes just like in cartoons. We have been so tempted some days to quit our grad-schooling, world-traveling teetertotter life and grab the easy one dangling very much within reach.

But no matter how beautiful the bait looks, we know we are happiest as free fish with the whole ocean to play in. We need adventure, he and I, even if it sometimes looks like instability. Money matters so much less to us than experience… though, admittedly, a lot of experiences are easier to come by with a fat wallet.

I’ve been skulking on the outskirts of panic lately, and it helps to keep all of this in mind. It is so easy to feel lost in a new culture, especially with talk of moving to a different city soon. Especially with quickly growing babies and quickly disappearing time. Especially with the kind of urgent, helpless inspiration my brain manufactures without warning. Especially when unexpected expenses converge like thunderheads over water and more water, no dry land in sight. It’s the price of diving headlong into the ocean.

So I beat myself over the head with logic and lecture myself with my own beliefs. Keep everything in perspective… and This will all be worth it some day… But for all the mental haranguing I do to keep myself on track, the only thing that truly brings me out of dark moods is thankfulness—spontaneous and unplannable. It happened today when the girls woke up from their naps together with that gorgeous, sleepy glow of afternoon dreams. I looked at their faces, and simple as that, I was floating. To be able to know these vibrant little people, to be able to kiss their cheeks and read them bedtime stories and add beauty to their eternal souls was like a living in a sudden song. Unexplainable joy.

That’s how thankfulness got me out of our tightly-walled house and into the sunshine today. The girls and I had to go out for a necessary purchase—strawberry gelato with two spoons—and a playground date. We really had no choice but to have a perfect, panic-free evening once I realized how ridiculously, extravagantly rich we are together.

Of course, later came a particularly fussy bathtime and dirty dishes and the dull thud of reality and the fear that everything good about my day was horribly cliché…

But if sunwarmed giggles with these two and overwhelming lightheartedness become cliché for me, I will have more to appreciate than Uncle Moneybags or even Johnson Oatman himself could ever count.

—-

By the way, and on a completely different topic, I wish everyone in the world could get a chance to read this.

7Jun

In Hiding

Posted by: Bethany in Uncategorized 6 Comments

I just realized I’m in hiding. I haven’t been to church in three weeks, and I’m feeling nauseous at the prospect of tomorrow. We haven’t entertained guests in even longer; I actually cancelled an invitation to have lunch with friends last week. Grocery trips broadside me, the unfamiliarity of aisles and aisles, the threat of another language. I’ve been grasping at solitude, even tucked away here at home. An hour alone, headphones on.

Is it just cowardice? Maybe I’ve depleted my stores of bravery in these last ten months of culture shock. Or could it be dysfunction finally taking over my sense of logic and social responsibility? All I know for sure is that I’m tired. Inspiration comes in fitful bursts but never stays long enough for me to build up energy. I have projects on the burner, but the pilot light is out. No more fuel.

Sweet Dan gave me the afternoon to write my short-short fiction piece for a contest next week, but the instant I sat down, I slammed into a brick wall. It doesn’t feel exactly like writer’s block since I’m bursting with ideas. It just feels like can’t. So I bit my nails and beat myself over the head with guilt and read bits of Jen Lemen’s beautiful blog in search of inspiration until I found this paragraph in her archives:

Sometimes an internal monologue of shoulds is a sign that some little voice is calling the shots, and it’s not me. At least not the me that understands deep down that love is always the way, that TRUST melts into opportunity, that the joy of discovery is the most creative, fruitful enterprise every single time, that I always finish best in an atmosphere of grace not just pressure.

I desperately need that atmosphere of grace. I suspect I am the only one keeping myself holed up in isolation until the imagined pressure of church and guests and writing deadlines is too hard to face. So here’s a teeny flutter of a plan:

Tomorrow morning, I’m going to go to church without worrying what I look like and say hi to people because at least that I can do. I will breathe.
Right now, I’m going to feed my crying baby and put the computer open on the table in front of me. Maybe I’ll come up with a sentence in between spoonfuls. Maybe I won’t, but it’s okay. This week is not my last chance to write.
And later? I’m going to go to bed early. I’ll stretch out and make happy, comfortable noises and not worry about a single thing because all I should be doing at night is getting enough rest. So I will. It’s a start.

3Jun

The World According to Crap

Posted by: Bethany in Uncategorized 4 Comments

The problem, as always, is perspective.

I fall, embarrassingly easily, into deep ruts. I go to sleep one night after a perfectly lovely day and wake up the next morning wrapped in pitch-black heaviness. Then comes the vast expanse of hopelessness, days thunking on like a parade of concrete tumbleweeds. I lose track of time almost immediately, and the hole in my mind chants its own dismal credo:
This is your life,
forever.
No one understands what you’re going through.
No one can help.
You are alone,
forever.
You will be washing dishes and mopping kitchen floors
and changing dirty diapers and crying in the shower
and forgetting how to create
and everything else about yourself—
you guessed it,
forever.

Even during the darkest bits, I know none of that is true. Yet I still think in those terms, doing anything I can to rationalize my senseless change in mood, grasping for something to blame. It’s just this house, I think. It’s too much, I can’t keep it clean, if only I had a housekeeper… Or, Two kids are too many, I can’t give them the attention they need, and if I hear one more whine, my head is going to roll out the door and find a new family to live with, if only we could afford full-time daycare… I think, If only I weren’t stuck in this daily routine, and If only I were in shape, and If only everyone else could be as miserable as I feel today… Perspective coated thoroughly in crap.

Of course, I never can articulate these thoughts when I’m in the midst of the muddle. I just operate under the whole weight of my feelings like a toddler, unable to form complete sentences, all fury and petulance. (Confession: I even threw a pillow at my poor husband, just because he was peacefully sleeping and I wasn’t. And I was still mad at him the next day for continuing to sleep peacefully with the pillow on his face. Because how could he sleep through my internal drama? HOW COULD HE?)

I’m familiar enough with this cycle after twenty-something years of falling to know I’m on the upswing again. Not bursting out of bed in the morning, mind you, but catching glimpses of sanity in my future. Very soon now, the rain will dry up, the pollen will settle, the stars will align slot-machine style—cherries all across—and my perspective will bob back into the light. I’ll remember how much I appreciate this little Italian apartment and the opportunity to imprint myself on it, always bettering. I’ll think of the time not too far from now when both girls will be in school, and I’ll remember how spectacularly fortunate I am to be home with them right now, always in the middle of their experiencing. I’ll realize how very gentle this daily routine is with me—how I can float on the soft structure when I lose my way—and how I need the challenges in my life, fitness, language, creative ventures. I’ll swell with gratefulness for the people who anchor me to reality, those who remind me to smile, and especially those who wake up with pillow-missiles on their faces and still hug me tight. And maybe simply writing this now will help me hold onto a glimmer of valid perspective next time I wake up alone in the dark.

1Jun

The Allergy Haze

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I’m caught firmly in the Allergy Haze, a spiderwebby mesh of too-tired days with the sneezing and the itching and THE ITCHING and HUSBANDS ARE SUPPOSED TO SUPPORT THEIR WIVES, WHY WON’T YOU LET ME SCRUB MY EYEBALLS WITH STEEL WOOL? I’ve spent the last week living vaguely and dreaming of Rip Van Winkle. I like to think I’ll wake up tomorrow to find I’ve been asleep on a mountain of laundry for the last twenty years; at least by then, allergy season will be over. Right?

I hate wasting away like this. Letters (well, e-mails anyway) languish half-written in the back of my mind until they simply dissolve. Chores pile up, quite literally, and my girls veg in front of the TV while I pass out. I supposed it’s comforting in some ways to know that this is all the result of those damn histamines and not, say, my unbelievable suckness as a person. Yet, my friends? The suckness is overwhelming.

I will be back. Promise. Just as soon as I’m done swabbing my ears with ice picks and sneezing out the final remnants of brain matter.

(Do you suffer from allergies? Feel free to commiserate.)

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