Spring is Here - Maybe It Will Stop Raining Now

"The struggle of today is not altogether for today, it is for a vast future also." — Abraham Lincoln

Well, March was another very difficult month. Perhaps the fact that Mother Nature tried to squeeze 40 days and 40 nights' worth of rain into a 31-day period contributed to my despair. But I like rain. I think.

This past week — my first week with my new reduced-hour schedule at work — was especially rough. A variety of easily identifiable triggers, at a time when my ego is especially fragile due to yet another voluntary demotion, left me struggling to keep up the fight. Three consecutive nights of extreme insomnia were followed by a complete mood collapse a few days ago in which I indulged in Xanax for the first time in eleven days, my longest Xanax-free stretch since October. (On only five occasions have I've gone without Xanax for more than two weeks.)

It is worth mentioning an important change that has been evolving in my thought patterns when I'm at my worst. Over the past couple years, one of the (many) "tricks" that I've employed to keep myself from hurting myself is forcing myself to play the scenario out in my head. That is, after slitting my wrist what do I imagine happens next? If the scene in my head ends in a hospital (as it usually does), followed by the need to wear long-sleeved shirts every day for a few weeks to hide the stitches, then I conclude, "Why bother?" Why bother hurting myself and causing a hullabaloo if I'm not really intent on dying? In those situations I generally just resign myself to being miserable, and then usually drown my woes in Xanax, popcorn, ice cream, pink-and-white animal cookies, Nutter Butters, Vicodin or tequila (or some combination thereof). In recent weeks, however, when I am in a space where I've lost the ability to think rationally, I've been having trouble coming to the "Why bother?" conclusion — instead, I am beginning to believe (at such times) that there might be some sort of relief to be found through an act of non-lethal self-injury.

I know a number of "cutters" — people who, in times of psychological distress, intentionally injure themselves — generally in a manner that is clearly neither lethal nor resembling an actual suicide attempt (for example: scratching a word into one's skin). I am certainly not an expert on the phenomenon, but I was once a cutter myself. From age 18 to 24, on a number of occasions (primarily during my first year of college), I cut my left forearm — usually with a razor blade, though once or twice with a pocket knife and once with a shard of broken glass. Each of these incidents occurred at a time when I was in intense emotional pain, and I think that at the time I believed that I was actually trying to kill myself. In hindsight, it seems pretty clear that I was simply trying to swap the psychological pain for some more-understandable physical pain. In any case, I seemed to outgrow it, and I've not cut myself in more than ten years. But something tells me that, without some clear and rapid improvement in my mental state, I'm likely to resume this questionable coping mechanism. In a way, I suppose you could say that I've been engaging in self-harm already, in subtle ways: gorging on ice cream night after night (and gaining thirty pounds in ten weeks); by going months without doing laundry, to the point where my bedroom becomes uninhabitable and so I end up sleeping on the living room floor for weeks. Over the past few days I've had to struggle with a nearly unquenchable urge to cause myself serious bodily harm. In those moments the thought of having stitches and wearing long-sleeved shirts for weeks seems a small price to pay for the relief that I imagine would come in the aftermath of hurting myself.

But why would relief be found in such an action? Is there some weird subconscious belief that emotional pain will drain out of me along with the blood? Is it just some ploy for attention? Since I imagine I would come out the other end of the experience feeling shame, embarrassment and regret, I don't think very many people would even find out about it. Is it possible that the few who would find out are the ones whose attention I'd be trying to manipulate? Perhaps. Is it possible that there are people that I would secretly hope would find out and who then might feel guilty, as though they somehow "caused" me to do it? Perhaps. That's a fucked up thing for me to do to someone, of course, and at times like right now, when I'm thinking fairly rationally, I know that it's a bad idea. But, when I'm not rational, it's getting harder and harder to talk myself out of it.

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Wednesday, April 5th marks the three-year anniversary of the day I was discharged from the hospital. I spent nine weeks there, and in the course of my treatment I came to understand that my illness is not the mysterious, random affliction that I had thought it was. By beginning to understand how and why I suffer the way I do, a spark of hope ignited within me — hope that was non-existent when I was first admitted. It is now crystal clear to me that my best hope in conquering — or, at least, taming — my depression lies in gaining a clear understanding of the inner workings of the disease: not just "What are my triggers?" (a question I can readily answer), but also: Why do these triggers have such power over me? Why am I triggered when Person X says or does something in particular, but not when Person Y says or does the same exact thing? For that matter, why does Person X's actions trigger me some days but not on others? Why do certain people get caught in my "tractor beam" — and how do they escape it? Many have been trapped in my tractor beam over the years — generally just one person at a time — and though some spend years caught in the glare, eventually they always escape. But how did they escape? Why were they caught in the first place? What do each of these people have in common? And what can I do to turn the goddam thing off once and for all? Over time, the tools that I've learned to use (for prying myself out of the molasses and back to reality) begin to wear out and lose their effectiveness. What new tools are available to me? How can I resharpen the old ones in order to get more use out of them? And so on.

For me, this learning process has two significant components: open communication about my depression with the people in my life; and second, reading and researching the topic of depression. I'm going to assume that if you are reading this then you are probably interested in hearing some of what I've been learning. I, at least, think I would benefit by being surrounded by people who are well educated in the details of depressive thinking. — Last month I mentioned a book I was reading that chronicled Abraham Lincoln's struggle with depression. The book is Lincoln's Melancholy by Joshua Shenk (see www.lincolnsmelancholy.com). Although the author is not a trained psychologist or counselor, he nonetheless was very well informed about depression, and much of what he said strongly resonated with me. In large part I think this is due to the fact that Lincoln is one of my heroes, and the fact that he was able to accomplish so much, while suffering so greatly, is truly inspirational to me. For example:

From a young age, Lincoln experienced psychological pain and distress, to the point that he believed himself temperamentally inclined to suffer to an unusual degree. He learned how to articulate his suffering, find succor, endure, and adapt. Finally, he found meaning from his affliction so that it became not merely an obstacle to overcome, but a factor in his good life.

At the age of 32, Lincoln wrote the following in a letter to a colleague:

I am now the most miserable person living. If what I feel were equally distributed to the whole human family, there would not be one cheerful face on the earth. Whether I shall ever be better I can not tell; I awfully forebode I shall not. To remain as I am is impossible; I must die or be better, it appears to me.

Shenk says:

One of the reasons depression is so problematic — and deadly, leading to 40,000 suicides in the United States each year — is that people are loath to admit they are suffering, let alone explore it in detail.

Hopefully, by exploring my depression "in detail" I can avoid an untimely demise. More from Shenk:

It is a signal feature of depression that, in times of trouble, sensible ideas, memories of good times, and optimism for the future all recede into blackness.

I couldn't have said it better myself. — In a letter to his best friend Joshua Speed, referring to Speed's upcoming marriage, Lincoln wrote:

How miserably things seem to be arranged in this world. If we have no friends, we have no pleasure; and if we have them, we are sure to lose them, and be doubly pained by the loss … I feel somewhat jealous of both of you now; you will be so exclusively concerned for one another, that I shall be forgotten entirely.

… which is often a typical unconscious reaction of mine when friends pair off, get married or have a child (or, sometimes, when a friend just goes away on vacation; or, sometimes, when I'm REALLY a mess, when they simply leave for their lunch break). There's some sort of fear that they will never come back, and/or that they are going away (or getting married, or having a baby, or whatever) in order to escape from having to endure my presence. — The following quote, which Shenk attributes to a psychiatrist named Peter Kramer, aptly describes me (at times, at least — especially at work):

Throughout history, it has been known that melancholics, though they have little energy, use their energy well; they tend to work hard in a focused area, do great things, and derive little pleasure from their accomplishments.

Getting back to Lincoln, Shenk writes:

Whatever greatness Lincoln achieved cannot be explained as a triumph over personal suffering. Rather, it must be accounted for as an outgrowth of the same system that produced that suffering. This is not a story of transformation but one of integration. Lincoln didn't do great work because he solved the problem of his melancholy. The problem of his melancholy was all the more fuel for the fire of his great work.    …     [T]he temple of reason became his place of refuge; humor and poetry gave him relief … . [H]is work kept him connected to the world around him … . Lincoln knew what he wanted to live for; but for years he suffered without any clear prospect of how he would achieve it. He continued to plod ahead, even as clarity about why eluded him.

Finally, one of Shenk's concluding remarks:

The overarching lesson of Lincoln's life is one of wholeness. … [I]t is easy to be impatient with fear, doubt, and sadness. … Yet no story's end can forsake its beginning and its middle. … The hope is not that suffering will go away, for with Lincoln it did not ever go away. The hope is that suffering, plainly acknowledged and endured, can fit us for the surprising challenges that await.

But what surprising challenges await me? And at what point in the story am I? The beginning? The middle? The far end of the middle?

Lately I have been consuming episodes of "The West Wing" like an addict (I purchased the first six seasons on DVD). In a way there is something self-abusive about my obsession with this show. I was still a teenager when I first did the math and figured out that the Presidential election of 2004 would be the first in which I would be old enough to run — and for many years I kept that thought in the back of my head. As 2004 got closer and closer, though, it was plain that I was not on a track to the Oval Office — not by a long shot. But somewhere along the line I began to be interested in a different occupation: the United States Secret Service. Alas, the minimum age for President is about the same as the maximum age for the Secret Service, and so neither of these paths seem to lay in front of me. So, again I wonder, just what are the surprising challenges that await me? And do I have the fortitude to do as Lincoln did, and keep on plodding ahead despite the dark moments that are accompanied by a complete lack of clarity about what the future could possibly hold that will render all this suffering worthwhile?