Tales from the Dark Wood In the middle of the journey of life, I was plunged into a dark wood, for I had lost the right path. — Dante, The Inferno Part III: Interview #1 "David" by Douglas S Johnson As part of an eight-installment series on living with clinical depression, three interviews were conducted in order to form portraits of people who have suffered from and coped with the disorder, in hopes that in understanding there is also something in the way of help and healing. This is the first of those stories. "David" is a 34-year-old male. He remembers having feelings of depression as early as seven years old, and knows of no precipitating event that might have caused the disorder. His worst years were from age 19 to age 26, though he still battles depression to a certain degree every day of his life. I always refer to 1983 through 1990 as an "ongoing desire to die." Somebody once described depression as being something like "a pitch black room, steadily heated." I think this is an accurate description. I felt for those years as though the whole world was a hot, muggy room closing in on me. I also remember saying sometimes that it felt like I was going to implode, that the pressure was coming from the outside, and since I was becoming more and more hollow inside, I was eventually just going to cave in, when nothing was left inside to counteract the outside pressure. I've used another metaphor as well when talking about this: depression is like a spiritual leprosy. Yes, this is how it felt for me to have depression. My soul, my spirit, what was inside of me, was rotting, falling away, day by day. Self-esteem is a huge thing when it comes to depression. In regard to this, I think that this is one mistake that depressed people make: we confuse the things that happen in our outside lives with the true source of our depression. We think that problems with our coworkers, or our schoolmates, or our spouses, or our siblings, or our parents, are what's causing our depression, when, in fact, it's usually the exact opposite. It's usually the depression that is affecting the relationships. I think this is something that has to be addressed really early with someone who is suffering from depression. Years of therapy can be wasted talking about outside issues, when the real problem is inside, how we view ourselves. My problem was probably based in brain chemistry, but the main symptom was a lack of self-esteem, feelings of self-hatred, despising myself. After a while of having this spiritual leprosy, after what was inside of me had died and all of my esteem had rotted and fallen away, I was left with this empty shell, with this body, which became ridiculous, and I couldn't imagine why I had it. It seemed ludicrous, like it was mocking me; my body was still alive, and yet any real life had ceased to exist. And so it possessed my mind to destroy the body, to eliminate this absurdity which remained and only reminded me of how dead I was. This was when the suicidal thoughts began to take control. As much as I daydreamed about death, about dying, I don't think I ever wanted to cease to be — not really. I always remember the dying words of a French viscount who humorously said, "I shall miss myself." I like that quote. I think that when I die, I shall miss myself. And even at my worst hours, even when I was thinking of all of those creative ways to do away with my body, I believe that I would still have missed myself, that even depression was still better than death. I think that there in the back of my mind, I still wanted to be. Then there was something else: I could view my illness as material for my art. There was always this detached part of me that said, "I can use that," and a lot of my suffering worked its way into my art. As an artist, I was able to view my own trials, my own life, objectively, and I think this was part of my self-therapy. There was the sufferer and the artist, and the artist always kept the sufferer going. The sufferer wanted to die, but the artist wanted to use the sufferer's suffering. It was grist for the mill, fodder for the art. Again, this was, in a way, a saving grace. I suppose I had an ongoing resistance to organized therapy. I had one session with a psychologist, and she wanted me to draw a picture of my house and color each room (presumably to reveal attitudes about my various family members); I thought it was ludicrous. Besides, I had read all of the books on psychology by that time, trying to diagnose myself, and I thought I knew it all. I was always something of an autodidact, probably unfortunately so. I thought I was smarter than the therapist was, and that certainly makes one a very difficult candidate for therapy. As far as pharmacology, for a while, I took tranquilizers, which were prescribed for me by my regular physician. I didn't like the effect that they had on me; taking them made me feel less sharp, and even when they reduced my anxiety and my pain, they also reduced my joy and my ability to feel, so I eventually took myself off of those, and in a very unwise way. I just stopped taking them and ended up suffering from withdrawal, on top of everything else. I did not have a good experience with either therapy or drugs. At some point, Buddhism became part of my recovery. I actually became a Buddhist for a while. I fell in love with the meditation. I would meditate sometimes for an hour and a half or two hours a day. It became a ritual. I had a mat I would sit on, and I would burn incense, all of this early in the morning. It provided structure to my life. There was such peace in this that I could overcome the crushing tension, even if it was only for a short time. I eventually reverted back to Christianity, but the God I returned to was not the same God that I left. I suppose my Christianity is an Easternized Christianity. I now see God as being part of me, as part of all of us, a part that I can access at any time, a Being who will sympathize, empathize, and feel for me, for God resides in me, and therefore desires my good. I am no longer separated from God or from myself. I also started a vigorous exercise program, which allowed me to vent a lot of anger and anxiety that I was having. I felt physically better because of this, which always has a profound effect on a person's mental well-being. I find that even still, it takes a lot of physical exercise to keep the tension and anxiety from building up, and if it builds up too much, I shut down. My reaction to excess energy is to shut down, generally in the way of depression. Most important of all was talking to people about what I was feeling. My wife would listen, even when we first met. She didn't understand, because she had never been through anything like it, and some of the things I said shocked her, horrified her, but she always listened and never saw any of it as being my fault, or a character flaw, or a weakness. She encouraged me to talk about it; she still encourages me. She's come to recognize it when I'm feeling down, when there's something wrong. She knows when to ask me about it, and when to leave me alone. If I'm sitting in a dark room by myself, she'll come by and flip on the light. This is her way of saying, "I'm here, thinking about you, and I care. There's somebody here you can talk to if you need to." It's oftentimes not so much talking about your problems every time, but just knowing that someone's there if you want to. This is why it's so important to establish a rapport with somebody, to have that one person, or a whole group, but at least one person, so that you never get lost again in the vortex of loneliness and isolation, the mental maelstrom, because that is what leads back to the thoughts of suicide. I also think William Styron's Darkness Visible is a wonderful book for anyone who is suffering from depression, in the main because Styron just tells his story. There are no psychological techniques, no exercises, no advice; just one man telling his story. This is powerful, just to know that someone else has gone through this. It staves off isolation and allows one to make it through another day. It is often believed that if someone is sad, we should tell him or her a happy tale. Sometimes, this is the worst thing in the world. What depressed people want is not a happy story, but stories similar to their own, even stories of people who have had it much worse. Sometimes really crummy stories are much more helpful than those meant to be uplifting. I still have bouts of depression. I still have thoughts of suicide. I know that at this point I would never attempt suicide, because I understand that I have a role to play in life, and I cannot abandon my duties to the world, to other people, to myself, to God. Committing suicide would be abandoning my life, and my life has meaning. I have found significance in the ability to help others. I have been able to serve as lay-counselor, if you will, or at least as a halfway knowledgeable or experienced friend, to several people suffering from depression. This has been very fulfilling. It lends meaning to my experience. It makes it not worthless. It gives significance to the suffering. This is very important. Helping others in the midst of depression helps me, maybe as much as it helps them. I'm fortunate enough to be in a profession in which I interact with many different people from many different cultures, and from a lot of different backgrounds. It's a profession that allows me to speak with them, sometimes in an intimate way, about very personal issues. I like to be in touch with people, to be available to people, to break off bits of myself like a communion wafer, if you will, and to allow them to partake a little of me. And I feel like, if I can do that, if I can share my experience with all of these people, through my work, through my familial interaction, and just through my living, this will give purpose to my existence. If I can aid just one person, I will continue to live on. If the person I help helps someone else, and so on and so on, there's a deep goodness; there's a certain kind of immortality... This is the third in an eight-part series on depression written by Douglas S Johnson exclusively for The New Times. Please send SASE for any reprints desired.