08/06/2018
When you have depression itâs like it snows every day.
Some days itâs only a couple of inches. Itâs a pain in the ass, but you still make it to work, the grocery store. Sure, maybe you skip the gym or your friendâs birthday party, but it IS still snowing and who knows how bad it might get tonight. Probably better to just head home. Your friend notices, but probably just thinks you are flaky now, or kind of an as***le.
Some days it snows a foot. You spend an hour shoveling out your driveway and are late to work. Your back and hands hurt from shoveling. You leave early because itâs really coming down out there. Your boss notices.
Some days it snows four feet. You shovel all morning but your street never gets plowed. You are not making it to work, or anywhere else for that matter. You are so sore and tired you just get back in the bed. By the time you wake up, all your shoveling has filled back in with snow. Looks like your phone rang; people are wondering where you are. You donât feel like calling them back, too tired from all the shoveling. Plus they donât get this much snow at their house so they donât understand why youâre still stuck at home. They just think youâre lazy or weak, although they rarely come out and say it.
Some weeks itâs a full-blown blizzard. When you open your door, itâs to a wall of snow. The power flickers, then goes out. Itâs too cold to sit in the living room anymore, so you get back into bed with all your clothes on. The stove and microwave wonât work so you eat a cold Pop Tart and call that dinner. You havenât taken a shower in three days, but how could you at this point? Youâre too cold to do anything except sleep.
Sometimes people get snowed in for the winter. The cold seeps in. No communication in or out. The food runs out. What can you even do, tunnel out of a forty foot snow bank with your hands? How far away is help? Can you even get there in a blizzard? If you do, can they even help you at this point? Maybe itâs death to stay here, but itâs death to go out there too.
The thing is, when it snows all the time, you get worn all the way down. You get tired of being cold. You get tired of hurting all the time from shoveling, but if you donât shovel on the light days, it builds up to something unmanageable on the heavy days. You resent the hell out of the snow, but it doesnât care, itâs just a blind chemistry, an act of nature. It carries on regardless, unconcerned and unaware if it buries you or the whole world.
Also, the snow builds up in other areas, places you canât shovel, sometimes places you canât even see. Maybe itâs on the roof. Maybe itâs on the mountain behind the house. Sometimes, thereâs an avalanche that blows the house right off its foundation and takes you with it. A veritable Act of God, nothing can be done. The neighbors say itâs a shame and they canât understand it; he was doing so well with his shoveling.
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We donât know how it went down for Anthony Bourdain or Kate Spade. It seems like they got hit by the avalanche, but it couldâve been the long, slow winter. Maybe they were keeping up with their shoveling. Maybe they werenât. Sometimes, shoveling isnât enough anyway. Itâs hard to tell from the outside, but itâs important to understand what itâs like from the inside.
Understanding and compassion have to be the base of effective action. Itâs important to understand what depression is, how it feels, what itâs like to live with it, so you can help people both on an individual basis and a policy basis.
I donât have a message for people with depression like âkeep shovelingâ. Itâs asinine. Of course youâre going to keep shoveling the best you can, until you physically canât, because who wants to freeze to death inside their own house? We know what the stakes are. My message is to everyone else. Grab a shovel and help your neighbor. Slap a mini snow plow on the front of your truck and plow your neighborhood. Petition the city council to buy more salt trucks, so to speak.
Depression is blind chemistry and physics, like snow. And like the weather, it is a mindless process, powerful and unpredictable with great potential for harm. But like climate change, that doesnât mean we are helpless. If we want to stop losing so many people to this disease, it will require action at every level.
(Copied from another post, 8.06.18)
