Chapter Three
“For the enemy hath persecuted my soul; he hath smitten my life down to the ground; he hath made me to dwell in darkness, as those that have been long dead. Therefore is my spirit overwhelmed within me; my heart within me is desolate.”
~ King David, Psalm 143: 3-4
The day Bruno died was one of the saddest in my life. I did almost nothing that day but mourn. The reason I feel that this is so important to my story is that it did not trigger depression. I was extremely sad, but even the tears stopped an hour or two after they had begun. By the end of the day, I had gotten a grip on myself and was ready to move on with my life, my dog now a memory instead of a friend. I grieved, got over it, and started moving forward again with my life.
While I was crying, sad about Bruno, I knew the cause of my pain. It made sense that I should feel the way I did. I knew that the emotion, one I had felt before, would shortly pass, after which I would continue to be happy again. In fact, it wasn’t an altogether unpleasant experience, looking back on it. It almost seems pleasing that I cared so much about him that losing him would cause me to react that way. The loss I felt when he was gone reminded me of how good it was when he was still around. Maybe that’s might be why grieving plays such an important role in life; it reminds us that something is worth remembering after it’s gone.
Being depressed is not the same thing as being sad. The first few signs of depression felt like sadness, but they were much more than that. There was no comprehendible reason behind the feelings; they were not tied to a specific event. Rather, it was as though all the reasons for it were tiny and insignificant by themselves, like pieces of straw. But glued together with mud, they became bricks as strong as the pyramids. I could not pin down the source of why I suddenly felt so down, so hopeless. This sadness turned into an intense longing, a desire to figure out what was going on with my head, why I felt this way. But I was searching for an answer that could not be found; the question was unknown.
Imagine that you’re on Final Jeopardy and Alex Trebek reveals that the answer is “blue.” Consider how many questions that could apply to this answer and how little time you have to answer—just thirty seconds—and you’ll begin to understand what it was like to try to solve this covert reason for my depression and what it was like to try to make sense of it. I had a longing—an intense, deep longing—but I had absolutely no idea what would satisfy it or how to make it go away.
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Memories
When I was a freshman in high school, I was hit by a car while riding my newly acquired 10-speed bike towards my house down a blind hill—and toward a car coming up the same hill. I don’t remember anything from a block away, but I saw the pictures of the brown station wagon. It couldn’t have been a pretty thing to watch. I was told later that I did a flip in the air as I sailed over the car. I was amazingly lucky that I was not hurt more seriously. The only injuries I sustained were bruises, cuts, abrasions, and a concussion from when my head, minus a helmet—wear a helmet, kids—hit the windshield. (Then of course there was the major soreness in the weeks to come.) I lay unconscious for a few minutes, having no idea what was going on. But I remember very vividly what it was like as I started to come through:
My vision has not yet returned, but I have already started to feel the pain. My knee is severely bruised, so I do what any 15 year old would do while in pain: try to grab it and curl up into the ever-comforting fetal position. As I attempt to raise my head off the ground, an immense force pushes back at me, mostly from my shoulders. “That’s odd,” I think as I try again to sit up. Then I’m sure; something is holding me down here, and I can’t get up. I begin to panic. I can’t see, and I have no idea what is going on. I can’t figure out why anyone would be pinning me down. Can’t they tell that my knee is hurt? Do they even care that I’m injured? The only thing in the world that I want to do is get up, to get out of such a vulnerable position. But no matter how hard I try, I’m stuck on my back, unable to escape this terror that is starting to wrap its claws around me.
This scene from earlier in my life describes almost exactly how I feel as my depression grows stronger. Only I’m no longer being held to the ground by paramedics who are fearful of internal injuries. Now I’m being pinned down by something different, something invisible.
I sit in my room, attempting to get some homework done, but my mind is on other things. It’s not that I want to think about how I am depressed; it just consumes me. While I try to search for some remedy for my thoughts, I start to recognize that I am stuck in this emotional state. I feel like I’m lost in a labyrinth. Every turn brings me back to the same spot; I can’t make any progress towards the exit. This realization brings with it a feeling of anxiety. It seems like the walls of the labyrinth, though they’ve been there for thousands of years, have suddenly decided that they’re too tired to stand, and they have crumbled on top of me. The debris leaves me blind and stuck on my back.
I have moved to my bed, which rests inside a walk-in closet, and I can’t shake the image of the labyrinth walls hungry for my destruction, wanting to crush me. I notice the close proximity of the walls and feel them leaning towards me, trying to glide even closer. As I feel the room getting smaller around me, I abruptly decide that this is the exact last spot on the face of the planet that I want to be right now. The Caribbean, Italy, France, Australia, Antarctica, the moon. It doesn’t matter where it is, how remote a location; all I want to do is not be in my room. It’s not quite a panicked cry to get out. Rather, it feels as though 21 years of boredom have crash-landed on me, and every bone, every muscle in my body desires to go out and cure it.
I think about actually leaving. I don’t even necessarily want to go anywhere; actually, the thought of getting into the car is unappealing to me. I just absolutely do not want to be in the house right now; all of a sudden I really, really hate being here. I should leave. But where could I go? None of those remote locations promises to offer me release. So while at the moment I am stuck in this infinitely small cage of a bedroom, I also feel deserted in some wide-open plain. Maybe in Texas. Maybe Kansas. It doesn’t matter. All I know is that I can see the horizon all around me and nothing else. I desperately want to find somewhere—anywhere—to go. But there is nothing, and I realize that no matter where I go, this feeling will follow; I can’t get away. I am mentally trapped, caught in this state of mind, confined with no hope for escape.
