One of the many things about life I have learned from comic books is how often someone’s greatest strength and worst weakness are paradoxically one and the same. When I realized that mine is sensitivity, it was something of a disappointment. Basically, if my life were a comic, I’d be Captain Pussy.
On one hand, being sensitive is definitely a superpower. I think it’s my greatest strength as a writer. Self-consciousness, emotional honesty, depth of feeling: these are some of the things that make me good at what I do.
On the other hand, that heightened sensitivity can be a crippling disability (cf. Elijah Price,
Powder, and Poe). It means I have a really thin skin—so thin that sometimes I worry it’s permeable. Ugly things don’t bounce off as easily as they should; they spit in my eye and clutch at my heart. It can be a real bummer.
One of the things that makes it difficult to talk about depression is that there are so many different kinds. There should really be hundreds of words for it, like the myth about Eskimos and snow. Depression is like love or the color red or tiramisu—concepts that are universal enough that we all know it when we see it, yet we’ve each encountered countless variations, some less pleasant than others.
Exhibit A: Cheesecake Factory tiramisuSome depressions are chemical and some are situational and some seem valid and some seem dumb. Some are mild and some are bad and some are worse. I’ve had numbing self-destructive ones and slow-burn stress-induced ones and short acute hurty ones. A few years ago
I had one so bad it was like a physical condition, where the only thing that made me feel better was to sit in the sun like an invalid. That one was the real deal, the kind where something so simple and necessary as getting out of bed or replying to emails requires the kind of Herculean effort of a stroke victim relearning how to walk and talk. You realize there is no part of daily life that’s so automatic or banal that you can take it for granted.
I think the one constant with depression—apart from feeling like shit, obviously—is that it’s intensely personal in a weird way that’s sort of obsessive and masturbatory and isolating. Allie Brosh over at
Hyperbole and a Half recently posted
an incredible meditation on that self-destructive cycle where you feel awful and then you feel awful about feeling awful. This process is particularly grueling when you decide that your own sadness seems invalid and dumb. Unfortunately, that is my specialty.
All images in this post belong to Allie Brosh at Hyperbole and a Half.I think it stems from a disconnect between the head and the heart, a kind of soul dysmorphia wherein how you think doesn’t match up with how you feel. Just as an anorexic might look in the mirror and see a fat person, sometimes I feel like a fucking loser. It's a distortion. And while you might think the knowledge that I'm not actually a loser would make me feel better, instead it somehow becomes just another weapon to turn against myself. My brain becomes a big bully.
I mean, I realize this is sounding sort of melodramatic, which is ironic given how boring it is to be sad for no real reason. Like, it’s hardly a horror movie. It’s much more like watching golf.
Allie describes the turning point in her depression as a sort of anti-epiphany she had upon encountering a judgmental lady at the video store.
It reminded me a lot of
my own breakthrough with shame loss, when all the things that used to make me feel ashamed lost their hold over me. It's empowering.
I find it incredibly encouraging that Allie’s breakthrough stemmed from her burning need to re-watch
Jumanji. Most of the important realizations I’ve had in my life have come down to something similar.
Every depression is different, and I’m not yet sure what form this one will assume. So far, it’s been like one of those nightmare zits that you are somehow aware of well before it ever reaches the skin’s surface. I felt it coming. Now that it has finally shown itself, will it just go away or will it get infected? Only time will tell. The only comforting thing about having had ’em before is the certain knowledge that they always go away.
Oh, Kevin. If only we could cover it with a bandaid.Meanwhile, there is only patience. It’s like settling in for a long arduous flight or a blizzard. I’ve pulled my most complicated cookbooks with an eye toward making some really elaborate meals as a distraction. When those dishes fail, as they inevitably will, I want to teach myself to make proper omelets. Then I’ll throw them away and have peanut butter crackers with cheap wine instead. Insomnia? Why, that’s a rare opportunity to catch up on my stories! And if it gets to the point where the only thing that makes me feel better is sitting under the sun, I guess I'll have to break down and get one of those gay sunlight happiness lamps. I'll pretend like I’m an invalid by the sea, just taking the waters while I flip through mindless lady magazines.
And one day soon, who knows? Maybe I’ll touch a motherfucking spider.
