Ode to the Darkest Nights

This post deals with topics related to depression and touches on suicide. If these topics are triggering for you right now, please honour that. Perhaps you might like to skip to the last paragraph.

My hope in writing about depression is to honour all those who feel, perhaps due to shame, fear, or self-judgement, that their inner landscape is not worthy of being known. In the Christmas season we often feel that we are “supposed” to experience ubiquitous merriment. I find that feelings of isolation and despair become all the more heightened when an invisible illness prevents me from experiencing life the way our culture says I ‘should’. I find consolation in knowing that I am not alone - that I belong to a community of thousands if not millions who have gone or are going through similar trials. And so I share this reflection with the simple prayer and intention that it might nourish hope and bless someone, somewhere.

I speak from my own journey knowing that no two people experience depression, anxiety, or any other manifestation of mental illness the same way; and that each person has unique barriers based on their social identity, personality, available resources, support, etc. But regardless, no matter who you are, to be tormented by your mind is a wretched and unbearable reality. 

Christmas Day 2017, I hardly said a word. I was exhausted from the constant stream of dark, intrusive thoughts that had been bombarding my mind for months. Crippling anxiety had finally given way to the black hole of depression and it felt like a full-time dementor was living by my side relentlessly chanting its favorite lines of psychological torture.

Christmas Day, 2017 I couldn’t hold it together. Whatever energy I had summoned upon to appear okay, smile, engage in conversation, and practice mindfulness had been wholly depleted. I was scared for my life because there was no life to be found. 

Living in this state with no end in sight is pure and utter hell. Quite frankly it amazes me that anyone survives. But we do. And for those who don’t...I get it. I don’t think anyone is weaker or less resilient because they tap out. For me, the thought of dying was sweet; perhaps because I don’t believe death is the end. Death meant the end of torture and darkness. It meant healing and freedom and home. But, I also believed (and still do) that we move through cycles of death and resurrection during our finite, material lives – nothing lasts forever. And it was this fragile, languishing belief that kept me going….’there will be a better tomorrow’. But god almighty, it sure takes more than 3 days in a tomb to rise again. 

There was no going back to work after Christmas. I returned to my parent’s house because I needed a caregiver and could not be alone. At this point in my journey I felt I had tried everything. I’d seen a psychiatrist, a naturopath and tried various anti-depressants and supplements. I practiced mindfulness and meditation and met monthly with a spiritual director. I went off caffeine and alcohol and sugar. I exercised and ate healthy when I was well enough to do so. I’d done EMDR therapy, Bodytalk, and was continuing to see a therapist. I had taken responsibility for my health and there I was, battling the worst episode of depression I had yet to endure. As a last ditch effort and in a spirit of desperation, I decided to try a new anti-depressant. As I got myself into bed and brought that first dose of venalafaxine to my lips, I whispered under my breath ‘please God, please let this work, this is my only hope.”

Going on this new medication was brutal. Looking back I’m not sure how I persevered the transition with its nightmares and panic attacks. However, within a month something shifted. I noticed that daily life tasks weren’t as laborious and eating was no longer a chore. One night my friends got me out cross-country skiing and as we sat in a warming hut, drinking hot cocoa, I laughed the kind of laugh that evokes a sense of aliveness. In that moment I felt I was human again.

Two years have past and I continue to rely on certain things to cope and manage symptoms of depression and anxiety. I probably always will. Medication, therapy, meditation, dancing, my supportive mother and partner, board games. They are my lifesavers.

There is a passage by Rilke that I would read multiple times a day the Winter of 2017. For reasons I cannot explain these words became an anchor. I share them with you here as an offering. If they don’t enliven hope please disregard them. 

Part of my pathway through depression includes noticing what sparks life, hope, and feelings of comfort, and allowing myself to move towards those things without judgment.  I know that what one person finds hopeful may not be true for another, and so, I encourage us all to step towards that which feeds hope for us - however small and fleeting. And to honour whatever makes that movement a tad easier. xoxo.

Here are Rilke’s words

"Why do you want to persecute yourself with the question of where all this is coming from and where it is going? Since you know, after all, that you are in the midst of transitions and you wished for nothing so much as to change. If there is anything unhealthy in your reactions, just bear in mind that sickness is the means by which an organism frees itself from what is alien; so one must simply help it to be sick, to have its whole sickness and to break out with it, since that is the way it gets better.

So you mustn't be frightened if a sadness rises in front of you, larger than any you have ever seen; if an anxiety, like light and cloud-shadows, moves over your hands and over everything you do. You must realize that something is happening to you, that life has not forgotten you, that it holds you in its hand and will not let you fall. Why do you want to shut out of your life any uneasiness, any misery, any depression, since after all you don't know what work these conditions are doing inside you."