Just got out of a 3 week depressive funk
Oh hello, there you are again.
Not sure if it was the United States election, the time change, the shitty weather, or all three - but I’ve been depressed. The house is a mess. There’s a pile of administrative work - invoicing, notes, appointments, mail, and finances that have gone neglected. Parenting my 10 month old stopped feeling joyous, and more like a series of dutiful actions I complete devoid of pleasure. This last part was particularly disturbing to me.
Whenever I get depressed, I drastically lower my expectations to myself. Life becomes reduced to the bare minimum I need to continue to survive and fulfill the most important, non-negotiable responsibilities.
So I thought I’d send a little note along to those who have been feeling similarly/struggle in the same ways. Here are some things I return to, year after year, when depression comes knocking. I usually am fairly depressed about 4 months out of the year. That’s right, a full 1/3 of my life.
After all, this newsletter is called “When You Hate Yourself & Want to Die” - y’all are here for a reason, aren’t you? And it’s not to hear me talk about how great my life is (*insert cry laughing emoji*).
Seriously. Lower your expectations.
Ok, now lower them even more.
For me, it looks like this: 1) Showing up to work the best I can for my clients and mustering all my energy to be fully present to their stories, joys, and pain. 2) Taking care of my baby and being calm + responsive, even if I don’t feel happy inside and I feel a bit disconnected. 3) Moving my body in some way, shape, or form. 4) Keeping my body/mouth relatively clean (showering, brushing teeth, etc.)
The rest of the time, (as much as I possibly can with a baby), I am in bed. I zone out on mindless, soothing TV + videos. I eat candy. I eat baby food pouches. I have no ambition. I have no dreams. I have no creativity. There are no new friends to make. I mute all people who trigger envy or jealousy on social media. I pause all projects and push away desires for self-improvement. Any time that I don’t HAVE to be doing something, I disappear into a fluffy haze of meaninglessness.
AND I TELL MYSELF IT’S ALL OK.
Because depression can often be a sign that our life is out of alignment. We’ve been pushing too hard, or maybe we’ve been isolating too much. We’ve been working at something that doesn’t actually matter. We haven’t been resting enough. And we need to slow down to really listen to what our depression is trying to tell us.
Know your depressive patterns. Because even "after all this time”, even though "I’ve done so much to change”, even though “I’m a fucking therapist” - depression always finds me again.
And the less I’ve resisted it, the less I’ve judged myself for it, the less I’ve attached to some narrative in my mind that this “shouldn’t” be happening to me, the easier it is to ride out this wave. The more I detach from the narrative that “other people are so much happier/better/hotter than me”, the more pleasant my experience of depression becomes. Yes, strangely pleasant. I don’t fall as deep into the “hole”.
I’m lucky to know my depression at this point in time. Pregnancy really fucked me up because my depression became unpredictable, so I felt a terrifying loss of control. It was the first time in a LONG time that depression swallowed me whole. In retrospect, I believe I was channeling ancestral grief during my pregnancy + working through the grief of my own inner child. But I wasn’t prepared at the time, had ZERO familiarity with pregnancy depression/grief, and was unexpectedly knocked off my feet.
Intuition = pattern recognition. Our brains are picking up on thousands upon thousands of subtle and overt patterns and constantly making sense of them in our subconscious. When people say to “trust your intuition”, on some level, you are trusting the parts of you that have observed patterns countless times, and learned how to predict the future/human behavior through the lens of those patterns. When I got pregnant, I lost touch with my intuition. It was like buying a house for the first time. I didn’t have any lived experience in this area, and very little guidance. I didn’t know how to sense patterns, or get in touch with the part of my gut that “just knows” because I didn’t know. And I’ve learned that being in that space - the space of total not knowing - is particularly triggering for me. It feels out of control. And this is common with people who have CPTSD.
I’m happy to report that my depression has returned to pre-pregnancy levels! Meaning when it comes around, it usually lasts for 4-8 weeks, I know what I need to do to survive it, and it’s, best of all, PREDICTABLE IN ITS PATTERNS.
I fucking promise you - it won’t always be this way. It will not always be this way. As long as you keep your heart open, as long as you’re willing (eventually) to keep trying - things will change. They just will. Someway, somehow, you will stumble into the right people, places, things, and treatments. And what you’re feeling now will feel like a strange, distant memory.
My intensely suicidal depression lasted for seventeen years. So many factors contributed to it: stuffing myself into organized religion, a lack of understanding or acceptance of my neurodivergence, deep loneliness, self-hatred that’s hard to wrap words around. Let me put it this way - I felt so much pain that fantasies about blowing my brains out and seeing them splatter on the wall gave me a sense of relief + pleasure. I know I’m not alone in feeling this way.
But last night, we hosted a Thanksgiving dinner at our house. (Thanksgiving is deeply problematic. That’s another post. America is fucked).
BACK TO THE POINT - last night, we hosted a holiday dinner at our house for 13 people. Somehow, we all fit around our dining room table. My friend’s wild, boundary-ignoring 10 and 12 year old nieces were in town. They were obsessed with my baby, Rowan. I dressed Rowan in a ruffled long sleeve t-shirt, baby jeggings, and a sweater vest that my mother-in-law crocheted. The nieces were fighting over Rowan, wanting to play with her like a doll. It made her cry, so I picked her up. It was my first time comforting her because she was socially overwhelmed. I distinctly felt like a mother.
I placed her in her walker. She started rolling around the house on wheels, with her little helmet on, smiling and shrieking while the girls tried to push her. Our kitchen island was stuffed with pies, cornbread, mac n cheese, prime rib, green bean casserole, cheesy potatoes, brussel sprouts, mulled wine, herbed butter & rolls. We played a little bit of the game, “We’re Not Really Strangers”. My friend’s boyfriend asked, “Why do your games always feel like you’re making us do therapy?” I said, “Being a therapist is not my job. I AM therapist"!”
My husband, Rick, told the entire table about a fight we recently had (yes, we had another fight. lol. The fights are progressing though - they don’t feel endlessly circular. And in that way, the work of fighting feels satisfying).
It was fascinating, actually, watching him tell the story of our fight to the entire table, without any shame or embarrassment. At the end of the story, he said, “And we’ve both realized we need to unsharpen our tongues with each other.” And it’s true. My meanness can be attributed to a few things: 1) neurodivergence that’s misconstrued as rudeness & not realizing there are things I *shouldn’t* say because they’re considered *mean*, 2) survival skills as a youngest child in a highly critical Chinese family, 3) tbh, it makes me feel powerful. And I spent so much time feeling completely powerless.
But seeing Rick share our private life so openly and unashamedly made me see, truly, how far we have come.
And feeling the warmth and laughter - the fullness in our dining room, the spread on the island, the classic movies playing on the TV, the kids coloring at the coffee table - made me realize how far I’d come. I am raising and creating my own fucking family.
My mental health is far from perfect. I will never be like a neurotypical person who was raised in a healthy family. But the chronic emptiness, meaninglessness, and self-loathing feel like a distant memory. I am not her anymore. And you will not stay the same. I promise you, you will not stay the same.
Do something active or creative.
I am lucky in the sense that I have always had an intense desire to create. And as an ADHDer, I’m more likely to create if I’m in community.
So when I’m depressed, it usually means I need to sign up for some sort of creative class or event. Whether it’s a conference, an online workshop, music or an acting class, I do something new. I put myself into a creative space around other people who are trying to create.
This is cheaper than out of pocket therapy, and oftentimes more effective in altering my mood.
There are dozens of people whose names and faces I don’t remember anymore, but have been integral in helping me get out of a funk by creating alongside me.
If creativity is not your thing, move your body. Again, if you lack the motivation - get a friend to move with you, sign up for a class, explore a type of movement that actually interests you. I cannot do exercise that bores me. It just doesn’t happen. And DON’T IGNORE THIS!!!!!!!!!!!!!! THIS IS RECOMMENDED ALL THE STUPID TIME FOR A REASON. WE WERE MADE FOR MOVEMENT, BEING IN OUR BODIES, AND WITHOUT MOVEMENT WE SHRIVEL AND DIE and turn into sad, sad raisins!!!!
Movement won’t cure your depression or make it go away. But IT CLEARS SPACE. IT SETS YOU UP FOR A SHIFT IN YOUR MOOD.
Do movement that makes you sweat.. Power yoga. Dance classes. HIIT. Whatever. I don’t really care what it is. The sweating is the thing, though. The elevated heart rate releases endorphins, dopamine, and serotonin and creates a clearing in our bodies that nothing else will do. Use your depression to fuel your movements. Use your anger, despair, hopelessness to animate your limbs. Imagine that every jump, every bead of sweat, every step, kick, or twist is squeezing the toxicity of your trauma + shame out of your cells. You aren’t moving just to “burn calories” or “be healthy” or “get your heart rate up”. You’re sweating to clear space in your body - to get the old shit out, and make space for new energy.
Because love is waiting for you, through it all. It’s always been here, and it will always find you again.
Maybe consider getting on meds for the first time, or get back on them again.
Nothing more to add here.
"Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it".
-Rumi
Sending you a rose quartz, glowing bubble of protection + love,
Juniper