I THOUGHT I knew what thriving was when I really was just at another, perhaps a bit “higher,” level of surviving. (I wrote about this a little bit in a post about managing depression, right here.)
At that time, now that I can look back with a clearer mind, I was mistaking not being suicidal with thriving. I thought because I wasn’t 24/7 thinking about death or passive relief that I was doing as good as I could. I thought the health I had gotten to was the best I could expect after so long of such darkness.
Here’s an important point that I want all people suffering to read a few times:
Because I was still actively depressed, I also thought it was the best I deserved.
I didn’t think I was worthy of true, deep, abiding, peaceful happiness. I thought I was broken, that something was wrong with me, that I had made such bad choices in life that I could only expect so much goodness to come my way. I was constantly expecting something bad to happen to prove that I deserved to be punished. I saw my depression as part of that punishment and so thought a mild form, at the very least, was always going to be with me.
This is a core lie of depression and I want you to know that you can stop believing it. I want you to know that you can stop hearing it.
That’s the part that I still can’t get over: I no longer hear this shit in my head. It’s just gone. POOF.
I keep saying to my doctor, to loved ones… to anyone … HOW was this CHEMICALS? However it was, it was. And that’s that.
But I digress…
Here’s a paradox for you…
Now that I have my brain chemistry issue on the mend, I’m downright confused what to do with it…. how the heck to live with this level of health that I’ve not known since I was very small?!
The vast majority of my life has been about surviving, so it’s been about hyper vigilance, awareness of symptoms, care-taking, watching everything I do, eat, watch, see, read… This kept me very busy with lists and tasks and efforts and plans and research and and and…
My life has revolved around this illness. How could it not? This illness threatened my life. I’m lucky to be here.
Without this project, what now?
Furthermore, a lot of the things that I love in this world — dance, chanting, yoga, writing, art of all kinds — those things were drafted into the service of this project. They became “medicine” to the nth degree. They were no longer for creativity or expression but simply for my survival.
What were those things now? WHY were those things now?
I sat in front of my yoga class recently talking a bit about this. We do that at the beginning of class; we have a true sangha — awareness circle — and I am not above it or outside of it but in it and so I talk about my own challenges as much as anyone else.
I asked them about this what now.
A few of them answered all at once and said just about the same thing:
“You do things for FUN, for joy, for fulfillment, for peace…”
WHAT?!? For FUN? For JOY? For…fulfillment and peace…?
I squinted and then I laughed at myself for this was truly confusing to me. I could cry and be sad about this but my new brain chemistry is like, “what’s the point of that!?”
So I giggle instead and answer, “How delightful! A new sort of project!”
That’s where I’m at: watching for opportunities to redefine experiences, reframing, and simply allowing things to be what they are. I’m doing the reps, if you will… strengthening muscles that had been atrophied.