Remain in Light

One of our best friends is a woman who has a lot going for her. She is lovely and scary-smart. She retains the lithe figure of the dancer she once was. She has two beautiful daughters and two handsome sons. She has a loving, hard-working husband who dotes on her. She lives in a lovely home. She is a very serious person. She is serious about her relationships, about her religion and about social justice. And yet, she doesn't take herself all that seriously. Indeed, we have seen her resplendent in torn jeans and pink Chuck Taylors. And we were tremendously impressed when we saw her turn cartwheels across the fairway of a local golf course one fine autumn day. After all, and we are trying to put this delicately, we would have thought that her cartwheel days were well behind her. From this side of the glass, anyone looking in at her could hardly be faulted for thinking that she leads a charmed life.

She does not. She suffers from severe depression. And has for most of her life.

Her latest e-mail is typical of her when she is having one of her bad days: " I'm severely depressed. I'm not sure how to handle what is happening. My mind feels like mush. This isn't good for the depression. The winter is long. I haven't seen the sun in weeks. The new medication has made most anxious and suicidal and so I'm thinking it was not the best idea"

And so on.

All of us have experienced sadness and disappointment. All of us have been blue. It is part and parcel of our humanity. However, not everyone of us has struggled with the 200 lb. Gorilla that is major depression. And not many of us that have suffered from major depression have experienced it on a chronic basis, as one would experience MS or asthma.

It is so easy to try to say encouraging things, to urge the sufferer to "snap out of it" or to suggest activities to "take your mind off of your troubles." And yet, we forget, or worse we do not know, that depressed people are by definition extremely inward. As our friend Dr. G, a local shrink described it to me, " It's like you are at the bottom of a silty pond. Chronic depression is a continual attempt to swim upward through the murk to get to the light up above."

Which must be every bit as exhausting as trying to cope with "real" illnesses.

We have seen it all with our friend. The medication changes, the anger at psychiatrists, the fights with the insurance companies, the constant research, the fervent prayers for healing. We also remember the completely brilliant decision on her part to quit the meds and to try to get well through diet, meditation and exercise which ended up in the predictable disaster.

None of this is very romantic. None of this is the special province of the sensitive or the artistic. She hates her illness. She despises feeling like a burden. She wants nothing more than to be a happy mom with the dancer's wheels in the pink hightops.

But we have seen something else: courage. We tend to sling words like "bravery" and "courage" around for acts which hardly seem worthy of them. But it takes a brave woman to get up out of the bed to face another day of incandescent sorrow. It takes courage to tamp down the velvet voice in her ear that urges her to give in to the occasional impulse to yield to the unthinkable and to pack it all in. To join Sylvia Plath, Anne Sexton, the kid we went to high school with who threw himself of a water tower on an Army base after he got the "Dear John" letter, the former model we knew who put a 9mm to her face and the guy we used to play tennis with at the Club. To join the ranks of the souls with broken hearts that got away when the rest of us weren't looking. It takes more nerve than I possess to stare that evil bastard down on a regular basis.

Thank God my friend mostly speaks of suicidal ideation with a shrug of her shoulders, the way allergy sufferers talk about itchy eyes. It is mostly a side effect. Something to deal with. And yet, we write and we call just to take her temperature from time to time. To make sure that she is still swimming toward the light. Even on those days when she has her doubts that there is a light once she breaks the surface.

This recent episode came hard on the heels of her losing out on a job opportunity that she was hopeful of securing. She loves chocolate, and so it being Valentine's Day, we sent her a box. She called us sounding for all the world like an eight year old on Christmas Day. She said she took the candy to work and that she has a piece whenever the bad feelings descend. She also said that her teenaged daughter had appropriated the ribbon on the box for a belt to wear with her jeans.

Damn. That's one skinny little girl.

We made a deal with her. As long as she keeps hanging in there, we will keep the chocolate coming. After all, chocolate we can afford. We could not stand it if we lost her.