My journey through depression

It's 7:00am and I am at home. At the place I am calling home right now. It's temporary. Isn't everything temporary? That's the good thing about people who live with depression, we know it's all temporary. Right now I'm sitting on the couch in the living room. The sun is shining through the blinds reminding me that I am still here. I can see the dining table and the open kitchen. I see the plants and the coffee table and television and rug. There is a sliding glass door to the backyard. To my left there is the living room (the other living room, the one no one goes in) and front door. There is a hallway leading to the restrooms and laundry room and bedrooms. Oh yeah, there is a refrigerator and a pantry in the kitchen filled with good food. I'm in my cousin's house. I have family. I have food and work and friends and talent and some money on my EBT card. The guy at the gas station even said I was beautiful. Heeeyyyy! All this to say that yes, I am blessed. What does that even mean though? Blessed. Is it like lucky? Is it like favored? Because I don't think I'm favored or lucky. I'm certainly not "too blessed to be stressed." I'm like other human beings on the planet. I'm like the animals too. I'm like the butterfly and the lizard and the trees. I'm here, in this incarnation learning and giving what there is to learn and give. And with everything I have I still live with it. The monster in my head. That thing called depression.

Some people call it a flood. I guess it is kind of like drowning. Only kind of. Because the sinking is slower. The going under is almost invisible to others. Some see, but they don't know what they're looking at. They don't know if it's real so sometimes they convince themselves it's not really happening. Or if it is happening, it's not that bad or it will go away or you or I will go away. Whatever. But it will be gone and they can go about their lives and marriages and promotions and cable bills like a great storm, a great drowning, like an incredible sinking didn't happen and take us with it. I don't call it a flood because people live like if it's not Katrina, if it's not New Orleans, if it's not 2005, then it's not that bad. Your thing, my thing is not that bad because it's invisible. Like, so stop bothering the rest of the world with it. I hate that. I do. I hate it when people list how hard they have it dealing with some medical condition and then tell you see, see THIS is bad. THIS is hard. THIS is a bad day. If you can't sit yours next to THIS and compare it then yours is not bad. Like these pills won't go down. Like jumping off a bridge won't kill me. Like I haven't picked one out. Like I don't live with voices telling me how worthless I am double dog daring me to just do it. Like I don't ignore them and put on a happy face to make you smile. Like my blues ain't blue. I don't say your thing ain't a real thing with edges and teeth and a throat. That it ain't that bad. Just because you can't see mine don't tell me my thing ain't a thing with toenails that poke. A thing with sticks and stones. I'm getting mad all over. Anyway, I don't call it a flood ok. I call it a cloud. More like, clouds. They come out of nowhere. They are a summer rain in Georgia. They come stealth as a hungry cat. They are as unapologetic as a good cussin' out. One minute I'm living my life, minding my own black business and the next I can't find the sun. Or feel my feet. Like I'm walking through mud. I'm never surprised though. I know it's coming. It's like having a menstrual cycle, when I had a menstrual cycle. There were those awful days when I would vomit everywhere and the cramps I thought (and wished) would just kill me. The heavy bleeding for about a week. Then just like that, I could wear white pants again. But I knew not to get too comfortable because Mary was coming back. Same here, except not every twenty-eight days. Except no blood or vomit. Except nothing a doctor could put her finger on. Except not something that would go away in my forties, shout out to early menopause.

There are triggers. There are things I know will make the clouds come quicker. I avoid the ones I can but some are impossible to avoid so I deal the best I can. Big triggers for me are jobs where I have to clock in and I have a boss and coworkers standing over me monitoring my every move. I have never been able to be successful in those types of environments. I need breaks that last longer than fifteen minutes. I need more than one lunch. I need to not have to operate a copy machine. I need to wear jumpers and sandals. I have insomnia so I need to not have to be there at eight. I need privacy while I'm dealing with these fucking clouds and all that they bring. The tears I can't control or explain. The need to sit for a minute, or however long it takes. The need for space to just...be, without eyes on me, without customers complaining. Thankfully I have some talent as a writer and painter and I have enough love and patience to be a caregiver. Even living as an artist I have my days when dealing in this world is a hard thing for me. The world I live in has an effect on me and this place is fucked up. Even as a caregiver I have to do it on my terms. I have my own clients who I get through word of mouth. I can't work with agencies for so many reasons. Note to self, write that piece on home health agencies. So work is a trigger so I'm careful about the work I take.

Then there are relationships. There are many kinds of relationships and the ones that matter take work. For me the trick has been finding that person I'm willing to do the work with and that person willing to do the work with me. The work work though. Not trying to fix me and getting mad when the fixes don't work. Not expecting me to be the kind of normal that exists in their heads. About twenty years ago I dated this guy and during our break up conversation we were sitting at our (at his, everything was his and he let me know it) kitchen table and I was telling him that the relationship was unhealthy for me. That, by the way, was the nicest way I have ever broken up with a man. Anyway, he told me that it wasn't that the relationship was unhealthy for me but I was leaving because I was a "runner." Because like, clearly I need a motherfucker mansplaining why I was leaving his toxic ass. After that conversation I did leave. I had given it a go for over a year and I couldn't do it (or him) anymore. To some level he was right though. I do run when it gets unhealthy for me. And I'm proud of that. The other option is to what? Die there pretending to be happy? Fuck that. Deuces. With romantic relationships I just leave. With family I mostly shut down. It takes me a really long time though with family because to me, family is worth it the time. I spend years trying to communicate and change and accept and be nice and the whole fucking nine. At some point though it starts to feel like I'm auditioning for love and acceptance I'm never going to get. Some people will have perceptions about me I can't do anything about. So I stop. I continue to love. But I stop the dance. All that dancing and movement is fodder for the voices in my head that have their own fingers to point at me about how ain't shit I am. You think I need more? You think I should stick around? Running has saved my life as good as God.

Triggers are all around. Relationships, work, family, food. Yes food too because eating healthy food is important for good mental health. Also, McDonald's has a dollar menu and jammin' sweet tea and Whole Foods does not. So there's that. Exercise is important too. But there is also a lot of not exercising because believe me, taking a shower feels impossible when I'm depressed so the energy to walk or jog is like... The biggest trigger, the one I can't avoid, is being while Black. Fucking being Black while anything. Being a mother, American, artist, shopper at Ralph's Market, sitter on a park bench, driver, news watcher, airline passenger, patient in a hospital, name it. All the looks. The eyes watching to see WHEN you fuck up, because buddy, you're GONNA fuck up. Even if they have to make that shit up. Beckys are all around. Beckys send me spiraling. And I'm the one they love to hate. All this bass. This weight. This height. This ring in my nose. This hair all crunchy and graying. This handsome face of mine. All this attitude that say I been done had enough. Please. Think I ain't wo out just living a regular ass day? Add the clouds to that I can barely even breathe.

First time I remember the clouds coming I was in early middle school. We called it junior high back then. I was home and I went in my sister's room and I asked her if she ever got sad for no reason. That was me, trying to reach out. Trying to find words for the clouds. I was a child trying to explain something I still don't have words for. All these years later I still ain't got more than just...clouds. I don't remember my sister's response. She's four years younger than I so I don't think she understood. I don't know if she understands now. It is hard to to tell my family that months go by with me thinking about killing myself every day. That would be hard for me to hear. I don't have the experience with my family that they know how to deal with that side of me. It's just easier for me and them if I come around when I have a happy face to put on. The truth is that it's not easier for me. When I'm down they are the people I want to be around. I want to be able to explain what I'm feeling. I can't though. Not in words that make sense. Not in ways I feel they will understand. I know they love me and they want to see me happy and maybe it's frustrating that there is no easy fix. If there is a fix at all. My official diagnosis is bipolar 1 so in addition to the crippling depression I also have manic episodes. If you thought I was bad at explaining depression wait until you hear me Forest Gump my way through the mania. I have had manic episodes with my family but they didn't know what was going on. I didn't either through some of them. I am most afraid of those episodes. I'll take the depression any day over that. During manic spells I'm loud and I go too far. Too far with everything, with the joke (because sometimes I'm funny as hell during an episode), with the tears, with my body movements, with my words (I say things I can't take back). During these spells I try to be alone. I'm not physically violent but I do cause harm. So when I can, I isolate myself. And then I crash. And then I'm in an even deeper depression. A place darker than the clouds. I don't trust myself around my meds when I'm like that. I don't trust myself to not take all of the pills. I will admit here, because many have stopped reading by now, that I have taken too many pills before. Too many like I don't know how many. Obviously I woke up but like a whole day later. I missed a whole day. This happened when I was living out in Pomona. I stopped taking my meds shortly after that. Haven't been back on them since. Which brings me here, sitting on my cousin's couch fighting through another depression cycle. I don't look like it. I rarely look like it. Shit, I'm Ja Muthafuckin' ha! I stay fly.

I don't know what triggered this bout of depression. I'm going on a couple of months without my meds. I have never successfully gone that long without meds since I've been on them. You're gonna laugh but, I dunno, I thought I had wished or prayed hard enough that the clouds were gone forever. When they didn't come back after a week and then a month and then a couple more weeks I was like, bet! I was walking around here like I cured cancer. Then that feeling came. That sinking feeling that has me relate to other depressed people who call their depression a flood. Then it kept getting darker and I knew. I'm not at a place right now where voices nag me. I'm not feeling suicidal. And let me say here, that me feeling suicidal has never been about me wanting to die. I don't want to die. I just didn't and don't want to live in that kind of pain. I don't want to live with my brain pushing me to harm myself. I don't want to live my life crying uncontrollably. I don't want to feel like America's next Ninga because I took a shower or brushed my teeth. I've never dreamt or expected life to be easy but not like that either. So hear me, I don't want to die. I just want to live differently.

You know, when I think about it, maybe I have been jumping over landmines I just didn't want to see or accept that they were big enough to be dangerous. Tuesday after next I turn fifty years old. I didn't think I would see this birthday. Officially I haven't seen it yet but I didn't think I would get this close. When my son and I were out in Pomona it was a dangerous time for me emotionally. The voices, the thoughts, the clouds, everything. It was hard. I even felt like my own doctor had given up on me. The psychiatrist I was seeing had given me all the pills he could and they just weren't working. Finally he told me that I should have electric shock therapy. Like I'm really going to do that. I stopped going. The medical facility never called back. Maybe they were glad to be rid of me. When I decided to stop taking my meds a part of me thought that I would just...be gone. Then something happened. Somehow I started getting better. Feeling lighter. The house we were renting was sold and we had to move but that wasn't even a blow to me because for the first time in a long time I felt alive and normal and free. We were living in motels paying rent by the week. I was hustling art and poetry and taking care of old people. I don't know how we were making it but we were. We always had money. We always had food. We were always in a safe and clean spot. I had been having trouble paying rent by the month and somehow I was paying by the week. A lot was going on. But the clouds were gone and I wasn't on meds. I fought through clouds and dark thoughts about not making it to my birthday and I'm almost there. Maybe that was a trigger. I was driving a while back and I made a call on my cell and got pulled over. I couldn't afford the ticket and so my license got suspended. That's a current trigger especially now. I'm living in Palmdale and working in Los Angeles. The commute is about an hour and twenty minutes away one way. Then driving around in the city is stressful and cops are everywhere. That's stressful. When Uraeus was younger he lived some time with his dad and I had to pay child support. I was barely making it and fell way behind. I still owe. Yeah, it's my duty and I'm gonna take care of it one day but these days I'm choosing between food and gas and rent and back child support. What you think I'm paying? So when the cops are behind me I don't know if a stop is going to land me with a bigger fine, the car taken or jail. So yep, I'm a little stressed. Thankfully now we are staying with my cousin but I still gotta get a place. It's easier for me to live in L.A. because most of my life and work are there but getting into a place without paperwork that says I make three times the rent is challenging. To say the least. Triggers abound.

I'm gonna make it, y'all. Watch me make it. Making it for me looks like getting into another mental health facility. Back in therapy. If I can avoid staying off meds I will. Maybe there is some natural path for me. If not, I ain't scared of going back on them. Mostly I want to help my son get situated. He had to stop working when we left Pomona and he's looking for a job now. He's super smart and mad funny and the best young man I know. Helping him get straight is a huge goal. That and staying sane. So, my day is passing me by and I'm still on this couch writing through these clouds. They will clear. I know they will. Pray with me. I'm going to have a good day. I am determined to. I hope you have one too.