For my money, William Styron wrote the very best book on depression (Darkness Visible), for people who need to know how it feels. It’s kind of unfortunate that the same word is used to describe a potentially fatal illness and how you feel when the cantaloupes are all underripe at the store, and gosh you had your mouth set for one. “I’m so depressed, I really wanted cantaloupe!” That blurring, combined with our good old-fashioned American spirit of ‘buck up!’ adds a heavy burden to what’s already the heaviest burden.

I suffer mightily from depression. It’s chronic, but luckily it’s also episodic. Although I suspect I’ve dealt with depression since I was young, the first time I experienced it to a very terrible peak, and got treatment for it, I was 26. Before I got treatment, that depression put me in my bed, in a dark room, for entire days and weeks. When I was awake, I cried. I cried when I took my daughters to school each morning, cried on the way home with my little 3-year old boy, and cried as I set him up in front of Sesame Street with a big bowl of dry Cheerios, and I went to bed. Cried in my sleep, cried when I woke up. Cried when I made my son’s lunch, and tucked him in for his nap. Cried while he played on the floor next to my bed. I was soaked to the bone in heavy, bleak, worthlessness, which was just general. General worthlessness, nothing specific I or anyone else could argue with. One insidious thing about depression is that it speaks to you in your very own voice — it’s always been like this and it always will be like this. As the medication started working and the darkness lifted — and I could see color again, which I’d been unable to do for months — I was overwhelmed by the new experience. Was this how most people felt? wow. wow. wow. I had no idea.

So when the depression was treated, and I was in a brand new and sunnier world, I thought ah! I’ll recognize the signs if it ever comes back (which it’s likely to do, once you’ve had one major episode). If I find myself crying a lot, or only wanting to crawl into bed, I’ll know. It’ll be easy to spot, it’s so terrible. Good, I’m armed.

Although it waxed and waned over time, pulled me into its dark and nasty little hole now and then, I didn’t have another major episode until I was 42, in the middle of graduate school, January 2000. I never saw it coming, because it wasn’t like that! I was always so pissed off and angry, and overwhelmingly agitated. I was furious at the sun, and thought I just can’t keep going through this sun in my eyes for the rest of my life, goddamn sun. Stupid people in the cars, hate hate hate! Hell no I’m not depressed shut the fuck up and get the hell out of my way. But I was, and profoundly. Luckily, a friend picked up something in my voice and was worried and drove me to get help, and stayed with me until I was safely in someone’s care. I was floored by the diagnosis of major clinical depression. Treatment helped and it retreated. This time I wasn’t so cocky, thinking I could spot it a mile away if it ever came back (which it was more sure to do, now that I’d had it twice). Still, two types, I could be on guard. Just want to sleep and cry, or always overwhelmingly mad and agitated. Easy enough.

Unfortunately, there’s at least one more face of it (do I have to experience them all, depression gods?) that’s different still. It’s the one that just takes away the words. Takes away the thoughts. Takes away the pleasure. Bleaches me, my mind, and the world. Sure, I’ll cry too easily, but it’s the blankness that defines this version. Blank. Silence. Disinterest, though that really isn’t the right word because it implies that interest might be hanging around…but it’s not. It’s too blank for that. At least this one doesn’t hurt so much.

People faced with a depressed person feel helpless, and probably have good intentions when they offer a quick and easy list of recommended activities [this is the "buck up" model]: Get out! Take a walk! Go to lunch with a friend! Wander around the museum! UGH, all those exclamation points, no. It’s hard just to sit and face it when your loved one is so clearly suffering, and honestly there’s nothing to do other than trying to ensure that they’re getting professional help. I know and understand this, because I’ve been on the other side of it too, watching people I love suffer so terribly.

My research in graduate school was all about pronouns and linguistic profiles. I developed a linguistic profile of suicidality, after analyzing a college student’s diary in the two years leading up to her suicide. The language of depressed people is dominated by the first-person pronoun. I, I, I, I. Occasionally my (rarely me, curiously). Extremely rarely you. It’s maddening to try to hold up your relationship with a depressed person because of this terrible rumination on their suffering, it’s as if all they/I can see is the suffering. The I who is suffering.

What’s so funny, here at this advanced age of our culture and civilization, is that there is STILL a stigma surrounding emotional illnesses. I could not reveal my depression when I was in graduate school (in a psychology program!!); I was advised by the one faculty member who knew about it not to tell anyone, at all. There are lots of books, awareness programs, and people like me who’ll occasionally speak up and say how difficult it is, but here we still are.

So here I sit, in the silence. This is the first thing I’ve been able to write, and I’m not sure why I’m writing it, what I want. Maybe I want you to know about depression, maybe I want to tell you all these little researchey pieces that (when I’m not depressed) I find so fascinating, such a window into something. I know I’m not writing this to elicit your comments, but I’ve decided to keep comments open because I always get so annoyed when someone writes a post like this and closes comments. I know that I am dearly loved, I know that this will pass, I know all those things. Maybe I just want to normalize it, to let you know that I’m sick, that’s all, and I’ll get well soon.