The black cavern of depression

Depression. Suicide.

It's in the news right now following the death of Robin Williams.

I find the hardest thing to read is not the gut wrenching stories about his death but instead the responses from people who obviously have no real idea about what depression is. Its not a bad day or even a bad week. Depression is never ending  - or at least that is how it feels when I am trapped within it. I can't just think myself happy - don't you think I would if I could? Believe me please when I tell you that no-one would willingly choose to be trapped within this torture. I think I am one of the lucky ones. I finally found my way through the most recent - and worst - episode. Which is why when life started to feel grey, and I felt trapped and powerless, and even with all the wonderful people in my life I felt that it was all about to be taken from me. I found myself panicking and terrified that I would fall back into the blackness.

When I started psychotherapy three years ago in September 2011 I could not feel anything, I could not label feelings because simply I was in the void of black. I used colour to try to make sense of what I was experiencing. It started very simple because that was all I could comprehend - and I could barely differentiate between the states of black and grey - but I thought I could remember some days in the past that weren't so bad and so I labelled them grey. Over time I realised that there were shades of grey - light and dark - progress at least. I also learnt that there are shades of black. The deepest darkest black is so dark it is as if I am in the deepest cavern of the planet, suspended in the centre, lost with no sense of which way is up down sideways - it is so black that it is pure nothing emptiness, its like being suspended in petrifying darkness with nothing holding me in place, just hanging there in nothingness. This is the scariest black, because all control is gone and all that is left is surrender to the darkness, it is an almost calm place and the only escape at that moment seems to be death. I never want to get to that cavern again.

Together my therapist Susan and I tried to look at the other end of the spectrum. I pulled out the colour white to describe the happy place - to be honest I really couldn't even think it in my head, the happy place no longer existed in any part of my reality. To me though, white was the colour I would desperately try to envisage surrounding and protecting me from the darkness - I would look at anything white and try to see that colour around me - I figured white was a good goal - even if I couldn't find the colour in my own head let alone the supposed positive feelings that would be there. But over a long period of time I started finding grey days and even light grey days - and then possibly moments of white - white held hope and possibilities. White was almost a transition space, a space to sit in safety while trying to develop the bravery to explore what might be next. I remember Susan asking me what might be after white. I had no answer. My only goal at that point was to get to white. It was unimaginable that there could possibly be a colour space beyond.

2013 came along. Yoga, ending my marriage, meditation. And finally the day came when I found what came next. Colour. Vibrant shades of colour. And warmth. And the smell of Mother Earth - Papatuanuku. For me these had been taken from me so gradually as the blackness crept in that I did not know they had even once existed - until they returned. What followed was a yo yo few months of darkness and light, black and colour. But the colour got stronger and stronger until one day I realised that the black had gone and the grey had faded to near nothingness.

Which is why the return of black, so soon after the death of Robin Williams threw me. You see I desperately want to live and to live well - with my children and my new partner all of whom I dearly love. But this time I had ammunition. Three years of therapy has given me insights and knowledge. It has given me strength I did not know I had. The crying and the swearing and the desperate need to stay in bed wasn't enough to set the support strategies in motion. Until the morning I found myself cutting my long hair off - a form of self harm for me - and then wanting desperately to burn again. I reached out. I let my best friend know that I wasn't OK. And she rang me. Often. And she messaged me. And the black lifted a little. And I told another close friend. And it got easier. And I was honest with Susan at our next session.

This wasn't a depressive episode this time, it was only a couple of weeks of darkness. I used the tools and insights I have gained over the last three years. And the black lifted, the grey eased and the colours crept back. We won this time. And I was proud of myself.

But the black still scares me.

Yoga block

This week has been hard. It's been super busy starting a new job, juggling the needs of others while trying to meet what I need to stay well. The youngest minion is embracing his new life and opportunities at High School by joining groups and attending after school events - which means no buses and trips over there to collect him and ferry him to the next event.
And on top of that was the therapy session - the one that seemed pretty low key. But it wasn't. Because I came away from there angry. so angry it exhausted me to the point of crawling into bed when I got home and sleeping for an hour. So angry that I stayed awake in the early hours of the morning, listening to Lily Allen's Fuck You. OVER and OVER and OVER.
Who was I angry with? I was able to compile a list today - once I had calmed enough down to be rational enough to think. My list went like this.

 I am angry with:

Rebecca
My mum
With Susan
My life
The world
The universe.

So maybe the label "rational" is stretching this a bit.

Now this is the bit where we get to the yoga mat. The bright orange yoga mat. My sanctuary. My space where I have learnt to tune into myself, to feel, to trust my mind, body and spirit. But today I am angry with my mat. I refused to get out of bed and get on it this morning. I stayed in bed so long I had no choice but to step over it with disdain as I got ready for work. I stepped over it and thought it was such a stupid fucking colour. I stomped over it as I returned and thought that I was so stupid to be so attached to an inanimate object. I was angry at the mat. And at yoga. And at myself.

I went to the beach for 1 1/2 hours this evening. I sat and then stood on the rocks for this time, reflecting on these feelings, thinking about what I was feeling and why. I focused on the energy beneath my feet, within the rocks, around me on the wind and in the waves and above me in the rays of the sun. I tried to breathe, to connect to all of these things, to connect to myself, to let go as I have done in that same place many times before. But all I could feel was the anger swirling within me, the tenseness in my jaw, in my back and hips, and especially in the clenched fists that would not relax. And I realised that the anger is irrational, that I don't understand it, that it scares me. I could not just let it go - because I don't understand what it is that I need to let go.

And this is the block that stops me getting on the mat. It is fear. Irrational fear. Fear of the irrational anger. Because I don't know if I want to understand this anger, I don't know if I want to let it go, I don't know if I am ready to understand the emotions beneath, the emotions which the anger covers. And it is knowledge. The knowledge that the mat is a place where my understanding grows and expands. It is where I am connected with myself mind, body and spirit. But right now it is that very connection that I am afraid of.