Flat Alice

I am just emerging now....but have been flattened by depression for days. I'm writing about it to paint the pain....I want to remember, and I want to understand it as part of the process of recovery. I have scooped up my sweet little white Sugar and taken refuge in my soft Garnet Hill flannel sheets, with the light blue paisley pattern. Sugar snoozes by my side, stirring only if she hears dogs barking outside, or if I roll over on her.

Depression seems similar to alcoholism, though I've probably only had too much to drink once in my life. [Baileys Irish Cream on ice, at an afternoon wedding, on an empty stomach.] The difference is that you don't choose your poison with depression. You don't order a beer, or a bourbon. Or six bourbons. 

The similarity is that you are powerless in the face of it. That it is a disease. Dis-ease, as my therapist would say. You are not at ease. You give into it. You succumb. You cannot stare it down, or stop its course.

I have been at psychiatric hospital intakes often enough with someone I love to remember the questions. Is there alcoholism in your family? The two are often related.

I have experienced it this time as self-pity, wallowing in misery. But also as though my heart was breaking. I was sad, angry, mean. Hopeless. Because things haven't worked out so far as I expected they would. Hoped they would. Assumed they would. As a woman. A mother. A wife. A foster mother/legal guardian. I won't say as a writer, not yet, because that is still in my hands, not dependent on someone else.

Googled definition: A depressive disorder is an illness that involves the body, mood, and thoughts. It interferes with daily life, normal functioning, and causes pain for both the person with the disorder and those who care about him or her. A depressive disorder is not the same as a passing blue mood.

Today at boot camp, I started crying. I couldn't stay with the group. We were inside at the studio, and the space was too small to hide my sadness. In the park, I can hide behind my Lilly Pulitzer sunglasses with pink frames. I had to leave the studio. I jogged and walked outside. I couldn't talk to my friends, could not say hello, when they went outside to run for part of the workout. I waved them off. I cried along the way, turned my face from the woman who came out to add another box to her recycling pile at the curb. I was in pain.

Someone dropped off a vase of yellow tulips on my doorstep today. The lined sheet, torn from a notebook, simply said For Alice, with a heart over the i. I know it was from a boot camp friend. I think I know which one.

I have to go. Time to get Punch dressed and off to soccer practice, and I still can't find her socks. But Figgy found her lost soccer cleat.

Thank you for listening.