No my dear friends, that was not the dreaded Last Post. But yes, a few weeks ago I found myself once again deep down. Somehow that mood of depression (or the depressed part of myself, whatever you want to call it) took over here online as well. I had always assumed my depressed alter-ego would be incapable of ever writing a blog post here, that it would lack the energy to write even one single word, but this time it actually tried to steal, to hijack this blog. Some protests and objections came in right away – with good reason. My better half, what was left of it, had to agree. For your and my own good, I could not allow a very suicidal person to get the upper hand here. So I pulled the post.
After my narrow escape from that depression episode, that life-threatening ambush, I needed some time to recover. Such recovery is almost like having to painfully re-assemble oneself from scattered bits and pieces: depression may raid and overwhelm us quite suddenly, but often it will be sloooow in fading away. As you know, for myself this blog has two different functions at the same time: these pages are an activation tool that helps me in my personal struggle against depression, and they also are a kind of battlefield report that allows me to share my experiences, insights and feelings in a meaningful way with other people. But in the last few weeks I could not use blog writing to help me recover. I needed to keep a little more distance for a while. I am sure most of you will understand.
Today is not a depressed day anymore, but for me this was in fact a day in the shadow of sadness (let us discuss the differences between sadness and depression some other time). Exactly a year ago one of my very best friends, trusted and loved, who often had helped me to keep going on, decided she could not go on for herself. She ended her life. Although I have no choice but to respect her decision, I still doubt if she was right. I still wonder to what extent one of those sudden waves of depression may have troubled her vision of herself and her options. Somehow, she was not capable to ask or accept the help and support she deserved. And of course I keep wondering if we, her friends, might and should have offered her more help and support.
This afternoon I went back to the graveyard and stood at her narrow little place under the trees, sad and wordless. Confused. Alone in a whirling torrent of feelings. Understanding her, and at the same time not understanding her. Above all, still acutely missing her. In fact, last year I missed her so much that once I tried dialing her cell phone number in the hope I might still get her voicemail message, just to hear her voice one more time. Instead I got another recording, someone telling me the number was disconnected.
In the destructive blog post I scrapped last month, my depressed persona referred to a fragment of poetry by William Butler Yeats (from The Tower, 1928). At first sight his lines may look sad or even depressing, but still I want to repeat them here. Because when you read carefully, all those sad associations envelop a tiny glimmer of hope: perhaps we can train ourself to make hopelessness and sorrow fade away. A little. Maybe we can try:
[...]
Now shall I make my soul,
Compelling it to study
In a learned school
Till the wreck of body,
Slow decay of blood,
Testy delirium
Or dull decrepitude,
Or what worse evil come –
The death of friends, or death
Of every brilliant eye
That made a catch in the breath –
Seem but the clouds of the sky
When the horizon fades;
Or a bird’s sleepy cry
Among the deepening shades.
May 21, 1949 –
