I am fortunate, when depression cows others to shells out of which their possibilities simply drain away, that I am what is perhaps euphemistically called a high-functioning depressive. We high functioners are neither more talented nor harder working than those whom this illness grinds to a complete stop. It’s more that our symptoms interact with our personalities in a way that allows us still to get on with life, although at times it is a battle that in itself has the power to bring us to an internal halt.
Therapy can play a role in managing this, but so do drugs. My experience of anti-depressants has been that they create a platform for functioning in life. Too high a dose and you lose the sensations, both physical and mental, of ordinary, everyday experience, too low and the mind seems to flood itself with its own phantom thoughts and feelings, which come with a frequency and an intensity that overrides everything else. In both instances, you can see the world taking place around you, but you can’t feel it, either from numbness or rawness alike.
I am, as I have said before, a finely-tuned machine on these drugs. I have been prescribed them for the last sixteen years, spending during this time no more than perhaps nine months without them, and have become an expert self-taught reader of my own symptoms and side-effects. The drugs do not stop the symptoms of depression or its fellow traveller anxiety, but rather give the mind enough quietness, enough pause, to get some purchase on its own functioning. Once no longer overwhelmed by sensation, the depressive’s mind can find a way forward.
Around two months ago I came to the conclusion that my general mental state has been getting worse for the last year or so, even as my happiness has been increasing. My thoughts were often scattered and I felt as if all kinds of ghosts and fears were creeping in through the gaps. I had become fearful, distressed, distractable and far-flung, having to work exhaustingly hard to keep my thoughts on track even as my mind happened on more and more random trajectories. With hesitation, my GP and I decided to increase my dose of antidepressants from the bare minimum dose that I had taken for a long time.
One month in, I regard the change with wonder. All that background noise is still there but it no longer distracts me for such long periods. I can concentrate for extended periods of time with ease, something that previously I had to fight against myself to be able to do. That sense, when I close my eyes, of a foundation of which the self rests, is now of something quiet and stable rather than the fragile, fragmented base on which my functional sanity previously rested. When my mood drops now, it’s not into an abyss of brawling thoughts and worries but something quiet, more still, and even more restorative. I no longer feel defeated by things that haven’t happened yet.
The pay off, then, for high-functioning depressives is that when some more functionality is wrested out of the few options we have—more drugs, more therapy—the pay-off is sweet indeed. I don’t know how long this sense of being in a steadier state of mind will last, not least because I recognise the possibility of the placebo effect in all of this, but for giving me an equivalent of what I imagine people who are not depressives wake up to every day, I could do a dance to good fortune right now.
Breathe with me
Breathe the pressure
Come play my game, I’ll test you. …
Come play my game.
DandyID
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Posterous
{ 11 comments… read them below or add one }
Sometimes I feel lucky to have depression (just sometimes, not often) because of the feeling that you get when the meds start to work, that euphoric feeling, like switching from black & white into colour, when things come into focus, and there’s just beauty running through your soul. Coffee tastes like you’re having it for the first time, showers are like a million kisses all over your body, and you know that everything is going to be fine fine fine. Even though that feeling doesn’t last, it’s still the most amazing thing in the world to have. I guess that’s like a clitoris for depression.
Perhaps this is a new slant for admonishing others to think positively: in every situation there is not a silver lining but a tiny clitoris, waiting to be tweaked.
I hope the new focus and concentration doesn’t turn you into a bridezilla. You must use your powers for good!
A timely point–but who will fight Bride-Mothra if not Bridezilla?
The moth thrums
with earthly delight
the moon at the window
the glass in full flight
unknown to the changeling
the things that do shine
cause all destruction and release
all for another time.
Kia ora, Merc! Your response put me in mind of an Aimee Mann lyric:
Cool! But I bet Aimee didn’t write that specially for you…hehe.
I wrote a long-pager once called Learning To Live With Moths and of course a few on fire burning low, but this kind of popped in my head when I read your post, it’s not my usual style (I’m using tercets right now with inner poems from each line). I am very aware that you teach poetry, posted it anyway, it’s kind of about hope…I dunno.
Aimee Mann did the cool tracks for that polarising film Magnolia, yes?
How beautifully you have captured the essence of depression that we have been accquainted with all our adult life……to have the voices not necessarily quietened but less intrusive…oh, the bliss!….for those who do not engage in mental arguements with oneself, I implore you to be grateful, too, for waking with only one thought in your head, not the whole choir chosing to go solo at the same time!!!!
xxkx
merc: I’m very honoured to have anything written for me. I think “thrums” must be one of my favourite verbs. Yes, Aimee Mann did the soundtrack for Magnolia. I don’t remember much about the film except her music, which was my first encounter with it, I think. That soundtrack album is still one of my favourites of hers.
Sienna: thank you. My current theory vis a vis all good drugs is that it’s not always that they remove the symptoms, but rather that one just doesn’t care about the symptoms any more.
Thank you for a most insightful commentary on exactly what it’s like to be a high-functioning depressive. I read somewhere that the career is the last thing to suffer when a soul is broken- people will cling as long as possible to that bedrock of identity. It’s true in my case- thank goodness for a challenging job that demands focus; it’s also crowded with people who get my mind off myself.
It’s my off hours that are crowded with the clamorous voices of doubt, sadness, regret, etc- and an infinite fatigue. Which makes relationships problematic. So I run to work for refuge.
By the way, do you know that the root of the word of psychiatry has nothing to do with the mind; the Greek roots mean “soul” + “doctor.” Let’s hope that our souls can find a way out that our minds won’t see.
Thank you for your kind words. Increasingly I think that an important part of coping with mental illness is having metaphors and images that are meaningful for us when we talk about it, and are reasonably comprehensible to other people. The Soul Doctor might well be one of these!