Overheard

Between my ears.

I’ve started this separate section of this newsletter, “Sari, Not Sorry” for more personal pieces.

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You really aren’t yourself lately. What’s going on with you?

I’m depressed.

You’ve always struggled with depression, especially in winter.

Yes, but this isn’t simply the way I get most winters (especially pandemic winters). This is possibly the most depressed I’ve ever been. I say possibly because in the winter of ’92, months before my first marriage ended, I didn’t leave my house or bathe for like three weeks. This is kind of like that—I feel like I’m dragging myself through my days, pushing myself to do what I know I need to do, but every single step is a struggle. In January I was walking around crying without knowing exactly why, like I was leaking. I’m not at all excited by food. I wait until I’m really hungry to eat and then choose things I know I should eat because they’re healthy. But I guess being able to make those kinds of decisions is a good sign. And people might be happy to know that this time around I am bathing daily and leaving my house, although very occasionally. But anyway, right now I’m pretty depressed.

As you keep telling absolutely everyone.

You got a problem with that?

Well, New York Magazine says you should just say, “I’m good,” when people ask, regardless of the truth.

That’s nonsense. It runs counter to everything I’ve come to believe about how valuable it is to be candid about the shit we’re going through—why I do the work I do. It sounds corny but it’s true: when you reveal that stuff, you give other people permission to recognize and reveal their own. It starts a dialogue that in the end leaves everyone feeling less alone.

Yeah, but it also worries people and makes them feel like they have to take care of you.

I don’t want that at all. Speaking of which, it’s probably a good idea for me to establish right now that I am not in any kind of danger. I’m not going to hurt myself. I am not suicidal.

Still, people are going to constantly check in on you, and in time you’ll come to feel as if you have to lie and say you’re better just to keep them from worrying.

I know people do that out of kindness, and that they mean well. I think I’d rather just hear from them that they know what I’m going through, if they’re going through something similar…? I do feel relieved when I see other people acknowledging that times are particularly hard right now, and that being depressed might actually be a sane reaction.

They’re going to recommend stuff, and later ask you whether you’ve tried it.

Maybe I’d like to hear about things that worked for them? Just not in a proselytizing or pressure-y kind of way.

Seems reasonable.

Shit, I wanted to write this as a funny piece, and it’s not turning out that way.

Remember that job you had senior year of college, in 1987, processing insurance claims at Blue Cross/Blue Shield?

In that sterile office park right off I-90 in Albany? Oh, gosh, I hated that job. Although it is where I learned to use a Mac Classic and a mouse, which was useful.

Remember that insurance claim you processed that was clearly written by a patient and not a provider? The one in which the patient put as her diagnosis “feelings of impending doom” in adolescent-looking bubble writing, and she put smiley faces instead of dots over every “i”?

I think about that claim often. It was ridiculous, but sort of endearing.

That kind of reminds me of what you’re trying to do here, aiming to make a post about depression funny.

Remember that insurance claim you processed that was clearly written by a patient and not a provider? The one in which the patient put as her diagnosis “feelings of impending doom” in adolescent-looking bubble writing, and she put smiley faces instead of dots over every “i”?

Oh. But I like writing that finds humor in even the darkest places. I’m always telling students about essays I’ve loved where the writer sort of tilted a painful situation at an angle so they could analyze it through a lens of absurdity. I mean, sometimes I look at what I’m going through right now through that lens, and have myself a dark little laugh at it.

What’s absurd about this depression?

Well, for one thing, how many contexts through which I could interpret it, which is too many. Which makes it hard for me to know how to seek treatment for it.

What do you mean?

Like, is it...new levels of estrogen depletion thanks to menopause? Low thyroid? (It’s not. Just got my test results back.) “Chemical depression.” (Is that even considered a real thing anymore?) Seasonal Affective Disorder? Working for too long in a dying field? Late-stage capitalism? Over-working to just barely survive? Let-down after six months of promoting my book? Societal collapse? Authoritarian creep? Human cruelty? Relentless pandemic life? Still longing for New York City, especially after the pandemic rendered Kingston a kind of ghost town? Grief over everything the pandemic has taken away? Withdrawal from some codependent behavior I’m not engaging in much anymore? Rage at ________ over ___ ____, which I'm not allowed to express? My second Saturn Return? Living too far from family? Living life off-script (no kids, no grand-kids, no normal job-job with co-workers and an office and such) which means having no idea where I'm supposed to turn next in my life, and which also sometimes makes me feel purpose-less?

That is a lot! Don’t forget that you’re also feeling violated, exposed, and powerless after having __ _______ _______ __________. And at the same time feeling violated, exposed, and powerless after having to share your ____ __________ and other private ________ _________ in _______ __________ ____.*

Oh, yes. When I tell close friends about these last two things, they say, OMFG OF COURSE YOU ARE DEPRESSED! (*Sorry, I can’t write about these.)

What if it doesn’t matter what’s causing your depression? What if you just tried something, anything, to feel better?

Well, I'm afraid to take a step in any one direction, in case it's another wrong one. I say “another” because I’ve already gone in one wrong direction and blown $1000 on a new kind of therapy* that some people swear by but which to me seems like quackery. (*Not gonna mention what it is because I don’t want to shit on something that’s working for other people.) I was going to try ketamine therapy, but an article in yesterday’s New York Times made me think better of it. I have the same reservations about all the therapies that involve psychedelics, even though I really enjoyed How to Change Your Mind, Michael Pollan’s documentary about them.

What about talk therapy?

My old shrink thinks talk-therapy won’t help me. And I’m not in the mood to start speed-dating other shrinks to see if I can find a good fit. I really don’t have the energy to unspool my entire backstory for one therapist after another until I find the right one.

What about trying anti-depressants again? Even a low dose. You can get them from your general practitioner these days.

I had some decent results taking Zoloft in the late 90s and Wellbutrin from like 2011 to 2016, but they both eventually sort of stopped working and were hard to wean off of. I always seem to get all the side effects from prescription drugs. I also have the kind of shitty health insurance that would make it expensive for me to see a psychiatrist several times to try and balance my meds. And I have friends who either have been through or are going through hell trying to find the right cocktail of psych meds. I’m terrified of making my situation worse that way—particularly after a friend lost a family member to suicide after they switched SSRIs.

Alternative medicine?

Oy. I have as little faith in alternative medicine as I do in the medical establishment. That said, I have been going for a little bit of acupuncture, and it seems to be taking the edge off. So did recent sunny/unseasonably warm days, which makes me suspect that Seasonal Affective Disorder is at least one factor. Maybe I need to get one of those special lamps.

How about exercise?

A few times a week I’m pushing myself to go for walks or use my crappy little stationary bike. And I do a half-hour of yoga now and then.

Meditation?

I need to learn how to meditate. And I’d like to try to find some kind of communal meditation situation locally, but there doesn’t seem to be anything. I could use a support group for ______ __ ___________. I thought of starting one, but I don’t have the wherewithal to start yet another thing. ______ ______ and I do have sort of a two-person support group for that, over text. I’m grateful for that.

PS Don’t worry about me. I’ll be fine. I’m just being honest about what’s going on in the hopes that if you’re going through it too, you might feel less alone, and that some of you might also reflect the same back to me. For what it’s worth, writing this—getting out of my head this dialogue that has been on loop—has actually felt good. Maybe I need to forget that my ______ was __________, and just write more.