Coming Out of the Dark

I’ve never read William Styron’s Darkness Visible, but I know enough about it to know I ought not try to top his descriptions of depression.

Anyway, depression -- mine, anyway – makes everything seem too difficult. Putting a dish in the sink (never mind doing the dishes), writing a blog post, changing a meeting time, returning a phone call? Too much effort. (Eating, however, is not too much effort.)

“You are depressed,” the cheerful round British psychiatrist told me last week after my 40-minute assessment. “And not without good reason.”

Um, thanks. I tried not to laugh when he made this pronouncement. Not without good reason? Why not just say, “Wow, your life sounds really shitty these days.” I love the English.

After my diagnosis, I then got to listen to him dictate a letter about me to the doctor he’d like me to see. (At the same hospital that treated Amy Wino earlier this year, of all places. “Same unit,” he told me, also cheerfully, when I mentioned it.) Tearful. Sighed frequently during our interview. Still hasn’t fully processed her mother’s death. Was treated successfully for binge eating at the Russell Unit last year but has relapsed recently. Has gained a significant bit of weight. She’s having trouble with her boyfriend – she says she feels bullied by him. For the record, the doctor also said I was lovely, bright and charming. I had to wonder if that’s just because I was listening.

Depressed? I’m depressed? I found myself slightly stunned by the diagnosis. I knew things weren’t right, but depressed? It makes perfect sense; I just hadn’t thought of it – or admitted it.

I’ve found myself slightly more prone to tears than usual in the past couple of months, but it wasn’t until this pronouncement that the floodgates opened. I cried more times in the 24 hours immediately following than I ever have in a day in my life. Not big snuffling sobs (well, no more than a couple), just a lot of quiet tears I couldn’t seem to stop.

I don’t see the second doctor until tomorrow. But this week I’ve managed to get in five cardio workouts (I’ve never stopped exercising, but my cardio has gotten rather sporadic), remove a ring I had stowed in BN2’s safe (call it baby steps toward removing him from my life – given how steamrollered I feel when I argue with him, and how angry he can become, I don’t want to be trying to get it back after the fact), and take some positive steps about controlling my eating. I was perfect during the week, but ate too much Saturday and Sunday. Saturday I had what my old therapist called a subjective binge – six biscuits, stuffed down my gob when nobody was looking. Sunday I had seconds on ice cream and later that night, at a minimart, plunked down a KitKat and a Snickers flapjack next to my tampons on the counter. I looked back at the candy bar selection in the shop, debating replacing or adding to my stash. Then I thought: “What the hell am I doing?,” put the Kit Kat and the flapjack back, and bought a diet Coke instead.

Weight on Thursday was 11 stone 13 ¾, but presumably has gone up since then. Sigh.