Consider this. Something that in most circumstances would really excite you has been arranged. It will happen in an idyllic spot and you will be transported there in luxury. Your favourite people will be there, who ever you want. You have nominated someone you greatly admire to greet you when you arrive. Everything you could wish for will be on hand: wonderful food and drink, sweetly scented flowers, even a performance by your favourite musician, or a play you love, or a special dance. It's your choice, anything really.
You receive a message that your driver will collect you in two hours and everything is ready to roll. You leap out of bed, shower, make yourself as handsome or pretty as possible, dress in your very best (or most comfortable) outfit and wait breathlessly at the front window? Or perhaps not.
As unlikely as it may sound, you stay in bed. Or you go to the fridge, and finding nothing worthwhile, you eat some peanut butter straight from the jar. You then go back to bed. Once there, you pick up the book you have been reading since you finished the last one the day before and read on, not really taking anything in. You hope to fall asleep. Not so much because you are tired, but because sleep means that you don’t have to think about what to say when the driver arrives, or what people will think when they realise you aren’t coming, or whether you’ll regret not meeting Scarlett Johannson, or The Dalai Llama, or Morgan Freeman, whoever it is you have chosen.
Most of all, you want to get past the point where it’s too late to go, past the point where going or not is still a live issue, to get to where it is no longer something you have to deal with. Once this time comes the relief is palpable, you can relax; if that’s what you can call it. It’s probably more like sinking back into your lassitude for a few precious minutes, or if you are fortunate, a few hours.
Of course the respite is temporary. It will only last until the next demand arises, the next question is asked, the next decision needs to be made. When that happens you will again be paralysed with dread, unable to exercise any kind of choice, even over something as seemingly simple as what to watch on TV.
So what on earth is it with you, what is behind this wrongheaded behaviour? You are despondent for no apparent reason, you are loved yet unresponsive to those who love you. You have shelter and are comfortable but still you are sad, extremely sad.
This is depression, the black dog, the daylight demon. In this case a depression that comes on without warning and lifts just as unexpectedly. While it always passes, during these episodes it is difficult to see an end point. The dull, numbing sadness is not about anything. It is simply there and must be endured because the alternatives are either too hard or unthinkable.
And yes, the subject here is me. This malaise has been with me for a very long time and most likely always will. I don’t like it, but in some ways it partially defines who and what I am. I have come to a kind of acceptance that these episodes are somehow necessary, that they involve a form of healing of something that has come unstuck in my head, or my heart or my soul, (whatever that might be). I’m also convinced that there is a strange beauty in my experience. The words that follow are a poem or a mantra or a song about the beautiful sadness I share with so many others.
Dare your soul to reach further than it can see
Become still and quiet and speak without sound
Accept that what you cannot feel is there and will so remain
Listen to your heart’s knowing beat
Embrace a special wisdom that you cannot now recognise
Shelter in your sadness for to fight it is futile
Yield to it but resist total acquiescence
For to give in is to slowly slowly die from the inside
Let the tears well up and stream down your cheeks
Savour their salty sweetness for to weep is to allow release
Seek not to understand the beauty of your sadness
For its mystery is unknowable and knowing will surely be frightening
Ache for but never demand the empathy and the touch of others
Simply cherish their nearness
Take comfort in knowing that your sadness will surely pass
And when it does
Treasure and share the special knowing that has remained with you
Michael D Hansen
Afterword : That book I read back then was very good, I just didn't know it at the time.
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