When Depression Hits...

Depression can cloud our experiences & flood our hearts.

We fall hard into a dark sandpit, cold and damp, the wind taken out of our lungs as we crash to the ground. Sand eroding over time in this shallow grave, struggling to care enough to get up. Our eyes mired with the mud, our vision restricted to the pitiful site of laying in our own misery. Sometimes we fall face down, forgetting what the light looks like above, and most certainly forgetting what it feels like. We don’t remember how to look up. We forget that if we did and looked beyond this pit that we will see the light from whence we fell. Sometimes we don’t even realize we are here in the darkness, its familiarity a mask we wear so well.

Circumstances fall like bricks into this dark pit where we lay helplessly. Suffocating us with more weight, gashes, and bruises - all compound fractures to our ego, our sense of survival, and our will. Grief and loss and unresolved issues whip us to the ground. Masks we have worn to protect ourselves either haunt us and intensify or they start to crumble, either way now ineffective at even gifting us survival.

Sometimes our masks are ripped off our faces, our skin and nerves burning as we are disoriented and confused. We numb the pain, we search for answers, we feel despair and uncertainty as we doubt it all, as we question who and what we are. Sometimes, we hit the ground, our palms replacing the masks as we fall and cover our wounds. Torn, we are forced to face our rawness that has remained hidden. It is our choice to tear at these wounds further, to seek another mask, or to courageously embark on self-discovery and healing.

While overcome with depression and defeat, our families suffer, our work suffers, and the world suffers as we lay frozen against any purpose we might have been intended to fulfill in our life journey – for it feels like too much, if we even recognize it at all.

Everything feels like too much…Movement is too much…Breathing is too much…

We fall, we hit hard, we retreat, we freeze, we cry…and then again some more…
We don’t realize it in the moment, but we toss more bricks into our own grave of misery as we shame and hate ourselves for falling in the first place. Buried in misery, we convince ourselves that this is all there is.

Over the past year, a significant separation, breakup and dismantling of a life and home that I had built for 16 years made me fall into that dark pit. Depression struck from behind before I knew it was coming. Crying and asking “why?” and “what I had done wrong?” -  I put my Mask of Inferiority on to feel some control in a helpless circumstance. I clutched my chest as my heart broke. This mask told stories of childhood abandonment, trauma and rejection, of wounds so deep that the depth of their pain may never be fully discovered, of being unworthy of ever being loved, of failing so tragically that I would never be enough. It wove its web of lies and deceptions that I chose to use to tear myself apart, leaving me with no energy to engage with anything. I wept. I slept. I stared into an empty space for hours and days. I left myself behind as I firmly imprinted this Mask of Inferiority on my face.

Eventually all of my masks were ripped off against my will - an identity I had once known torn from my face with reality challenged as I grieved the loss of what was and what would never be. Who I was, my livelihood, my goals, my dreams, my understanding of myself, my understanding of my partner of 16 years, my future, my flaws and mistakes, my abilities, my longings…all crumbled in pieces. I scrambled to put it back to together, to hold on. Doing so was like holding onto the structure of a crumbling sandcastle – each time I grasped harder, it slipped and fell between my fingers. But I grasped and restructured, bargaining for what I could. At times accepting what was lost and focusing instead on rebuilding new structures, placing my hope in what could be in this relationship and this life that meant so much to me for so long. I failed to recognize that what I was grasping onto and attempting to rebuild had already been slowly eroding over the years by the tides of disconnection, rejection, and inevitable grief. I chose the Mask of Denial until I was ready and able to see with my eyes and not just my mind – allowing those tides to come forward, pass me by, and return when I was ready.

I waited until my heart healed as the doves sang a lullaby to my heart – a divine father and mother calling with their nurturance and protection. I waited until I remembered I had a choice. I made a choice and I chose to Wake Up. I chose to look beyond me and notice the trees on the shore who witnessed it all, who waved and beckoned me back to Earth, back to reality. I noticed the trees becoming people, friends, family – all who witnessed my pain and held me until I could learn to hold myself. I chose to look up again and notice the light of the sun rising. I looked up to see the stars until I got perspective. I realized I could take refuge in the tides as I noticed the water dancing instead of flooding. I felt my feet on Earth and remembered her support of me and the weight of my burdens through it all, and I waited until I could stand up tall. I waited until I finally got my footing again, and only then could I walk away. I waited until I was ready to bury not myself in that shallow grave of misery, but instead, to bury the misery itself, to finally let go. I waited for acceptance.

The depth and variations of our experiences with depression, grief and loss and trauma along with the quest towards healing are as variable as the grains of sand in the pits we fall into.

What have your unique experiences been and how did you find support, comfort and resolution?

Peace,
Amy Lohr
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Wake Up to what matters.
Be intentional as you Step Up.
Get Real with yourself in the process. 
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