San Antonio Express-News (Sunday)
Honesty breaks through fog of depression
I awoke in darkness, my mind in a fog. My wife was asleep, and so were the kids down the hall.
I dressed quickly, quietly and stepped outside, into the crisp October morning air. Stars twinkled. Corn stalks hugged the gravel road. A deep breath. This is Iowa, I thought.
Gravel crunched beneath my shoes as I walked down a long country road.
I walked for two miles until I reached a stop sign. I glanced at a Baptist church, turned around, and walked back to my brotherin-law’s house, arriving just in time for breakfast. Nothing happened.
Here is another way to describe the morning:
I walked for two miles along a gravel road. I was on vacation, visiting family in Iowa. Once again, my mind was in a fog. By the time I made it to a stop sign, the sun was rising over fields, rolling hills and distant rivers. I lingered to admire a Baptist church across the street, felt a bit of wind against my cheeks. Morning light stretched across a light blue sky as birdsong punctuated the crisp air. A slight breeze rustled nearby corn stalks. I thought this sounded a bit like the ocean (in the Midwest!). Harvest would be any day now.
Beneath this new blue sky, I walked back to my brother-inlaw’s house, arriving just in time for breakfast. And when I opened the door, I felt a burst of warmth and heard laughter, then the thumping of footsteps as children raced up and down stairs. The smell of coffee hung in the air. My wife and her brother lingered, together for the first time in two years. Everything happened.
To be honest – and what is the point of writing, if not honesty? — I’ve experienced many foggy mornings over the last five months. Not prone to depression, I’ve often felt depressed. Usually certain, I’ve often felt unsure. Seeking to stay present, my mind would often race forward and back, wanting to be everywhere but here.
It’s easy to draw on my own compassion and write about the mental health of other people and show their courage by sharing their stories as they find a way forward, but it’s terrifying to share my own mental health. To reveal that some nights, after the kids have gone to bed, I’ve turned to my wife and said, “What is wrong with me?” or “Why can’t I get my mind out of this funk?” Or to eventually pause, and say to her, or my closest friends, “I think I am depressed.”
No, wait, “I am depressed.” But somehow saying those words to somebody I love — and who loves me — brought a measure of relief. Just being honest made a small difference, and small differences can add up in big ways.
If you have ever felt this way, but haven’t been able to put words to it, I wrote this essay for you. And, sure, let’s be honest, I also wrote this essay for me. As Anne Lamott puts it in “Bird by Bird”:
“Writing can be a pretty desperate endeavor, because it is about some of our deepest needs: our need to be visible, to be heard, our need to make sense of our lives, to wake up and grow and belong. It is no wonder if we sometimes tend to take ourselves perhaps a bit too seriously.”
For me, depression, albeit mild, has been a bit like lowhanging clouds. Close enough to almost touch, shape shifting before my eyes and lingering a bit longer than I would like. But I’ve also felt lucky because I know there is a blue sky behind the gray. And sometimes, over the last five months, that blue sky would break through. Maybe for a few hours or minutes, maybe for several days. At this point, the clouds are mostly gone.
I know for many people this is not the case. I know and love many people who live with severe, persistent depression — and thrive. Just as I know and love many people with severe depression who sometimes thrive, and sometimes really struggle to make it through the day or the week; Just as I know many people who walk a mental health journey — anxiety, depression, bipolar disorder, substance abuse — with their kids, life partners or parents. And if you have lived this, or know this experience, I wrote this essay for you, too.
While depression surprised me, it probably shouldn’t have. It’s been a long haul for all of us (whether you wear a mask or not). Who hasn’t felt strain? For me, a big part (but not all) of that strain has been navigating a voracious news cycle, raising young kids in a pandemic, and feeling the impacts of our fractured and failed politics. It’s still stunning to me that adults couldn’t rally around masks in schools to keep unvaccinated children safe.
Early in the pandemic —
March through August of 2020 — when our kids couldn’t attend school in person, my wife and I would wake at 5 a.m. and work until the kids awoke, and then we would shift back-and-forth between childcare and work until they went to bed. After they fell asleep, we would work until midnight. The next day, we would do it again. And again. And again. It was like “Groundhog Day,” only real life,
so there was no perfect day at the end to set us free. And we were the lucky ones.
That cadence has eased with time, and yet, the strain has persisted as Americans fight and virtue signal over masks and vaccines and as case counts rise and fall, and with it comes fatigue, exhaustion and, yes, depression. It’s not like our political discourse, or lack of unity or empathy has helped alleviate this collective strain.
As an antidote to this fractious, cacophonous time, I’m reminded of the opening lines to Walt Whitman’s “Song of Myself,” emphasis added:
“I celebrate myself, and sing myself,
And what I assume you shall assume,
For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.”
I almost didn’t publish this essay. It crossed my mind to write it and save it in a shoebox in my closet for my kids to discover years from now. Questions that have raced across my mind during the writing process: What would my boss think? What would a future employer who
might read this think? What
about my colleagues? What would you think or have to say?
But the more these questions looped in my mind, the more it became clear I had to write and publish the column. If I had these questions, then others did, too. And I would never want to work in an environment where mental health challenges are judged (I don’t). I also know my colleagues would want me to be honest with them, just as I would want them to be open with me.
Now, some pragmatic readers might be thinking, “That’s all great — quotes from Whitman and Lamott, a plea for unity, a nod to colleagues — but what actually has helped?”
And while I will never be confused with Dear Abby, again, for me, honesty was the starting point. Being honest with my wife, family and closest friends helped break up those clouds. So have meditating, walks, bike rides and putting down the phone.
Pausing to think of all the people in San Antonio and beyond who live with depression did wonders. In thinking of this greater family, I wasn’t alone, and it opened my heart in surprising
ways.
I held all of this inside walking down that gravel road in Iowa at sunrise. And when I opened the door to my brother-in-law’s house, everything really was happening, including my brother-in-law’s puppy, Tucker, who looks like an Ewok, spins like a dust devil and likes to eat shoes.
“We’re trying to reclaim the name,” my brother-in-law said repeatedly as Tucker (not Carlson) nipped at kids and tore through the house.
See, a smile helps, too.
Later that day, we visited the remarkable Devonian Fossil Gorge in Iowa City. There, you walk on a sea floor that dates back 375 million years. Fossils cover the rocky expanse. Beneath each step is a magnificent array of coral heads, crinoids and brachiopods. I could have stayed all day, but the kids needed lunch, so we lasted about an hour.
Having just turned 44, I, of course, did exactly what my dad would have done at the gorge: I read every informational sign. But our kids, 5 and 7, did what I would have done as a kid: They bolted across the rocky expanse, and when I finally caught up to them, they were standing on top of a rock formation looking out across the gorge.
It was just a second, but I felt connected to eternity.
Beneath my feet were fossils 375 million years old, and before my eyes were our young children, their lives ahead of them. We were draped in sunshine.
And while I can’t promise the clouds won’t return, or linger a bit too long, I felt the depth of the blue sky above us, just as I feel the good that belongs to you.