One Step Ahead of My Darker Self
Depression has twisted the structure of my life since my teen years. It has plagued me from youth into middle age and beyond, crippling my mind and pulling me downward, toward the pitch-black center of human darkness. It has hindered me in countless ways throughout the awkward progress of my life: causing me to fall behind, causing me to hate myself, causing me to miss valuable opportunities, causing me to make unwise decisions, causing me to withdraw from relationships, and causing me to be heedless of my physical well-being. For most of my life, it has been a pitiless curse and a continual blight, stubbornly dogging my heels for decades and repeatedly casting a pall over my best intentions.
I can only guess at how many hours and days of my life have been lost to the murky grasp of depression. I do know that extensive regions of my memory are covered by a shroud of lingering despair. At times my heart has been gripped by a thick layer of complete dejection, as if it were an ancient insect helplessly suspended in a piece of amber. Depression has been my steady companion and my perpetual enemy, shadowing me in a relentless manner, always keeping me at a disadvantage and permanently marking me with its unshakable gloom. It is never far away from me. Sometimes it makes me I feel as if I am being punished for sins that I do not remember having committed.
Growing up within the Catholic Church, during the late 1950s and early 1960s, was not helpful to me. The harsh framework of Catholicism was a fairly tricky proposition for a child. It seemed that a Catholic was required to humbly seek a pure outlook of moral perfection, while also humbly acknowledging that such an outlook could never be attained. For me, that irrational doctrine, founded in the cold, heartless dogma of a wicked institution, was a vile pathway to guilt and shame. By the time I reached the age of ten, I had already grimly accepted that, for reasons beyond the small range of my tender comprehension, I was destined to become an eternal resident of hell. I separated myself from Catholicism a long time ago, but I suspect that the damage it did to my psyche will always be with me.
In addition, as the male offspring of an English mother and an American father, born in England but now living in the United States (because my family had moved to America when I was not yet old enough to make my own choice), I was constantly ill at ease with the roughness, and the outright brutality, of my surroundings. I grudgingly found it necessary, in many instances, to play along with the vulgar demands of American life, but I never let my guard down, and I never regarded myself as an "American." Much of the time I felt as if America was forcing me to put on an unsustainable act, compelling me to be painfully untrue to myself, an uncomfortable feeling that made it difficult for me to be calm and settled within my own thoughts. My life became a long-term situation of conflict and frustration.
I first started to become seriously depressed at the beginning of the 1970s, when I was in high school. I had been feeling unsteady for a while, ever since my father walked out of our family in 1965, leading to a bitter divorce. I was seventeen, living in a suburb in California and unhappy after breaking up with my girlfriend. I was also worried about being drafted into the war in Vietnam. I was keeping to myself, avoiding my friends and spending long hours alone in my room, and I had stopped doing most of my schoolwork. I slowly broke under the weight of my situation, falling into a dense mood of hopelessness. I started to think that ending my life was the only way to resolve my problems.
After I had gone through many weeks of distress, heavily dragging from one day to the next while in a weary state of fear, loneliness, and desperation, I finally chose to abandon school and leave home. I was not thinking clearly, and it was out of character for me to wander off on my own, but I knew that I needed to change my day-to-day life. I understand now that I was probably in urgent need of guidance when I departed from my home, but instead I suffered alone, nearly drowning in my bottomless confusion. I wanted to return to England, the country of my birth, but I lacked the necessary means, so I ended up taking a bus to San Francisco, where I stayed for six months with no solid purpose to my behavior, other than to get away from my troubles. I was still depressed, and mostly depending on charity from new friends that I met in the city.
When I went back home, it took me a while to feel part of my family again, and to put all the upheaval of my ill-considered departure behind me. I went on with things as best as I could, knowing how close I had come to being entirely consumed by despair. I also knew that it could happen again. I had been altered by my months in San Francisco, and in certain ways I now felt older than my years. My young life stretched out before me, but I was overwhelmed by unremitting doubt, and I found it hard to imagine what sort of goal I should pursue, until I began to think that perhaps I might try to be a writer, thereby setting myself on course for what turned out to be a lifetime of fruitless hopes and blind alleys.
From that time until now, depression has continued to hound me. Even in my rare happy moments, when I have every reason to be lighthearted, I am unable to shed my fear of sinking into a slough. I have journeyed through many periods of unsparing bleakness, each one being worse than the last, each one driving me closer and closer to mental extinction, each one leaving a permanent mark of sorrow on my being. No matter where I am, or what I am doing, a threat of depression is always with me, lurking at the edge of my thoughts. I am extremely fortunate in having an understanding wife who is able to cope with my many downcast moods, particularly on days when I am thoroughly out of sorts and barely able to cope. She helps me to laugh when I am most in need of laughter.
Once depression has taken hold of me, I tend to become separated from the regular flow of time: a second can feel as long as an hour, and an hour can feel as short as a second. The outline of one day blends into the outline of the next. With my mind fully overtaken by doom, the small particulars of life can seem hazy and distant. At its worst, my condition can bring me to a state of blank stupor, leaving me totally at odds with my own essence, and allowing me to do no more than merely go through the dull actions of living, without any confidence or satisfaction. At such times, I am a ship without an anchor, glumly drifting through endless seas of oppressive anguish.
Because of my avowed mistrust in regard to all drugs, I have stubbornly chosen to live with my illness and resist the use of antidepressants. Instead of relying on medication, I try to maintain a steady pattern of daily activities: walking, writing, reading, listening to music, and watching old films. I am inclined to believe that suppressing the effects of my depression, or removing them entirely, would leave me as less than myself. How much of my personality, how much of my everyday ability to think and feel, how much of my ability to respond to the world around me, would I be willing to surrender, so that I could avoid my bouts of depression? Would I still be the same person if my frame of mind was controlled by a prescription?
Another question, one that is even deeper and more profound, also shapes my thinking. To what degree is my depression merely a conditioned response, brought on by the constant strain of living in a depraved world? It seems that anyone in their right mind should be depressed by the dreadful collection of unspeakable miseries that mankind has created for itself. Our world appears to be ruled by war, violence, greed, dishonesty, corruption, and selfishness. How is it that most people do not yield themselves to a foul mentality of utter despair? In many cases nowadays, it is mainly because they are under the influence of strong pharmaceuticals. Their apparent "happiness" is actually a lack of awareness, and a loss of sensitivity, brought on by taking a drug.
I prefer not to look into the future. I fear that if I do, I will see only the malign depths of a forbidding tunnel, with no opening at the far end. I believe that it is better for me to take each moment on its own terms, without directing my gaze toward an unknown fate. I know that I am in danger of someday being devoured by a final episode of depression, but so far I am still here, and I figure that given my current age (I am now in my sixties), it probably does not matter too much, one way or the other. I attempt to endure the difficulties of each day as best as I can, striving to maintain an even keel on my course from morning to afternoon to evening, always seeking to stay at least one step ahead of my darker self.
I can only guess at how many hours and days of my life have been lost to the murky grasp of depression. I do know that extensive regions of my memory are covered by a shroud of lingering despair. At times my heart has been gripped by a thick layer of complete dejection, as if it were an ancient insect helplessly suspended in a piece of amber. Depression has been my steady companion and my perpetual enemy, shadowing me in a relentless manner, always keeping me at a disadvantage and permanently marking me with its unshakable gloom. It is never far away from me. Sometimes it makes me I feel as if I am being punished for sins that I do not remember having committed.
Growing up within the Catholic Church, during the late 1950s and early 1960s, was not helpful to me. The harsh framework of Catholicism was a fairly tricky proposition for a child. It seemed that a Catholic was required to humbly seek a pure outlook of moral perfection, while also humbly acknowledging that such an outlook could never be attained. For me, that irrational doctrine, founded in the cold, heartless dogma of a wicked institution, was a vile pathway to guilt and shame. By the time I reached the age of ten, I had already grimly accepted that, for reasons beyond the small range of my tender comprehension, I was destined to become an eternal resident of hell. I separated myself from Catholicism a long time ago, but I suspect that the damage it did to my psyche will always be with me.
In addition, as the male offspring of an English mother and an American father, born in England but now living in the United States (because my family had moved to America when I was not yet old enough to make my own choice), I was constantly ill at ease with the roughness, and the outright brutality, of my surroundings. I grudgingly found it necessary, in many instances, to play along with the vulgar demands of American life, but I never let my guard down, and I never regarded myself as an "American." Much of the time I felt as if America was forcing me to put on an unsustainable act, compelling me to be painfully untrue to myself, an uncomfortable feeling that made it difficult for me to be calm and settled within my own thoughts. My life became a long-term situation of conflict and frustration.
I first started to become seriously depressed at the beginning of the 1970s, when I was in high school. I had been feeling unsteady for a while, ever since my father walked out of our family in 1965, leading to a bitter divorce. I was seventeen, living in a suburb in California and unhappy after breaking up with my girlfriend. I was also worried about being drafted into the war in Vietnam. I was keeping to myself, avoiding my friends and spending long hours alone in my room, and I had stopped doing most of my schoolwork. I slowly broke under the weight of my situation, falling into a dense mood of hopelessness. I started to think that ending my life was the only way to resolve my problems.
After I had gone through many weeks of distress, heavily dragging from one day to the next while in a weary state of fear, loneliness, and desperation, I finally chose to abandon school and leave home. I was not thinking clearly, and it was out of character for me to wander off on my own, but I knew that I needed to change my day-to-day life. I understand now that I was probably in urgent need of guidance when I departed from my home, but instead I suffered alone, nearly drowning in my bottomless confusion. I wanted to return to England, the country of my birth, but I lacked the necessary means, so I ended up taking a bus to San Francisco, where I stayed for six months with no solid purpose to my behavior, other than to get away from my troubles. I was still depressed, and mostly depending on charity from new friends that I met in the city.
When I went back home, it took me a while to feel part of my family again, and to put all the upheaval of my ill-considered departure behind me. I went on with things as best as I could, knowing how close I had come to being entirely consumed by despair. I also knew that it could happen again. I had been altered by my months in San Francisco, and in certain ways I now felt older than my years. My young life stretched out before me, but I was overwhelmed by unremitting doubt, and I found it hard to imagine what sort of goal I should pursue, until I began to think that perhaps I might try to be a writer, thereby setting myself on course for what turned out to be a lifetime of fruitless hopes and blind alleys.
From that time until now, depression has continued to hound me. Even in my rare happy moments, when I have every reason to be lighthearted, I am unable to shed my fear of sinking into a slough. I have journeyed through many periods of unsparing bleakness, each one being worse than the last, each one driving me closer and closer to mental extinction, each one leaving a permanent mark of sorrow on my being. No matter where I am, or what I am doing, a threat of depression is always with me, lurking at the edge of my thoughts. I am extremely fortunate in having an understanding wife who is able to cope with my many downcast moods, particularly on days when I am thoroughly out of sorts and barely able to cope. She helps me to laugh when I am most in need of laughter.
Once depression has taken hold of me, I tend to become separated from the regular flow of time: a second can feel as long as an hour, and an hour can feel as short as a second. The outline of one day blends into the outline of the next. With my mind fully overtaken by doom, the small particulars of life can seem hazy and distant. At its worst, my condition can bring me to a state of blank stupor, leaving me totally at odds with my own essence, and allowing me to do no more than merely go through the dull actions of living, without any confidence or satisfaction. At such times, I am a ship without an anchor, glumly drifting through endless seas of oppressive anguish.
Because of my avowed mistrust in regard to all drugs, I have stubbornly chosen to live with my illness and resist the use of antidepressants. Instead of relying on medication, I try to maintain a steady pattern of daily activities: walking, writing, reading, listening to music, and watching old films. I am inclined to believe that suppressing the effects of my depression, or removing them entirely, would leave me as less than myself. How much of my personality, how much of my everyday ability to think and feel, how much of my ability to respond to the world around me, would I be willing to surrender, so that I could avoid my bouts of depression? Would I still be the same person if my frame of mind was controlled by a prescription?
Another question, one that is even deeper and more profound, also shapes my thinking. To what degree is my depression merely a conditioned response, brought on by the constant strain of living in a depraved world? It seems that anyone in their right mind should be depressed by the dreadful collection of unspeakable miseries that mankind has created for itself. Our world appears to be ruled by war, violence, greed, dishonesty, corruption, and selfishness. How is it that most people do not yield themselves to a foul mentality of utter despair? In many cases nowadays, it is mainly because they are under the influence of strong pharmaceuticals. Their apparent "happiness" is actually a lack of awareness, and a loss of sensitivity, brought on by taking a drug.
I prefer not to look into the future. I fear that if I do, I will see only the malign depths of a forbidding tunnel, with no opening at the far end. I believe that it is better for me to take each moment on its own terms, without directing my gaze toward an unknown fate. I know that I am in danger of someday being devoured by a final episode of depression, but so far I am still here, and I figure that given my current age (I am now in my sixties), it probably does not matter too much, one way or the other. I attempt to endure the difficulties of each day as best as I can, striving to maintain an even keel on my course from morning to afternoon to evening, always seeking to stay at least one step ahead of my darker self.