I started this blog back when I was struggling with a mid-life depression; questioning my choices as a mother; frustrated and grieving the ways in which medicine failed my body, and my body failed me; examining the regrets of my marriage; and addressing myriad other topics.
Now, approximately six years later, I find myself in another mid-life (if I were to live to 104, that is. And let’s think positive, but be realistic, this is more like my two-thirds life) depression. My body still sucks, my children still need therapy, my marriage of 20 years is over, and those myriad topics still exist in some form or another.
BUT now there’s also a pandemic, I’ve come out as pansexual and non-binary, and I’ve landed myself in a partial hospitalization psychiatric program.
I’m finding it difficult to write, but like before, I am reading romances voraciously. They provide distraction from both emotional and physical pain. Romances receive a bad wrap for any number of reasons: they are cheesy, they stick too closely to known tropes, the ending it guaranteed, the progression of the relationship is often mapped to the percentage of the way you are through the book, I could go on. But what people don’t understand about romances, is how difficult it is as a writer to be engaging and new within such significant constraints. Everything is reduced in many ways to characters: their interactions and their insights. I marvel at the number of wonderfully written and astute observations in this genre, but sometimes there are ones that stand out above and beyond. Given my own wrestle with depression, it’s not surprising that the following resounded, but I pass it along as an example of the perspicacity that can be found in a Romance book.
“So, imagine we’re all born with a set of feelings. Some are broader or deeper than others, but for everyone, there’s that ground floor, a bottom crust of the pie. That’s the maximum depth of feeling you’ve ever experienced. And then, the worst thing happens to you. The very worst thing that could have happened. The thing you had nightmares about as a child, and you thought, it’s all right because that thing will happen to me when I’m older and wiser, and I’ll have felt so many feelings by then that this one worst feeling, the worst possible feeling, won’t seem so terrible.
“But it happens to you when you’re young. It happens when your brain isn’t even fully done cooking—when you’ve barely experienced anything, really. The worst thing is one of the first big things that ever happens to you in your life. It happens to you, and it goes all the way down to the bottom of what you know how to feel, and it rips it open and carves out this chasm down below to make room. And because you were so young, and because it was one of the first big things to happen in your life, you’ll always carry it inside you. Every time something terrible happens to you from then on, it doesn’t just stop at the bottom —it goes all the way down.”
― Casey McQuiston, Red, White & Royal Blue
The metaphors are questionably intertwined, but the sentiment hit me like the proverbial mack truck: capturing the way that grief is rarely ever just grief, but instead is an opportunity to self-flagellate and self-censure.
And as my therapist reminded me yesterday, I am grieving on multiple fronts. I’m grieving the marriage and the future that I thought was before me. And all of the losses that come as a result of a divorce: the friendships, in-laws, shared moments and memories, the agreements and disagreements about the children, the house, the pets, the [insert item co-created/acquired here.] The reminders with both the frames that remain on the wall, and the empty spaces where frames of art or photos have moved to the other home. The knowing that someone else is experiencing times with your child instead of you as your ex’s partner. The considerations of all the things that I should have done differently and wondering if it would have made a difference in the end.
And then there’s one of the primary culprits in the dissolution of the marriage: the 5’3″ container of me. The body that seems mis-wired, nerves constantly misfiring. Pain receptors at constant ready to sound the alarm. Anxiety so tangled with my nervous system that even contemplation of a dreaded event can sound a five alarm fire in my abdomen. My emotions and body on high alert: vigilance at any moment to freeze or flee (as fight never seems to be an option.)
And in spite of all of this, the weight of things on my back, the boulder on the hill in front of me, for the sake of the kids, I have to go on as if I am alright with everything. Really, there are no options to fight or flee. Just to freeze.
And so here I am standing still. Still standing.