sadness – The View from a Drawbridge

A Brief Pause for Defeat

Sometimes I feel like giving up.

Sometimes in life I feel like giving up. Sometimes the thing I want most in the world (at that moment) does not come to pass, and in fact my worst nightmare is visited upon me. Sometimes I feel as though there is simply no more fight left in me and I can’t even summon the energy to explain, let alone to blog.

There are days when all I want to do is lie in bed like a beached starfish and cry and sleep and stare at the ceiling without a thought in my head. Every effort seems to take 1,000 times more energy than normal, and it feels like the very air that surrounds me is as thick as chocolate pudding.

The dishes pile up, the dirty laundry doesn’t quite make it to the basket, and it’s all I can do to flush the toilet. And then there’s the guilt I feel for letting down everyone around me. And the sadness and isolation I feel for being so profoundly misunderstood.

If none of these things resonate with you, congratulations. You have never experienced depression. You have no idea how lucky you are.

But I’m writing this for the rest of you, the ones who get it. I want to implore you to be gentle with yourself, as if you’re recovering from major surgery. It’s okay to sleep more or do less, for a time. Screw the effing dishes.

I do, however, urge you to seek help if this is not just a passing phase. Because sometimes the passage of time is on our side, but not always. Yes, the sun comes out tomorrow, and/or you get some rest and/or remember to eat something, and things look brighter. Or your situation improves. Other times, time feels like the enemy, and can seem like an endless wall of pain and isolation that stretches before you and is insurmountable, inevitable, and monochrome. That’s a time to reach out for help.

I get it. I really do. You are not alone.

Be gentle with yourself. Get help. Don’t make any major decisions that you can’t come back from, because then you’ll truly be out of options.

For today, just breathe, okay? Breathe, rest, and let the rest of the world take care of itself. You have my permission. (Not that you need it.)

Sending you love and light from a place not far from where you are, my fellow depressives. By the time you read this, I’ve probably come out the other side, back to the land of functioning adults, just as I always do, and have learned as I age that I always will. Until the next wave of depression hits. And so on.

I’ve made it this far. So can you. I’m promising you, there’s a crest to the wave, and what you can see from up there is beautiful and miraculous and oh, so worth it. You just have to hold on. And to do that you may sometimes need help. And that’s okay.

Nothing Corelates with Loneliness

There’s no loneliness vaccine.

I had the distinct pleasure of seeing Leo Kottke in concert the other day at a lovely little venue in Seattle called Demetriou’s Jazz Alley. I’ve written about Kottke before. He’s a supreme talent. I highly recommend that you see him if given the opportunity.

He intersperses his amazing music with stories that are often every bit as good. On this night, though, he said something that kind of made me sad. I’m paraphrasing here, but he mentioned that he tours alone and he lives alone, so talking to us is really his only social life.

He was half joking. But the man is 73 years old. The thought of that level of loneliness is kind of heartbreaking.

That got me thinking. There’s really nothing that corelates with loneliness. You certainly can’t tell by looking at a person. Kottke is talented, active, still touring. He’s led a successful life. None of that staves off loneliness.

You can be rich or poor, young or old, famous or unknown, smart or stupid, kind or cruel… and yet none of that prevents or encourages loneliness. It’s like there’s no real way to thwart it. There’s no loneliness vaccine.

You can do your best to spend time with other people, but that doesn’t necessarily mean they’ll befriend you. You can be active in your community, but that doesn’t mean anyone will want to spend time with you. You can dedicate your life to caring for others, but still, there’s no guarantee that anyone will care for you.

A lot of people are lonely in a crowd. So loneliness doesn’t even corelate with isolation. Loneliness stands alone. That’s scary as hell, if you ask me.

What’s the special sauce that prevents loneliness? I haven’t a clue. I’d love to hear your thoughts. The only thing I know is that we need to reach out to one another. We really do.

Loneliness

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Creative Expressions of Grief

I had the distinct honor of participating in a reception for The Healing Center the other day. It’s a grief support community here in Seattle that is a welcoming and safe place to express your feelings of loss. They have been wonderfully helpful and understanding to me.

The reception, which is held annually, is called Healing Hearts. It is an opportunity for people to show the creative ways they have of expressing their grief. I have to say, this is quite a talented crowd. There were poets and writers there, and singer/songwriters and musicians and photographers as well. I was really pleased to be included in their number.

I read two excerpts from my book, A Bridgetender’s View: Notes on Gratitude. Before the event, I was having trouble choosing which parts of the book to read, so I asked for feedback from some of the regular visitors to my Facebook group, The View from a Drawbridge. The entries we finally chose were I Am Not Who I Was Yesterday, and Scars.

My main takeaway from this event was that there are so many ways to express one’s emotions. In fact, that’s what art is, really: a way to reveal what is inside you. That’s why the arts are so vital to any healthy culture.

I truly believe that it’s very important to open yourself up. Your inner self needs to see the light of day in order to thrive. Things should not be bottled up, lest they fester. And that’s what communities like The Healing Center are all about.

If you are experiencing grief, you do not have to go through it alone. Seek out the equivalent of The Healing Center in your community.

Grieving through the Holidays

If you’ve lost someone you love, the holidays can be a particularly painful time. All those memories. All those traditions. All those people, still alive, who insist that you to carry on all those traditions.

How can you be expected to decorate a tree when every ornament reminds you of the person you’ve lost? And it takes so much energy to put on a brave face at family gatherings. I know more than a few people this year who were forced to retreat to the bathroom to weep.

There is a great deal of pressure at this time of the year to be joyful. That makes your utter lack of joy feel even worse. And no one wants you to figuratively (or literally) pee in their eggnog. “Can’t you see we’re trying to fa la la here? Don’t ruin it!”

And then there are the well-meaning gifts, designed to memorialize the one who is gone. They were given in a spirit of love and support, but they feel like little stabs to your already wounded heart. No one knows the right thing to say or do, because there is no right thing to say or do.

Even in a good year, the holidays can be exhausting. But they seem positively soul-sucking when you’re dragging around a tractor trailer of depression. It makes you feel detached at a time when everyone is coming together.

For me, it’s like having to take a huge breath and plunge into the ocean, in hopes of coming back to the surface again before you drown. That was Thanksgiving. That was Christmas. That was my birthday. What a relief to get through it all and come up for air!

One more to go… the dreaded New Year’s midnight, when no one will be kissing me. I’m supposed to overlook the fact that I’m completely and utterly alone. I’m supposed to feel happy for everyone who is being kissed. I’m supposed to look forward to the new year, and feel nostalgic about the past year.

That’s a heck of a lot to ask. I’ll probably try to go to bed at 11 pm and hope the neighborhood revelry doesn’t wake me up. While you sing Auld Lang Syne, I’ll be trying really hard to pretend it’s any other night.

If you know people who are grieving, ask them what they’d like to do or not do for the holidays. Ask them what they want to talk about or not talk about. Don’t apply pressure. If they are ready, offer to help them create a whole new tradition, perhaps one in which dancing and romance aren’t flaunted.

But most of all, be patient. And don’t force your fa la la on them until they can get through it without weeping in the bathroom.

alone

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Skydiving at Seventy-Three

When a heavy cloak of depression settles down upon my shoulders, I tend to feel as if life has passed me by. I start to ask myself what the point could possibly be, and when I’m unable to answer that question I give up hope, and start resigning myself to my fate. Why even try? When I’m in that awful mind-space I genuinely believe that nothing good or new or exciting will ever happen to me again. Ever. And I’ll spend the rest of my life alone. Forever.

And then I proceed to catch up on my sleep.

What usually snaps me out of this mindset is either planning something that I can look forward to, or a heaping helping of reality. That reality usually takes on the form of an event that shows me how erroneous my thought process is. In other words, I get embarrassed out of my depression.

First of all, relatively speaking, my life is pretty darned good. It takes but a minute to read stories of how nasty, brutish and short the average human life can be. For example, how can I possibly feel sorry for myself after looking at photos of the Syrian refugee camps?

But the greatest balm is when I’m inspired by someone who hasn’t given up. In this instance it was all the more stunning because it came in the form of a friend. I love being in awe of friends.

From deep beneath my heavy cloak of gloom I happened to peek out at Facebook the other day and saw that my friend Carole, on the brink of her 73^rd birthday, had posted footage of herself jumping out of an airplane. A perfectly good airplane. On purpose. Whoa.

You may not be able to control how people feel about you, but you can do unexpected and exciting things at any age. You can skydive. The sky isn’t the limit. The sky is the starting point. You can be amazing. And that sounds a lot more appealing to me than lying in bed with the sheets pulled up over my head.

Thanks, Carole.

Duality

“I’m thinking about duality a lot,” said my friend. “More and more often, I am experiencing joy and sadness almost simultaneously.”

Boy oh boy, can I ever relate to that! Now that I’m in Seattle, I’m the happiest I’ve ever been in my life. But I’m also lonely, and sometimes that feeling washes over me like a tidal wave. And yet, I’m still here, living this adventure, making some of the best choices I’ve ever made. I think. I hope.

And the happier I get, the more intensely I grieve as well. I’d love to have shared these amazing experiences with Chuck. He would have loved this. All of it. He’d have made it a lot more fun, too. But he’d have also made it pretty impossible. Sometimes his intensity was a little hard to take.

It’s a very strange feeling, experiencing such a complex stew of emotions. You can taste each individual ingredient, and yet they’re all mixed together at the same time. You start to doubt your sanity.

But you also start to feel as if you’ve reached the next level of awareness. Like you’ve evolved. Like you’ve grown. Like you’ve achieved something.

And you suspect that things will only get harder from here. Hopefully, the rewards will be bigger, too.

Duality of Personality by Tomasz Alen Kopera on toko-pa.com

The Stupidity of Loneliness

One of the problems about writing a daily blog is that you’re always left with a vague sense that you’ve written all of this before. I could swear I wrote this blog entry within the past couple weeks, but I’ve searched and can’t find anything. So, if you’re a regular reader and are feeling a sense of déjà vu, my apologies. On the other hand, maybe I just thought about writing it and then never got around to it.

I had an epiphany the other day. Loneliness really makes no sense at all. It’s the mistaken assumption that someone out there, whom you’ve yet to even meet, holds the key to your happiness. How absurd.

First of all, from a mathematical standpoint that would also mean that I hold the key to some stranger’s happiness, and I’m keyless and clueless. So that formula is easily disproven. (And I don’t even like math.)

Also, loneliness means you’re giving all your power away. I don’t like that concept at all. I’m not going to live in some emotional limbo, on the off chance that some random person is going to come along and care enough and be capable enough to fill my every emotional need.

Ever since I had this epiphany about two weeks ago, I haven’t felt lonely at all. It’s like a weight has lifted off my shoulders. I sort of feel as though I’m back in the driver’s seat of my life. What a liberating feeling.

Not that I plan to go live in a cave in the wilderness, mind you. I still want friends. I still want companionship. I still have itches that I very much would like to have scratched. But suddenly the urgency is no longer there. The sadness is gone. I appreciate my life for what it is, and look forward to what it can be, in whatever form that may take.

I hope this feeling lasts.

“Look at me! I’m miserable!”

I used to know someone who would never, ever smile in photographs. He said it was because he looked funny when he smiled, but he didn’t look any funnier than the rest of the world. If you looked at his vacation photos, you’d swear he always had a horrible time. But I think it was less about an unattractive smile and more about his “I’m a victim” philosophy.

He used to dress in black from head to toe as well. He wanted the world to know he was angry. He was still upset about how people treated him in high school, even though he was in his late 40’s, so heaven only knows what other long-standing grudges he held.

Yes, all these things were cries for help, and he definitely needed help, but what he didn’t seem to realize was that by turning himself into a completely passive sad sack, by making no attempts to help himself, he turned people off. After a certain point, the world gets a little sick of feeling sorry for you.

I’d see this recurring pattern with him. Someone would meet him, think he was a nice guy, pity all that he goes through, and maybe even come to his defense. For a while. Then they’d start to avoid him. Once you realize that a very large adult male has figuratively put himself in diapers and a pacifier and expects you to carry him wherever you go, you suddenly think, “Hold on, I didn’t sign up for this.”

I think the fundamental problem with his mindset is that, yes, martyrs are often revered, but they usually have to die to reach that point. And he is not only alive, but he’s also an emotionally draining black hole. No one wants to approach his event horizon, for fear of being sucked in.

Yeah, he's cute and all, but would you want to spend an entire day with him? — Yeah, he’s cute and all, but would you want to spend an entire day with him?

Raise Your Head

I used to know someone who was so pessimistic that it was draining to be in his presence. I’m not exactly Little Mary Sunshine myself, but I do have a fundamental philosophical difference with that guy that we were never able to resolve. I believe your attitude can dictate your mood. He believes that you have no control over your mood whatsoever. He used to say, “I’m not going to paint a plastic smile on my face.” It made me want to slap the white off his teeth.

I really felt sorry for him. He constantly gave away his power. It was as if he was this helpless creature to whom happiness or sadness was bestowed, and he had no choice in the matter. It kind of makes you understand why some people make sacrifices to their higher power. If you have no control, the only thing you can do is cajole, flatter and beg. How exhausting.

In fairness, it must be much easier to keep your head firmly planted in your hind end like that. Then you don’t have to take any responsibility for the way your life turns out. But on the other hand, if you raise your head and look about you, you have the opportunity to see your situation in comparison with others who are worse off than you are. You have a chance to shift your focus. You learn how to solve problems, and most of all, you see the abundance that is spread before you.

This Thanksgiving, if at no other time, raise your head. Be grateful. Appreciate your unique life. Smile often. Who knows? It just might become a habit.

Sympathy vs. Empathy

The other day I witnessed something awful. I was working on the Fremont Bridge here in Seattle. It’s 30 feet off the water. Right next to it is the Aurora Bridge, which is 170 feet off the water. Before they put up the higher railing on the Aurora Bridge, the only bridge in the world more known for suicides was the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco. Fortunately the higher railing has reduced our statistics dramatically, but some people are extremely determined.

It had been a really good day at work. The end of my shift was fast approaching and I was looking forward to going home. Then I heard the sirens. I looked up, and there, standing on the thin, fragile railing, 170 feet above the canal, was a teenaged boy. He stood there, motionless, as the fire engines and police cars gathered around him. They didn’t get too close. Several officers were trying to talk to him, but he wasn’t acknowledging anyone, as far as I could tell. He just stood there, on the brink of death, gazing off to the horizon.

And I felt like a bug pinned to a display board. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t look away. All I could do is quietly say, “Don’t do it, don’t do it, don’t do it, oh God, please don’t do it.” My heart was pounding. I felt sick. I have never felt so helpless in my entire life.

I’ve been a bridgetender since 2001. This isn’t my first rodeo. But in the past I’ve only experienced the aftermath. I’ve either heard them hit (which is a sound you’ll never forget), or I’ve heard the fire engine race up and them coax the guy down. This time I had a front row seat for the most pivotal moment in someone’s life, and I couldn’t do anything to help.

Then a woman came running up the sidewalk, her arms outstretched. An officer stopped her just short of the boy. He still didn’t move. He stood there for 30 minutes. It felt like an eternity.

Then, thankfully, he decided to climb down. But to do this he had to make a 180 degree turn on that railing and squat down. That was the scariest part for me. I was thinking, “Wouldn’t it suck if he changed his mind and now he accidentally fell?”

Eventually he got down and they were able to get him in the ambulance. They drove away and reopened the bridge to traffic and everything went back to normal. Sort of. But meanwhile I was nauseous from the adrenaline dump. I went home to an empty house and had no one to talk to about it. Oddly I was ravenously hungry, but was so sick I couldn’t eat until the next day, after having had several nightmares.

Post Traumatic Stress. That’s a problem. Because it won’t be the last jumper I witness when I work on this bridge. All my coworkers have seen several. And they say it’s worse when they actually jump, especially when they hit the ground or a building instead of the water. Clearly, I’m going to need some coping skills if I’m going to deal with this on a regular basis.

So I decided to take advantage of my Employee Assistance Program and see a counselor. I had my first appointment yesterday. We talked about suicide and what it means to me personally and what it means in general, and she gave me several things to think about.

She said that some people are in so much emotional pain and feel so out of control that they take the control of the one thing that everyone can potentially control—their death. It’s an awful choice to make, but some people may think it’s the only one they have. Others are under the influence of drugs and are making irrational choices in general and this is just another one of those irrational choices. She also said it was normal for me to feel sympathy for this person’s pain and confusion. That’s a very human reaction.

Then we discussed the difference between sympathy and empathy, because that’s what I clearly have to work on. Here are the definitions:

Sympathy [sim-puh-thee]

noun, plural sympathies.

harmonyoforagreementinfeeling,asbetweenpersonsoronthepartofonepersonwithrespecttoanother.

Empathy [em-puh-thee]

noun

The intellectual identification with or vicarious experiencing of the feelings, thoughts, or attitudes of another.

I have always taken pride in the fact that I’m a fairly empathetic individual. I can put myself into other people’s emotional shoes and act toward them accordingly. This is a skill that not everyone possesses. I get frustrated by insensitive, oblivious people. But it never occurred to me that sometimes empathy is not the best thing to have.

Because, you see, I took that young man’s emotional pain into my body. I mean, I really felt it. And because of that I had to deal with it in the aftermath, kind of like having to expel poison. Not good.

So my homework, probably for the rest of my life, is to learn to not take people’s pain on board. It’s okay to feel sympathy, pity, sadness for that person and what they are going through, but I really need to not take it into my soul. It isn’t mine. It doesn’t belong to me, and I don’t have to take ownership of it. What a concept.

Wish me luck.

Sunrise, a boat race, and my view of the Aurora Bridge from work.