Depression and my Shrinking Universe
Musings on depression and how to describe its intricacies
Depression is cruel and devastating - it’s always whispering in my ear. Depression is illogical. It’ll make wild accusations about you and convince you they are true. It wriggles around inside your mind, picking out your weaknesses. It distorts your thinking and leaves you feeling vulnerable and confused.
With bipolar, the depression after mania hits the hardest. It’s such a juxtaposition it messes with your head. When mania ends, I’m empty, distraught. My energy has disappeared, and I feel lost. The creativity has dissipated like fallen leaves that are turning to mulch, rotting under my feet. The brightness of the world that dominated my mind has gone. The voices, my internal friends, are no longer with me, and I miss them. They spurred me on, encouraging my burgeoning, manic creativity.
With depression, my mood will sink so much I’ll hardly speak to anyone. I’ll begin to completely shut down and close myself off from everyone and everything. I’ve heard people use the analogy of feeling trapped in mud or quicksand, but I can’t see, can’t move. There’s no will to escape, so I can’t feel trapped. I’d best describe it as my own personal little universe slowly shrinking. The sparks of stars, one at a time, blinking out of existence. There’s no grand magnificence to their end or a stricken implosion of matter; they simply disappear. It doesn't matter to me that they’re missing because it’s my mind quietly brushing them away.
Embarrassed and ashamed, I will say to myself that I shouldn’t feel like this; I have nothing to be depressed about. But depression doesn’t work that way. I feel as if I’m brimming with shame.
It’s like a vase full of water. The flowers that filled the vase have long since withered away, and all that’s left in the water is the debris of petals and plant life. The vase sits in the room prominently on display. Everyone who comes into the room can see it and smell it. They all know something is wrong with it; they can see no flowers inside. I will feel deeply ashamed. I’ll want to hide and disappear. They all want to help and offer suggestions. It’s so obvious what the answer is to them: throw the water away and add some fresh flowers. It’ll brighten the room and fill it with lively aromas.
It’s not as easy as that. They can’t touch the vase because the vase is mine, the room is mine, and they are my guests. Everyone so desperately wants to help, but they can’t. The more they want to help, the greater the shame becomes, and the stronger the smell wafts throughout the room. I want to throw the water away and start afresh, but I can’t. It’s too heavy. I’ve grown used to it being there, and it has such a marked impact on my day-to-day life. There’s a part of me that’s clinging to it. Some part of me wants to be ashamed of the depression; it doesn’t want to face that I’m ill, and the idea that I can’t fix my mind alone terrifies it.
The depression does lift, and eventually, my little universe will spark into life again, and I’ll add fresh flowers to the vase, bursting with life.
I love the vase metaphor. It's exactly how I feel during bipolar depression.