Inconquerable Depression, Which I'm Never Going to Conquer

During my first day in Michigan, DuWayne and I drove to Ann Arbor to have lunch with the lovable Toaster Sunshine. (Toaster writes a science column now, by the way. You should read it. You should also keep your fingers crossed that he'll find a way to write it and blog regularly at the same time.) We parked in a multi-level lot with toll stations and roped-off sections. On the way back to the car, we simultaneously stepped over a chain hung low between two poles. DuWayne was wearing sneakers. I was wearing heels. DuWayne cleared the chain. I tripped over it and split my chin open on the concrete floor. I mean, I broke a gaping, deep, fleshy, upside-down "V" into the bottom of my chin that didn't reach bone but that still bled profusely and worried me woozy.

I doubt this would have fazed Professor in Training, whose insistence on playing Brutal Contact Sport has at least afforded Dr. Hot the golden opportunity to slowly run his hot hands all over her prostrate and quivering body has left her with wounds that would make Viking warriors proud.* I'm wimpy, though. First, the impact stunned all lucid thought right out of my brain for hours. Second, the potential expense scared me. I immediately freaked over the potential expense. I knew as soon as I got back on my feet that I hadn't injured myself this badly in a long time. I thought about health insurance. I don't have health insurance. I didn't have health insurance even when I had a real job that required my Berkeley degree, because like many other Californians-- including those with master's degrees in engineering-- I was hired indefinitely on contract and therefore not legally entitled to coverage from my employer. I couldn't independently buy health insurance for any price because I couldn't provide the correct answers to preliminary survey questions like "Have you ever been hospitalized for clinical depression?" and "Has any one of your immediate family members ever been diagnosed with breast cancer?" I certainly didn't have health insurance now-- as a total loser in career limbo. How would I pay for the stitches I'd need?

I didn't want to ask my parents for money. Even if I didn't harbor such acrimonious resentment of my entire family, I wouldn't want to ask my parents for money. I didn't want to ask anyone for money. I was sick of taking other people's money. I've never liked taking other people's money. I don't get people who don't want to earn their own money. Don't they get sick of being a slave to the lender? Don't they get sick of never being able to defend themselves because other people have purchased the right to tear them down? Don't they get sick of having a legitimate reason to hate themselves?

I expected the large amount of blood to gross DuWayne out. It didn't. He soothed me and wiped me up and examined me, and after some thought and a brief consultation with his father-- a parent of a brood of boys who'd apparently gotten and survived various grievous injuries over many years-- he offered to patch the wound up with "instant sutures" and see how that worked before I resorted to Urgent Care. I assented. So, every morning of the next six days, DuWayne patiently cleaned my wound and changed the butterfly closures from the pharmacy that sealed the wound shut. I have no idea how he applied the closures so well. He laughs and says it's due to extensive experience. Still . . . No infection set in. The "V" closed almost completely. There's going to be a scar, but it's on the bottom of my chin and it's nothing terrible. I could not have done this myself.

This isn't a post about health insurance (and the motherfucking political "debate" over its proper provision), though. This isn't even a post about my visit to DuWayne. I don't have DuWayne's beautiful poet's heart and I also have a history of crazy repression, so I don't often have the inclination or courage to express or even acknowledge romantic feelings. This is a post about my wanting to be a competent, reliable worker and not having been well enough to be one for the last thirteen years. In many ways, this is a post about depression that I have trouble believing-- even deep down-- that I can conquer anymore. I've tried. I feel like I'm not clever or strong enough to do it.

I haven't been blogging because I've tried yet another way of improving my lot, and I've been thwarted yet again. Moreover, I do not believe that I've been treated fairly; an advocate of mine in a position to say doesn't think I've been treated fairly, either. It's disheartening. I can't endure the shameful circumstances of my life for very much longer. How do I earn the money to live on my own? How do I earn the money to take exams and classes? How do I face people? How do I ensure that I become a good investment to instructors, employers, researchers and friends who believe in me and who help me? Specifically, how do I cure myself so that I can do these things?

I have been badly depressed since I was sixteen years old. I want to know what sort of cruel joke this is. I grew up in respectable neighborhoods with enough to eat and with parents who supremely valued education. I’m smart. I’m attractive. I have a puritan work ethic. I’m honest. I have support from kind people. I’m not “cool” and never will be, but I’m very interesting. I have enough personality to stand out-- insofar as "standing out" is crucial to career success. Yet I have spent years and years and years fighting mightily just to get out of bed. And I suck at it. I’m not even good at it. It’s cruel that I’m not even good at getting out of bed—much less supporting myself and achieving lofty goals. It's unbearably cruel that I CAN'T GET OUT OF BED-- much less get well enough to fulfill my potential. Anyone who has to put up with me is lucky that I'm an atheist. There's no "cosmic reason" for this. I think, I'm simply a loser and I've simply lost.

I’ve been fighting so very hard. I’ve been so very pathetic.

I haven’t blogged because I got sick of feeling like a sideshow for successful people. That's only bearable when I figure that I will be successful myself someday. Over most of this summer, I've been convinced that I’m not going to be a successful person. I have made too many mistakes. Moreover, I’m not ever going to be well enough to make up for being a fuck up. This is really the key. I’ve seen people make up for big mistakes. They had persistence and focus and discipline. That's how they did it. Where’s my persistence and focus and discipline? Why does every task take so long to do? Why am I always so tired? Why do I think so many angry, hopeless, wearying thoughts?

In college I veritably worshipped an aspiring screenwriter named Jonathan. He respected me for one semester. We were "friends" for five years. He believed that my struggles to get out of bed-- as well as my embarrassing inability to suppress my tears in public and my contemptible willingness to spend five hours at a desk attempting to study despite my tendency to stare at a single page the entire time-- were due to a patheticness, a worthlessness, a revolting quality of some sort. This was why he either made dramatic speeches about my being an amnesiac angel dropped from heaven or impatient conclusions that I was just incapable of achieving the success I pitifully talked about. (To get rid of me. Until he needed money or cigarettes or worship again.) He introduced me to Julia Cameron and Ayn Rand and Robert Anton Wilson. He introduced me to "energy healing", "Jungian principles", and the concept of using recreational drugs to invoke spiritual experiences or to helpfully "slow down" the brain of a "genius" who "thought and made connections too fast". He explicitly suspected that he was the Messiah-- "What if this is the result of my being a mutant, like one of the X-Men?"-- and I believed he was.

Depression was the result of being spiritually troubled. It was also a character weakness. It was a problem every bit as repugnant and as easily solved by will power as my being an ugly, stupid, unaccomplished loser. Now, I realized I could not correct each of my flaws. For example, I could not turn myself into a blue-eyed, blonde-haired beauty with skin of alabaster. I could cure myself, though. Of this stupid, unnecessary melancholy and its consequences. I was sufficiently optimistic. I could make myself worthy of supernatural healing. I could be supernaturally healed. Then I could succeed at all the endeavors Jon cared about, and then I could be a world-class Somebody, and then not only Jon but everyone else who I thought mattered would love me. They might even desire me. I might even become desirable. I might even stop committing and be absolved for the mortal sin of lacking self-esteem. I might even stop creating my own negative reality and start creating a wonderful one. I might even be able to get out of bed and work like normal people. Like non-disgusting people. Like superior people.

I started taking antidepressants in 2006. I am trying to tell you how hard I have tried.

At some point, I did start thinking about suicide. "But you owe your friends three thousand dollars," suddenly interrupted a voice in my head. "You can't just leave without paying your debts!" So, once again, I put the idea of suicide aside. I'm probably simultaneously too chicken and too grateful and too guilt-ridden to go through with it anyway. What good did that do? I still hated myself and my life.

I began this post yesterday. Honestly? I think successful people don't write "emotional" posts like this. Seriously. Not like this. It's embarrassing to even have to wrestle with this degree of self-loathing in the first place. There isn't enough humor in it to inspire confidence. And the post was even more depressing, too, until DuWayne happened to Skype me amidst my tearful writing of it. He stubbornly took it upon himself to give me a wake-up call this morning. This isn't why I'm with DuWayne. I don't believe in burdening your partner with your baggage. People hurt others over whole lifetimes that way. Except DuWayne is . . . a big blue meanie. Who often has his way. I let him do it because I had no other solution. It worked, today. I managed to get out of bed and get going at six am.

When I manage to take care of this one big thing I can't write about right now, I will try to return to all the shit I've incompletely blogged about. I'm really, really sorry if you've messaged me and I haven't responded-- I just couldn't write anything that wasn't so burningly stupid that I deleted it in frustration. I think I can respond now. I'm also sorry for the sparse blogging. I need more practice. I also need not to lose anymore.


*Dude, I'm not saying he did. He didn't. Of course. I'm just sayin'. I'm just pushing the envelope. Because I'm unmannerly. And because PiT is awesome.