7. Out of Balance: Depression pwns Tracy

Today marks the one month anniversary of my break up. 31 days ago my world fell apart, my life changed, my faith grew. I faced grief head-on and sailed through its first three phases: denial, bargaining, and anger. Then early last week phase number four reared its ugly head. Depression came calling and planted itself firmly in the very front part of my brain, right where I would constantly see, hear, and feel it's presence.

I've always flirted with depression in one way or another. Two wonderful therapists, Rose and Gayle, have explained to me that this stems from being left behind by bio-dad, whom I remember as 'Daddy' from early childhood and 'Steve' from my adulthood. Abandonment by a dad, I learned, often leads women to seek out boys and men who are toxic, and to just love them too much. They tend to ignore warning signs of bad relationships.

Accordingly, I have been dumped before, by bad boys. I've felt this pain before. This time it's been a different journey, because this time of course, I was married. The man of my dreams and I spoke vows before our family, promising to stick it out through better or worse. I meant what I said. Rob, apparently, did not.

Today depression is telling me to kick back and hang out in memoryville. Memories which are so painful for me now that I cannot write about them. What's so ironic about my depressed, memory-obsessed mind is that I can't live with my memories and I can't stand to forget them. Sometimes when my memories of married life with Rob hit me it's as if someone punches me in the gut really hard. The wind literally gets knocked right out of me. My arms and legs feel a hundred pounds heavier and my hands go numb. My face freezes: no smile, sound, sniffle, or tear can escape. I become a lump of coal, completely dead to the world.

I've found that waves of depression can hit any time of day, but are most likely to assault me while I'm out of the house. Last Sunday I went with Courtney to the mall while she got her hair done. I thought it would be cathartic to wander around the shops. I grabbed a spinach salad and set out to roam the mall one floor at a time. There were people everywhere, laughing and excited for the holidays. Christmas decorated the entire mall; it was beautiful and cheery. I saw my favorite stores and a lot of sales going on. It was snowing outside and warm inside and people everywhere were smiling, laughing, sharing.

I never felt so alone in my entire life. I hated every step I took, every face I saw, and every song I heard. It took every ounce of composure I could muster to not burst into tears. I felt like everyone I came across felt sorry for me, somehow knowing my pain and humiliation --pshaw, she just got dumped, I know that look yo.

I went back to the salon and waited for Courtney's foils to develop, trying miserably to tune out the background music. (Why is it when we suffer a breakup that suddenly every single song ever released was somehow tied to "us"? I don't get that.) I tried praying. I begged God to take the overwhelming sadness sacked out on top of me, and when He did not, I begged Him to lend me some physical pain--arthritis, tendonitis, back pain, even a tooth ache--I begged my Creator to allow pain to bite me so I could take a pain pill to escape my incredible sadness.

I worry intensely about allowing my pain meds to become a crutch during this journey. So far I have refused to pop a painkiller purely for emotional needs. At this point I'm not sure what to do with them, I've been taking prescription pain pills for years. I was in the beginning phase of switching from pharmaceutical pain management to holistic pain recovery when I got dumped. My doctor has warned me that to wean off narcotics during an emotional dive bomb like my breakup could be disastrous. So, I dutifully take my pill every morning. That it faithfully delivers a false sense of euphoria and false hope is, frankly, a bonus.

The second wave of this great depression hit me just today, December 1st. I took my grand- babies to the park around the corner after naptime. This was an ill-timed plan. Had I taken them after morning snack we would have been blessed with the sun being fairly high in the sky, sending warm and cheery beams straight down on us at any angle. Instead, we went when the shadows were long, even though it was only two in the afternoon. That made the day seem lonely, gloomy, and dark in spite of the cloudless sky.

I was watching the kids play when Wave Number Two hit, and nearly had to steady myself lest I fall right over from its weight. The familiar numb face and hands, the heavy arms and legs, the dry throat all smacked me at once. The air turned 20 degrees colder, and the shadows got a lot longer as the sun seemed to disappear right out of the sky. This particular wave also brought its good friend and fellow wave nausea, accompanied by regret and pity.

I could almost see the oppression. I could certainly feel it. The babies played, shouted, and ran around, completely oblivious to my sudden onset of complete paralysis. Cold and loneliness settled on my shoulders and ran down my arms like thick paste. My tongue grew numb and heavy. My eyes closed a little. Next my knees buckled as the dark wave crushed the lower half of my body. I could hear the children, and was very aware of their presence but powerless against this unseen force to interact with them. Their laughter sounded like it came from a great distance through thick insulating fog.

After a full minute of utter aloneness in the middle of that playground I forced myself to snap... somewhere. Anywhere, just get out of that funk; I had babies to attend to! I reached into my coat pocket and found my cell phone, pulled it out and switched on the camera. Photography would save my soul as it had so many times before. I began taking pictures of my babies climbing, swinging, and running around. Before I knew it my techno-pic brain kicked in and I began walking around, chasing after them to capture them in the best light. It was a brilliant play on God's part to lift me up from the depths of that brutal wave that had pounded me into oblivion. By the time the kids finished playing and we were loaded in the car I had gotten myself fairly well removed from the dark wave. I looked back and thought geez I was in some sort of altered state of consciousness there, like a seizure patient in his postictal moments right after a convulsion. Seriously, scarily heavy.