Life, Death, Whatever

Posted by fxckfeelings on October 15, 2009

Accepting that we are all fucked by life is a basic tenet of the f*ckfeelings.com philosophy; there’s a certain zen to it, as we encourage not just being one with the universe and its glory but also with its amber waves of pain. For people who suffer from depression, pain makes an obvious attempt to define your life goal as “I’ve got to stop this.” But killing pain, as desirable as it is, will always compound your troubles if you make it your goal. Your goal is your goal and pain is pain and never the twain should meet.
–Dr. Lastname

I have been struggling with depression for most of my adult life, and I do mean struggling. No matter how many times I find myself going through months at a time of feeling hopeless, angry, and miserable, I know it’s a treatable illness—a chemical imbalance— nd that there must be a way to control it. Over the past twenty years, I’ve been through a handful of shrinks and at least a dozen medications, because no matter how bad it gets, I’ve refused to give up looking for the treatment that will allow me to fulfill the promise of my otherwise lucky life. The problem is that, twenty years into this battle, and I’m still not winning. Treatment works for a while, and just when it seems like things are finally working out for me and I’m in the clear, everything falls apart again. My goal is to figure out how—with what treatment, medication, game plan—to get control of this disease and live a normal life, because I’m stronger than this, and I refuse to let depression get the last laugh.

Hold up—did I miss the morning’s headlines that declared depression a curable illness? Up until yesterday, it wasn’t, and when you think about it, the list of truly curable diseases is an adorably short one. Really, unless you’ve got athlete’s foot, you’re probably shit out of luck.

That said, it doesn’t mean you should shoot yourself unless you’re similarly upset by the incurability of hypertension, diabetes, osteoporosis, high cholesterol, and all the other illnesses that most of us get, sooner or later. Even athlete’s foot isn’t worth it.

The issue here is that if you think that beating an illness means getting rid of it, you’ve lost before you’ve begun to fight. And if that illness is depression, then losing means getting more depressed, which means becoming a bigger loser, ad infinitum.

You’ve been watching the TV news where they declare that someone lost his fight with cancer by dying, which is an amazingly cruel thing to say. We don’t lose a fight with illness by dying, but by letting aging, pain, symptoms, and all the other shit that life throws at us slow us down more than absolutely necessary. Relapses aren’t a form of losing, they’re a form of life. C’est la vie. And la vie often sucks.

So take credit for tolerating all those treatment trials, because it sounds like you’ve done a terrific job managing your illness and reducing its impact on your life. I hope, however, that you paid just as much attention to what you were doing while you were depressed as you did to your symptoms, and invested as much in your work and friendships as you did in your treatment.

So don’t make your pain worse by telling yourself you should have been able to cure it. You live in the Home for Incurables, so push the limits and be proud. And, if you use the shower at the gym, wear flip-flops.

STATEMENT:
Pull out a statement you wrote to yourself when you were feeling more positive. “Depression always makes me feel like life’s biggest loser. But it’s just pain, I didn’t create it, and I don’t deserve it. It won’t last forever. I’ve done my best to manage it medically, I know lots of tricks for keeping myself going and distracted from it, and I’m proud of what I’ve been able to do in spite of it. Whatever happens, I’ve done fine so far and I’ll stick with what I’m trying to do. It can kill me. But it can’t change my values or my goals, which will keep me living what I can of my life for as long as I can.”

I see a therapist, but he doesn’t have any good ideas, so I thought I’d get a second opinion. I’m a so-called senior citizen, and while I’m in a wheelchair with now-useless legs, my mind is still quite intact, thank you very much. My husband, who passed away almost ten years ago, was a great man, and he left me in a very financially comfortable situation, which I look forward to passing down to my children. All that said, I’ve struggled with periods of depression ever since the birth of my first child, and so, despite all the good in my life, I’m also in a lot of pain (mostly mental but some physical, in my legs) and am not afraid to tell people, like my family and now the shrink they want me to see, that I’m looking forward to death and am actually quite eager to die. Nobody seems to want to hear it, but I feel like I’ve earned it, and besides, the timing is right. My goal is to either figure out what’s wrong with my wish or get enough ammunition to get everyone off my back.

If your goal is to escape your pain, then suicide is a reasonable option. The trouble is, you’ve got more important goals in life to think about first (with “in life” being the operative words here).

No, you are no longer responsible for caring for children or other dependents, but that really doesn’t change the fact that one of your most important goals, as a parent and person, is to bear pain and live life in spite of it. And now you must ask yourself whether that goal ever changes, regardless of age or mobility.

What suicide means is that your pain becomes more important than anything else. And sometimes that really happens, or you know it’s about to happen, and anyone who knows the truth will understand that you didn’t give up your values by exiting life, you were simply overcome.

Otherwise, your job is to make the best of what you’ve got. You may not be ready to play murderball, but you’ve got a sharp brain, an ability to care, and a wealth of experience. You express yourself well. Your goal is to try to find a way to use your abilities and make life better, regardless of how negatively you feel. Hell, if you’re really at loose ends, you can write a blog.

But don’t talk about being ready to depart unless you want to guilt your relatives into visiting more often. Talking about it gives more power to your pain and boredom, and that’s not good for you.

Don’t talk about your right to die, either. Your goal is to live by your values and encounter death within those values, not as a reward for hard work well done. That’s the same balance sheet rationalization that people use to justify downing a quart of ice cream when they’ve got diabetes, or a liter of vodka when they can’t afford to get drunk.

You’re on a car trip that’s become boring and painful and you want to ask “Are we there yet?” You’re old enough to know better. You’re making the trip longer and even more painful.

STATEMENT:
Reach back to a statement you might have composed in better days, when you knew things would get painful and you didn’t want pain to make you forget your values. “When I’m depressed and disabled, life doesn’t seem like it’s worth living. But it’s easy to forget that my relationships will never stop being important to me and that I have much to contribute, even when it seems like I’m nothing but a burden. There’s value in much that I do, even if I can’t see it, so I will try to do what I’ve always done, and try to contribute, and make the most of my relationships, and that’s how I’ll fight the distortion of depression and continue to be me.”