Black Dog

I'm not a big fan of confessional blogging. It's very popular, I know, to pour one's heart or personal life out in daily installments, and it's likely a very healing exercise for many people. Yet as extroverted as I appear to be, it's highly likely that no one who reads this who does not know me personally has even the slightest idea who Olaf Rotkohl really is (IF, that is, there is anyone who reads this who does not know me personally).

Thanks to you all who do know me and read this, even if it is as "mercy readers" who fear I'd have no readers without them--bless you.

Anyway, since returning from vacation in Berlin in middle August, and very likely starting somewhat earlier this year, I've been slipping into a dark place, finally reaching a level where I'm so acutely conscious of my condition that the awareness itself is also near-paralyzing. I write about it today as a vanity post--you can stop reading now, because (and this is doubly tragic) so damned much has been written about depression that it's just not interesting, and in a way that's the trouble with most serious health concerns--cancer, heart disease, and diabetes, for example. Unless you're afflicted or a partner of someone afflicted, it's an abstraction at best, or, if you are touched by it, it can be a profound embarrassment. No one likes to admit weakness, even when it's beyond one's control.

If there's one thing I can feel good about, however, it's that I have become pretty good at faking being a happy person, even in the blackest moods. It's probably because I'm too afraid to be rude, or maybe it's fear of giving up some advantage to adversaries, or some other stupid reason, but it's probably not healthy to wait until absolute terror fills every public encounter before seeking some support.

And I should know better--I've been down this road before, and there are treatments that can be highly beneficial. The trouble is, however, that the key fact of depression is that one cannot even imagine ever feeling like living fully again. The universe reshapes itself into a narrowing helix along which one can only spiral down further. Hope is alien. Withdrawal is the only refuge, and it only takes one deeper.

As I write this, I await the deliver of some prescriptions that have helped in the past. Due to my own failures to act in a timely manner, and partially due to an unnecessarily Byzantine health care system in this country, even for those with health insurance, I've been spending the last few weeks crawling along inside the black dog, hanging on by my fingernails not to slide any further down that cone where I sincerely fear I might get wedged and never crawl out again.

I apologize for taking up space to write so personally, but if there is one benefit beyond my own selfish expiation, it is to tell anyone who reads this that there should never be shame or fear in seeking help when you find yourself not just having a bad day or two, but weeks and months of despair and hopelessness and hatred for every time you have to speak with another person. It's not weakness, it is illness, and in most, maybe all cases it is treatable. The devil in the affliction is that it disables even the faintest light of possibility that life can ever be enjoyable again, and that is the tragedy. If I didn't know intellectually that treatment is there and can work very effectively, I'd have given up long, long ago. But even as I don't feel hopeful, I have memory of having had a time in my life when every morning was the beginning of a fascinating day and I could not believe how lucky I was to have the world before me, so beautiful, and so full of possibilities.

If you ever find yourself here, deep inside this black dog, please tell someone. Find help. Talk to your doctor.

It's no way to live, and there are no heroes who continue to dwell here.