Monday, July 12, 2010

The Ninja

I spend an inordinate amount of time trying not to die. It's fair to say that most people don't make a point of throwing themselves in front of moving vehicles or scanning the sky for incoming meteors and positioning their lawn chairs accordingly for maximum impact, but I'm not most people.

I suffer from major depressive disorder, and in hindsight, it's something that I was likely born with. I was several weeks late in being born, (yes, weeks) and it's probably because I was floating around, thinking to myself that there really wasn't much point in coming out. Not when I can just sleep, eat, not care and comfortably put my legs over my head for the last time in my existence.

Depression is the least fun of all the mental disorders, and certainly low priority when considering what to tell people at parties. Anorexia will at least get you out of bed, and everybody wants to know a nymphomaniac. People with bi-polar disorder can be fun for part of the time, and are slightly more likely to have the energy to clean their kitchens after they stay up baking cupcakes for 48 hours.

Yes, I'm being completely facetious, but I've earned the right to make fun of my fellow crazies. I've dealt with anxiety, panic attacks, OCD behaviours, post-traumatic stress disorder and for my co-workers who have to view my desk every day, possibly hoarding. Each one is crippling on its own merits, but none are quite so dangerous as depression.

I've nicknamed my depression the Ninja, because of how it sneaks up on me so slowly, by the time I realize it's there I'm already fighting for my life. The Ninja walks softly, appearing as a black silhouette, a negative cut-out shape in the fabric of my world.

The Ninja does not fuck around. If depression has a goal and a purpose it's to kill. Up to 60% of people who off themselves have depression or another mood disorder, and it's because when the Ninja starts to talk, it can be very persuasive.

That's how I know the Ninja has arrived and is now sharing my couch, my bed, and hogging the sink when I brush my teeth. There are other signs before the Ninja officially drops luggage in my hallway, but they can be easy to write off until the voice starts. When the Ninja starts talking, I need to start fighting if I think there's the slightest chance I might want to see future seasons of Glee.

Depression feels like grief. It's every sadness you've ever experienced, washing over you in continuing waves, stripping every happy thought, pleasurable moment, and your bathing suit right along with it. When I'm living with the Ninja, everything slows down. I move more slowly. My arms and legs are so heavy. I talk more slowly, and I don't remember things. I grasp for words, the ends of my thoughts and any kind of a life line.

I cry all the time, and so this at least hastens my morning beauty routine. There's no point in mascara and carefully applied eye-liner when I have a 25 minute weeping appointment to keep as part of my drive to work. If you were to ask me why I'm crying I would have no fucking idea. I can't explain why. The grief is all consuming but I don't know what to point to as a cause.

I force myself to do things I normally love to do. Socializing, reading, movies, exercise, firefighters...all of these things become a chore. I want to eat. That's all. I also want to sleep, and the rare night I even manage it. The rest of the time I wake up at the oddest hours, wider awake than I am during any time of the day.

That all starts before the Ninja starts to whisper though, and I guess that's because if the voice started in my ears any earlier, it might not make such poisonous sense.

What the Ninja starts saying is, "Just do it. Just die already. Take yourself out. So much easier for you, and better for everybody in the long run."

Arguing doesn't work. The Ninja is an assassin and there's no reasoning with an assassin. All I can hope to do is be smarter than the voice in my head, and failing that, hide.

At one time or another, I've been prescribed every anti-depressant on the market. I've thrown up, been constipated for days on end, jittered and jived when sitting still, gotten dizzy when turning my head, felt my eyeballs pulsing and shook, wept, sweat and moaned through three solid days and nights of withdrawal when doctors acknowledged the medication wasn't working, but there was no better plan to get me off of them.

Anti-depressants don't work for at least 10% of the population. I'm also a proud member of the 10% of people unable to see Magic Eye pictures, so somebody really should look into a correlation.

What's worked so far in keeping me alive is my family. When the Ninja starts telling me how easy it would be to crank the wheel hard when I'm driving through the mountains, or whispering about how some drug interactions can be surprisingly fatal, I think about what it would do to those I love most. Even when the Ninja tells me my family would be better off and would realize I was a total failure anyways eventually, I'm able to think that's not for me to decide.

My friends for the most part know I'm a fuck-up, so the Ninja has to fight for ground there too. It's not enough to say my friends don't know I'm actually a total failure - most of them probably do, and as long as I bring wine, nobody really cares.

With me though, the Ninja has a lot of pull. It's so hard to keep fighting, and so easy to just stop. I've started trying to outsmart that black shape by making lists.

Lists of books I want to read, trips I'm supposed to take, clothing I want to fit into again and songs I like but haven't danced to. It sounds ridiculous, but it's surprisingly effective. When I say I don't want to kill myself just yet because I haven't finished the trilogy of books featuring the girl with the dragon tattoo, the Ninja let's me have that one. I don't think it knows what to say to that. And hopefully, it lets me have the next one after that and the next one after that until my arms and legs don't feel so heavy and I can rest.

Depressive episodes pass on their own. The trick is surviving. Eventually every book, every trip and every experience on my list will start to feel good again, and the colour will seep back into the black, ninja shaped hole in my life. I have to believe in it.

Magic eye pictures however, remain highly suspect.

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