It begins, as always, with a feeling of unease that I try desperately to hide from my kids. It's a vicious circle, depression. The more you feel it, the more you want to hide it, and the more you hide it, the worse it gets.
There is nothing specifically wrong, of course; that would be too easy. When it comes, it is more of a general sense of "downness," like a thick fog has descended and taken up residence in my head. This is the first in so long, I'd almost forgotten the symptoms. I certainly would have liked to.
After the initial cloud settles in, so does the familiarity, and the realization that I've been fighting it for some time - probably just as much for my husband's sake as my children's. He lost an old friend to suicide recently, and I think that shook him to the core that someone could be so outgoing, so gregarious, so "together" - and yet so sad.
So when he's around - which is often, since we both work from home - I am somehow able to contain it. And when the kids are around, there simply isn't time to completely succumb. There are sports to get to, and homework to be done, and bedtime routines to be performed. But then one day the husband went out of town, and the kids went to school, and I went back to bed. And couldn't get up. It finally spilled over.
If you're not familiar with depression, if the commercials for Cymbalta aren't enough to give you a general feel, it's like this, at least for me: walking on the bottom of a murky, dark pond, able to breathe but really just barely, trudging through silt and sand that impedes your progress with every step, knowing - hopefully, on some level - that it can't last forever, that there is a shoreline somewhere and if you can keep trudging, you will make it there.
But while you're trudging, life as you know it has stopped.
In my case, I find it difficult to get out of bed, let alone get dressed. It's almost impossible to shower and brush and my teeth, let alone go to the grocery store ... or to teach my class. I can't write, and I don't want to talk. I want to sleep. That's all. I want to curl up in my bed and wake up when everything's fine again. When I was single, it was frighteningly easy; it was almost welcome, sometimes. Maybe because it was familiar.
But then I found a medication that helped, and then I had children. If my depression was lurking, it was at least held at bay . . . until the last couple weeks. The kids would get on the bus, and I would go back to bed. I'd cancel any appointments by email so I wouldn't have to talk to anyone. I'd get up briefly, let the dog out, and hit the couch. Ten minutes before the bus brought them home I'd change from pajamas to sweats, brush my teeth and hair, and quickly pick up the breakfast dishes.
I think I did a fine job of masquerading for the kids, because I felt I had to. They come home from school and expect to see a normal mother, one who gives them snacks and makes them dinner and listens to their day with some degree of enthusiasm. And who wants to be remembered as the mommy with "the spells" anyway? Do they really need to know this stuff?
The answer, of course, is yes. They do need to know it, for a couple reasons, not the least of which is that when I'm having such a "spell," I need help. Help with the dishes, help with the laundry, whatever. More importantly, though, they need to know it to be able to recognize the symptoms, in themselves, or in their friends. In themselves because depression can be hereditary, and knowledge is power; in their friends, because kids don't always confide in parents when things are wrong, they confide in their friends. And knowledge is power.
I also know that if the bullying tactics and opportunities that are available today were around 40 years ago, I probably would not have survived high school. I'm amazed I did anyway, although the credit for that should probably go to my fear of going to a hell worse than the one I was already in more than any internal fortitude on my part. But with what I see out there today, the hell I feared back then might seem like a viable escape.
Not telling my kids about this won't make them not experience it. It will just make them more frightened if they do, and more likely to hide it from me. And the circle will be complete.