I Was Given The Gift of Depression
A different perspective of mental illness.
I was diagnosed with Major Depressive Disorder in my mid-20s. For the large majority of my life, the feelings of hopelessness and ennui that colored my world felt like some kind of birthright curse — like whatever Maleficent did to Aurora in the beginning of Sleeping Beauty.
In fact, it’s almost easier to believe that an evil dark witch put a curse on me — one that would make each day of my life a struggle to exist in — rather than accept that a simple misbalancing of chemical reactions in my brain regularly deceive me into believing that things are worse than they are. At least the witch would have done something out of deliberate intention. Alas, I’m instead left with the unfairness of the fact that life often feels painfully pointless to me, and that this feeling is caused by nothing more than a few neurochemicals not showing up to work on time (or ever).
For many years before my diagnosis, I was ruled by my depressive episodes. Though, truthfully, it’s difficult for me to call them episodes because I was near constantly depressed. It would be more appropriate to organize my life into “happy episodes,” because those were the feelings that showed up in brief consistencies throughout my life.
In being ruled by my depression I was unable to do many things. I found it difficult to focus on long-term tasks and projects, like writing, for example. I would start writing a story only to decide it was pointless and give up on it.
However, all that changed when I was diagnosed with depression, and mercifully given access to antidepressants. Now, I know there are a lot of differing opinions out there about medication and mental illness, and I’m not here to tell you one way is better than the other. Medication worked for me, though. It didn’t cure my depression, as I believe from my own experiences that clinical depression cannot be cured. But, rather, being medicated allowed me to regain control of my thoughts and emotions to enough of an extent that I could rationalize my depressive episodes and understand the internal factors causing them.
Never being one to enjoy relying on help from outside sources, though, I’ve tried to get off of my meds several times. And I’ve learned that, for me, this is not possible. Or rather, it is severely detrimental to my mental health.
For me, medication is necessary in order to not be ruled by my mental illness. And, in accepting this, I have been able to realize what a gift my depression is when it is healthily managed.
I’m telling you all of this background so that you have enough context to understand where I’m coming from when I say what I’m about to say next:
Being depressed is the single best gift I could have ever been given as a writer.
Truly, it is. Because of my depression, my mind works in a way that I believe is highly advantageous for a writer. I see things that other people don’t. I’m introspective and extremely self-aware. I revel in solitude and isolation (to a certain extent — not that 2020 quarantine-level isolation). I see things in ways it seems that some people just… don’t. And I don’t believe I’d have these characteristics if I weren’t depressed.
I first considered depression as a gift when I was writing this piece about famous writers and alcoholism for The Writing Cooperative. There, for the first time, I noticed the recurrence of mental illness in so many prolific writers. And then I noticed how mental illness, and specifically depression, makes a person almost ideal for a career in writing:
- Depressed people like to be alone, and writing is a lonely activity.
- Depressed people often observe rather than interact, which is helpful in writing scenes and characters.
- Depressed people tend to have darker thoughts, which usually makes for more interesting stories.
- Depressed people often have trouble sleeping, and writing is an unintrusive late-night activity.
Granted, not everyone with depression will experience these symptoms but, for me, they’ve proven to be true. In fact, for the longest time, I was actually afraid to seek help for my mental health, because I worried that going on medication would dull my writing abilities.
Nothing could have been further from the truth.
I’m still depressed. I think I always will be to some extent. However, my mental illness no longer runs my life. I think of it this way:
Before I was on meds and, later, in therapy, being depressed was for me like being trapped in a subway car, with everything around me flashing by and me stuck in my metal tube underground, only able to observe and occasionally interact with the passengers stepping on board. Today, I recognize that my depression is that metal car, but I’m now in the conductor's booth, telling it when it's speeding too fast or in danger of going off the rails. I can control when it stops and who it lets on. I can sit in my seat and observe the route and say, “I understand where this is going and why,” and I can slow it down or change the route if I want to.
In terms of writing, this means I have much more control over how my depression affects my life and routines, but I get to retain the aspects of it that lend themselves to writing. I couldn’t imagine being a neurotypical person with a generally happy outlook and writing as much as I do these days. More likely, I think I’d have more of a social life and enjoy going out every weekend, which would make writing regularly much harder.
Instead, I was gifted the neurochemistry of depression. The price of it is that I still struggle to feel happy many days, but I now see the rewards that were embedded in me because of it.
If you or someone you know is struggling with their mental health, please call SAMHSA’s National Helpline at 1–800–662-HELP (4357).