Living with 'The Darkness'

I refer to it as “the darkness.” It comes to visit like a passing storm. I wish I could control it, but the darkness settles in on its own schedule, and it rains, sometimes softly, sometimes forcefully, sometimes for a bit and sometimes for seemingly endless stretches. But it always is in control.

The recent suicides of Kate Spade and Anthony Bourdain bring the focus back on the illness of depression. And it is an illness as real as any other ailment from which one may suffer. We sufferers may not heal ourselves just as the wheelchair bound may not simply stand and walk away.

I don’t hide the fact that I suffer from depression. I will talk about it to anyone, and I have counseled friends about their own pain. Then again, I also don’t throw around the fact that I am a depression sufferer because so many view depression with disdain, a weakness, as if we choose this internal battle. This is not a choice. This is simply who I am.

The darkness recently rolled over me with a great force. I will explain that in a later writing, but this time, the forces were external. There was a tangible reason why I went into what some now call “The Sunken Place,” a phrase born from Jordan Peele’s brilliant horror movie “Get Out.”

That scene is meant to scare, but it’s also a shockingly accurate depiction of what it means to fall into depression. You have no control. You become an observer to everything around you, trapped in a pit of darkness where sadness is magnified by a megaphone. No matter how hard you scream for a return to the light, that sound is drowned out by the intensity of the darkness.

I always emerge from my darkness. I guess that is the blessing of my depression. I have it far better than so many others. Their sunken places are much deeper, much darker, and eventually emotionally inescapable. That leads to a dreadful decision that must seem so unavoidable to people such as Spade, Bourdain and one of my personal favorite performers, Robin Williams, that the ruins they will leave behind for others seem not to matter.

Someone must find them, and it’s often someone they love. It’s always someone who will be forever changed and haunted by consequences of the sufferer’s decision.

For too many, suicide becomes the only solution. It becomes the only escape. The sunken place is too deep, too dark to believe that the light will return.

It’s that reality that is so difficult for non-sufferers to grasp. They see suicide as a selfish choice, and it is, but for those who find themselves surrounded by hopelessness, it apparently becomes the only choice, selfish or not.

Maybe the greatest evil trick of depression is making one not want to communicate. The fear of judgment, or that facing the depression vocally will only make it worse, forces us to hold back, to not reach out when we need to reach out. We fall deeper into our hole.

If you find yourself so lost in your own darkness that words cannot be spoken, visit https://suicidepreventionlifeline.org/. If you can speak the words, dial 1-800-273-8255 or reach out to someone you know will understand.

For me, as with others such as Williams, Spade, and Bourdain, depression isn’t simply an ailment from which we suffer, it reaches into the very core of who we are. There is an undeniable link between the creative brain and depression. What wires one to their personal creative gifts also links them to depression. It’s as if the very thing that makes a race car go fast makes the crashes more spectacular.

I’d link an article for you to read, but simply Google search for “depression and creativity” and look at the results. It’s overwhelming. Too many blessed with creative skills take their own lives either intentionally through suicide or unintentionally through addiction.

The “famous” find themselves trapped in depression or addiction not because they’re “weird,” but because their brains literally work differently. They act, they sing, they design, they write, they make you laugh. And there’s a great chance they also suffer, battling their own degrees of darkness with medication, alcohol, drugs or denial.

It is this acceptance of my utter inability to control my depression that also helps me. I am who I am. I can’t make it go away, but I do take daily medication, and I can constantly remind myself that when the storm rolls in, no matter how forceful, it will eventually move on.

There’s a reason I wake up every day to the song “I Can See Clearly Now,” and there’s a reason why my favorite song isn’t simply a great piece of music by George Harrison of The Beatles, it’s an optimistic expression of my personal battle: “Here Comes the Sun”.

I am blessed with the belief that no matter how disabling the arrival of my darkness becomes, that it will also depart. I know that the sun will return. It always does for me, but I also understand that others are not so certain.

When many fall into their sunken place, they can’t just climb out and telling them to “smile” to “get out of the house” to “go exercise” doesn’t do a damn bit of good. It actually makes it worse because then they know that their friend simply does not understand their personal torment.

Offer support. Offer availability. Offer love if that is your relationship. But do not judge us, please. Wishing away the storm will not make it pass. You can only await the sun, and be there at your loved one’s side when it arrives.

This is the first entry into the personal blog of Timothy Fitzgerald. More will follow. Or maybe not. He might get distracted by a puppy or something.