Cause black is how I feel on the inside.

TW: I’m going to talk about depression with a brief reference to suicidal ideation.

It’s been said that when we can no longer see the sacred in our lives, our inner flame has gone out. Those are the best words I can conjure to describe depression.

I’m lucky, I suppose. I’m not often there, “there” like it’s a place. And it does feel like a place, like a room that you walk into and the walls are lined with funhouse mirrors where you don’t even recognize yourself. If you can even muster the energy to look, that is. If you do lift your head to have a glimpse though, you wonder, “Have I always had this very long face and short little body? I guess I’ve always been this way. Why didn’t anyone bother to tell me that I’m ridiculous? Of course no one loves me, I’m unloveable and I will always be unloveable. The end.”

When I’m there, in that room, I’m there for a while before I recognize my new and unfamiliar surroundings. If it was that I just couldn’t get out of bed or that suddenly my food tasted bland or if I couldn’t stop crying, then my brain would be more satisfied with the logic and linearity of it: Bland food + Incessant crying = Depression. I wish it were that easily identifiable. It creeps in like a whisper. It makes suggestions that I would normally cock my head at, like, “Are you talking to me? Are you sure you’ve got the right person? (scoff) I don’t want to die!” And then before I know it, I can’t even remember a time that I didn’t want to die. Giant head, tiny body.

And just like I never know the exact point I’ve entered the funhouse mirror room, I’m also not aware of my exit. It starts as a slow unveiling of the sacred again and then in a final act of completion, like She’s taking a dramatic bow, God hands me a serendipitous moment. I had not one but two of those over the weekend, two more yesterday. As much as I love the magic of kismet, I don’t know if it really pays the bill for depression. I may have to get back to you on that one.

Here is what I really wanted to tell you: making things with my hands was all I could do. There was no planning. I couldn’t even make a to-do list, but I could sync my breath to my stitches long enough to make it out of that room. If you experience depression, I hope there’s something in this story that helps you. Art continues to remind me of its persistent potency, even when I can’t manage a single productive thought. Especially.

To honor that benevolent flame, I’m extending my Fall Fire Sale to the end of this week (Sunday, the 7th). You can still enter FIRE2021 to get 25% off anything in my Marketplace. There are still lots of pretty, handmade items. I have many new items to add too and will be working on photographing and listing those after Sunday.

The drive of excitement, the vitality that lives in human connection, that is the sacred for me. When your flame reignites, gratitude is easy. Tell me, what is sacred for you right now?

Le Noche Oscura

Thanksgiving week began better than fine. Sure, I had a list, but it was more about how I wanted to feel that week than what I wanted to accomplish. Less doing, more being, and even in 'doing', my expectations were low. Thanksgiving Day festivities came and went. It was not particularly exciting but there was no drama either. It was nice and even. There was one element missing though and that element was my son. He spent the day with his father and grandparents and I honestly felt that I lovingly gave my consent, again, no drama. He hadn't seen his grandparents in a while. Intellectually I was fine, however, I didn't check in with my heart too much. That night as I was waiting for his return, it started. I began to compulsively text his phone, his Dad's, his grandparent's and when they wouldn't return fast enough, the catastrophic thinking was triggered and it wouldn't stop. Even when he eventually arrived at home safely, it didn't stop and wouldn't for days. 

I don't know if you've ever had episodes of catastrophic thinking, but it's maddening. There are only two certainties in life: one is change, the other death. So yeah, we're all going to die. When you are stuck in a catastrophic loop, unfortunately often the natural progression is all out depression because if we are all going to die, then what's the point? What is the point of taking this next breath, much less take a shower or eat something? Except when you are depressed, you can't even think in options. Your brain doesn't even lay it out like that, "Sondra, you could take a shower today or not, your choice." No, it sees nothing, a vast void of nothing and the only response is uncontrollable waterworks. 

I think I've had a propensity to depression my entire life but I self-diagnosed and wrote my own prescription: alcohol. Alcohol worked enough to anesthetize myself to the feelings of it in the moment but as alcohol is a depressant, it would get right back to work, doing its job every morning  to convince me that not only was I still depressed, but I was also a piece of shit. Now that the alcohol has been removed, yep I feel the feels but at least I'm not piling on a distorted sense of worth. Remarkably now, because I know what feeling good feels like, I can become an observer, at least for a minute, a second, I can stroke that part of me that says IT IS GOING TO BE LIKE THIS FOREVER, and say, "Nope, it isn't. Even though you can't remember what to do right now, you can't remember the things that make you feel better, you will. In the meantime, it's okay to bury your head into your teenage son's shoulder and sob through Lady Bird because everything is impermanent. He will leave someday and your daughter will probably hate you for a minute and you will say that wrong thing or not say the right thing but it will be okay." 

I'm pretty sure I got sober right when I was about to launch into perimenopause and I don't know if that was divine intervention or an ancient intuition guiding me (perhaps they are the same), so it is hard for me to separate regular depression from alcohol induced depression from hormonal depression. I don't know if it is hitting me so hard this year because I'm sober or because perimenopausal hormones are like CRAZY. When I woke up after a few days of it and, after crowdsourcing and asking for help, I remembered that acupuncture made me feel better so I showered and went. My acupuncturist was sitting in for the receptionist, so she was right there when I walked in. The words barely came out of my mouth, when she said, "Me too", and our words just spilled from our mouths almost simultaneously, each confirming the other's story. Funny how that works out. When I was kicked back in the comfy chair cooking, needles protruding from heads, hands and feet, I remembered that I had come to her years ago, maybe five, and cried as I told her that I needed to cut back on drinking and asked her for help. I had completely forgotten about that too. I then drifted into a meditation and I was an owl flying very low through a dark wooded forest. There was just enough moonlight to make the ferns and rocks glisten, it was still very dark but very beautiful and I was not afraid.  

Since I've shared a little of my experience this week, I'm gathering some resources. (Thank you if you have reached out, I really appreciate it!) Coming out of it, I have so much more than what I had going in, more connection, more resolution, stronger solutions. If you can believe it,  I am grateful for the valleys because without them, I don't think I would really appreciate the mountaintops. It's just a different view, and sometimes down there in the dark, you can really see your own layers, your depth, your fears and your resilience.  And then Sister Moon comes to shine a little light so you can fly your way out.

 

Emerge

I'm late. I'm late. I'm late.

These are the only words I can say these days. I am in a constant state of lateness, not-on-timeness, not emerging. So it's funny, writing about the past #artexchange that was supposed to have been exchanged on the Spring Equinox and the topic was Emerge that I have done the opposite. Not that I haven't been social on media or started a podcast or left my house, because I have done all of those things but I have gone far and deep inside. I have cried and cried until I'm not sure if I have anymore tears. I have listened to the Hamilton soundtrack so many times, the ending is written in history books and yet, I'm still devastated by Act II. I know to trust the plan even if the route doesn't make sense to me right now, but the route is taking me through some dense fog. The plan says to just keep walking, so I am.

This piece that I made for my exchange partner meant one thing when I first arrived at the idea, but it is continuing to unfurl like a flower, a flower emerging in Spring. I'll attempt to put words to my thoughts but they may fail.

The last few years of my drinking felt like I had fallen down a well, I could see the light above me, people walking by and carrying on with their day, but I did not know how to climb out. The background of this piece has the layers of wallpaper that may have appeared fine to anyone else observing it, but if you looked closely, you could see that it was patched and barely holding itself together.

Occasionally, small leaks of light would come in until there were enough promising beams that I knew if I just started grabbing these little bits and scraps and tied them together, I may build a ladder to climb my way out. 

Sometimes I tumble back into that well. It's not as dank now, the walls aren't discolored, I'm not trying to patch them and pretend there are spots that don't need a little tending to. But I do have all of the scraps I need to build another ladder, to emerge once again.