The Dark Deep

In which we honor Mental Health Awareness Month.

When I was in middle school, I went through what I will charitably call a “difficult phase.” My parents were stymied by my distress, and the therapists they took me to were never able to get past my quills, and so therapy was quickly abandoned. Things settled down enough to be manageable in high school and through college, and then, in my early twenties, I found myself in the grip of a demon who appeared seemingly out of nowhere, and who I could not escape.

This demon was a clever one: She managed to convince me that public social spaces - restaurants, theaters, bars - all posed some vague but terrible threat, which roiled my stomach into nauseous waves, and filled me with the fear of vomiting in front of everyone. I soon learned to quickly assess the location of the restroom in every space I entered, to only choose an aisle seat, and to make sure I had a clear path out of the room if I needed to make a run for it. I couldn’t enjoy time with my friends or my family, or shows or movies or concerts, because that relentless demon kept me obsessing over the singular fear of throwing up in public.

Over time, and even though my worst fear never materialized, things got progressively more difficult. I started to avoid going out at all, even with close friends. Finally, with incredible shame and reticence, I shared what was going on with my boyfriend at the time. I still remember the look of empathy he gave me, and my feeling of utter surprise as this charismatic, confident man revealed that he had suffered panic attacks so bad they had sent him to the hospital. He then shared with me a book - Anxiety and Panic Attacks: Their Cause and Cure - which he said had made all the difference for him.

And so I purchased the book and committed to its regimen of guided meditations and visualizations. And you know what? It worked. Not immediately - it took a lot of time and effort, a therapist who finally diagnosed me with the anxiety disorder I had clearly had since childhood, and coming out of my rootless twenties into my settled thirties. But the book marked the beginning of my path to better mental health, and I will always be grateful to that boyfriend for sharing it with me.

Now, in my (unsettled again!) forties, I find new challenges popping up. I no longer suffer from social anxiety, but from a time-related and anticipatory anxiety (no doubt tied to the anxiety of my twenties, but manifesting differently) that finds me panicking in situations when I’m waiting for something to happen that I cannot control. Therapy, meditation, my standby anxiety book, and keeping my distance from people who throw me off balance, all help me stay as centered as possible. I was also recently diagnosed with PMDD, a very severe form of PMS, which had my moods spinning out of control for a week or two every month over the course of several years. I’m on medication for this now, which, when used in conjunction with my other strategies, has made a huge difference.

Overall, I feel not as if I have achieved some mental health nirvana, but as if I have the tools and resources I need to manage the mental health challenges I face - imperfectly, sure, but in a way that I hope is always improving. And what more can we offer ourselves and our loved ones and the world than a commitment to doing the work, to getting the help we all need, and to mending our lives the best we can?

So why is the picture at the top a photo of me with Annie? Because this past fall my sweet girl was diagnosed with bipolar disorder. I don’t want to tell too much of her story, which will be hers to tell when she’s ready. But I can give my perspective as her mom.

What do you say to your daughter when she tells you she wishes she were dead, and you know she means it absolutely? When Annie is in The Dark Deep, as she described it in a beautiful song she wrote, she is a million miles away, and I can’t reach her.

First, and far most importantly, the courage and strength of this amazing child stun me every day. She is in thrall to a demon far worse than mine, and at an age and point in time when the world is overwhelming enough without a mental illness to contend with. But every day she gets up and faces that world with determination and persistence, and a dash of excellent humor, and boundless creativity, and - yes - joy, and it just knocks me sideways to watch her.

Second, her older and younger sisters remind me daily what grace and courage and empathy look like, as they do their best to prop Annie up, and to love her back to health. I am so grateful for them I could cry, although I also worry deeply that they feel responsible for her happiness, and I try to remind them often that offering kindness is enough.

And finally, no one - no one! - prepares you for the shredding pain of watching your daughter in the grip of a depression so terrible that it can turn a bright, vivacious, creative, funny, extroverted, artistic, deeply empathetic, larger-than-life, 9-year-old into a listless, too-sad-to-even-cry, self-hating ball of despair. What do you do when your child won’t eat? Can’t sleep? Curls up on the couch and doesn’t move for hours? Suffers through a vicious, multi-day panic attack? (She is home from school right now as she wrestles with one particularly terrible episode, which began at 4 a.m. three days ago.) What do you say to your daughter when she tells you she wishes she were dead, and you know she means it absolutely? When Annie is in The Dark Deep, as she described it in a beautiful song she wrote, she is a million miles away, and I can’t reach her. I just have to sit nearby and radiate love until the tiniest of spaces opens up for her to receive it. (“There is a crack in everything/that’s how the light gets in….”)

So this is my story - the very short version anyway - and a shred of Annie’s story too. I am grateful to have access to powerful resources and wise practices and therapy and medicine. I am grateful for the beautiful people who have offered gentleness and understanding and help to me and to my little girl, and who have stuck with me through thick and thin. I am terrified of the future, which feels far more foreboding than it did a year ago. But I am hopeful that Annie’s genius and wild creativity will propel her forward, even as the demon grasps at her legs. And I am hopeful, too, about a world that honors Mental Health Awareness Month, and which is beginning to be a place where both Annie and I can find acceptance, and support, and empathy.

Note: Here are some resources I have found wonderful and helpful. I hope you find wisdom and comfort here too, if you need it:

• For little kids: The Shadow Elephant by Nadine Robert, and Virginia Wolf, written by Kyo Maclear and illustrated by Isabelle Arsenault, are both beautiful and sensitive portrayals of depression.

• For big kids: Raina Telgemeier’s autobiographical graphic novel, Guts.

• To address panic attacks (referenced above): Anxiety and Panic Attacks: Their Cause and Cure, by Robert Handly and Pauline Neff. (Please don’t be put off by the book’s description, which sounds like a self-help scam. It’s not - I promise!)

• Little Panic: Dispatches from an Anxious Life, a powerful memoir by Amanda Stern.

• Hyperbole and a Half - a blog by the genius Allie Brosh, who also has written two books. Her posts on depression, in particular, which I shared small excerpts from with Annie, are a searing description of life with this disease. The rest of the blog is funny as hell.

• Living Beautifully with Uncertainty and Change, by Pema Chödrön, which has truly changed my life.

• The Ten Percent Happier app, which, while pricey, has wonderful teachers and meditations. Vee can’t fall asleep without listening to one of the meditations led by Jeff Warren - in particular his session on gratitude. (“Can I have Jeff?” she asks.)

• Finally, a number of these resources came to me from the amazing Brain Pickings, which has many more essays and readings on the topic of mental illness, by some of the world’s most brilliant writers.