The Other Side

I was thinking some more about that quote: “You must never confuse faith that you will prevail in the end- which you can never afford to lose- with the discipline to confront the most brutal facts of your current reality, whatever they might be.” —James Stockdale

I realized that maintaining this paradox in my mind was not only something I applied to my career, as I talked about in my last blog. It was also the way I approached my emotional process. I used to believe that no matter how terrifying a feeling was, if I faced it head on, I could process it and get to the other side. So I trained myself to dive deep into despair, believing wholly that I’d come through it completely and be rid of it. And it really seemed to work for me. There was a stretch of time in my twenties when I took on every emotion with my full body and soul and sublimated it into art, usually songs, but also poems and paintings and sculptures. I saw this ability to be fully honest with myself as my greatest attribute as well as a practiced skill. I knew it would see me through any trial, any struggle. I had unerring faith that I would come out the other side.

Around the time of my 30th birthday, I was suffering from my worst depression to date. I would sob and sob, trying to talk it through with my best friend on the phone, or write about it in my journal. I’d try to work through it by working a 12-step program for overeating (OA), by sharing my experiences in meetings and trusting that it would help. I tried to fall in love, and laid my problems at my boyfriend’s feet, believing that if I were simply honest enough, I’d overcome my deep depression.

I’d never committed to taking psychiatric medication up to that time, believing all my problems could be solved through this “emotional processing” I’d honed over the years. I channeled my torrent of emotions into my acting classes, my singing, using my pain as fuel for art. But there came a breaking point.

I was working, performing in a musical in Philadelphia, when my depression nearly immobilized me. I never missed a rehearsal, a show, or a cue, but offstage I was sinking quickly. My now-husband befriended me, saw how deeply I was suffering, and helped me seek medical assistance. This took some time and a lot of convincing, but eventually I found a psychiatrist back in NY and started taking medication. And in doing so, I admitted that this time I would not come out the other side. I admitted my depression was a bottomless pit, a black hole, and no amount of diving in and “facing myself” would get me out of it.

This was the most difficult reality I’d ever had to face: the reality that my depression had no “rock bottom,” that it would continue infinitely if left to its own progression. I was beyond self-help books. I was beyond yoga and feng shui and affirmations. I was beyond daily exercise and clean eating (I was running 40 minutes a day and eating a sugar-free, wheat-free diet including lots of vegetables and flax seed at the time). I was beyond bodywork and acupuncture and herbal remedies. I was clinically, chemically depressed with some symptoms of psychosis (originally diagnosed as Bipolar II). There was an extensive history of mental illness in my family and I could find no alternative treatment to relieve my symptoms. I had to start taking medication.

Now, medication is not perfect, but I believe it’s kept me alive. It’s kept me from falling so far into that bottomless pit that I acted on the desire to take my life. No amount of facing my feelings in therapy was going to get me out of this one. And so I stopped believing in my “practiced skill.” I could no longer rely on my honesty and authenticity to keep me sane, to keep me alive. This was a great loss for me, the loss of that innate self-knowledge as my lifeboat. I still find myself taking those deep dives into my worst feelings, but I no longer find myself on the other side. I find myself right where I am, right in my own brutal reality of mental illness.

So now I have to retrain myself to stop diving. I have to learn to lean into the light instead of the abyss. I have to learn that diving deep only gets me in deeper. And I don’t want to accept that. I want to believe that the truth sets you free, that honesty is the best policy. I want to believe that no one is chemically flawed, that there’s no such thing as mental illness. I want to believe that if I think certain thoughts, my depression will go away. But that’s not the case for cancer, it’s not the case for diabetes, and it’s not the case for my disease. If there was any way through this thing, I’d have found it. But there comes a point where self-help no longer helps. And that point is mental illness.

So my fantasies of having a yoga healing journey are gone. My dream of a diet that relieves depression is done. And my long-term commitments to acupuncture and Rolfing are over. I’ve had to accept that I have more than a situational depression, that I have more than emotional problems. But the thing I still need to believe is that “faith will prevail in the end.” I guess the end just looks a lot different than I expected it to.

The truth of it is that I no longer know what to expect in the end. But I do have to get there. I have to find a way to keep confronting the “most brutal facts of my current reality” without losing that faith, because I cannot afford to lose it. I’ve already lost so much- my career, my independence, my ideals and beliefs. But I have not lost myself. I’m still alive, still living. So maybe I’m already prevailing. Or maybe this isn’t the end.