I’m feeling
rattled today. Upset in the literal
sense of feeling like my cart has overturned and scattered my possessions, or
at least my self-possession which I’m trying to gather up, calmly, without panicking.
Just before
the beginning of the year a journalist on the Daily Mail asked me if I would be
willing to throw my hat into the ring for their Sex Q&A column. I had reservations. I’ve been there, done that, and not only did
it do me no favours, but I did not, and never have, felt equipped to answer
questions of that nature, since my own life in that area is more of an old
patched sheet that doesn’t really keep you warm. I’m no expert. And as for advice, I don’t believe in
it. Nobody should give it, or take
it. Wise counsel is another thing, but
surely to offer such a thing you have to have a relationship of sorts with the
person to whom you are offering it.
Mostly, the greatest gift you can give anyone is to listen, to allow the
other person to be what they are, and offer some empathy.
But that
isn’t easy.
Not for me
anyway. For the things I’ve been
through, puny and inconsequential though they are in the greater scheme of
things, there are some tender areas that make empathy difficult. Not because I don’t feel it, because I do,
but rather because I overfeel it, I make it all about me, and not the other
person, and feel almost contaminated by the closeness to their problems when
they mirror mine. It’s like having had
some severe viral illness that goes into remission, but which you fear can be
triggered by the smallest of things – a cold, overtiredness, stress. You wrap a little bit of yourself in cotton
wool, to protect the dark feelings, to bury them, and sometimes when you meet
another who is despairing, their distress burrows through the layers, the tendrils of
their pain, reaching out to mate with yours, dragging it back to the surface.
So
yesterday, the person who got the job that I didn’t, walked into the sea and
didn’t come back. She was a sufferer of
severe depression who wrote about her illness with enormous clarity that as I clicked
on the link to her first piece, and read, just stirred up those awful memories
that I’ve tried so hard to forget. I
stood on the edge, peering into my previous self, remembering the way the
depression just engulfed me, coming one moment, seemingly from nowhere, the
agony of it, the sitting on the sofa in my house that I no longer cared about
and could have set a match to without a second’s thought, looking into the
empty void of my life which had no worth to me, thinking of ways I could kill
myself. Weighing them up, and not doing
it because there was still the smallest vestige of fear of actually doing it
that held me back. One tiny bit of
responsibility towards my family who, even as I knew they would be better off
without me and my endless self-pity and unfathomable pain, that made me think I
could spare them this one thing – the legacy of an abandoning suicidal parent. I felt I needed to survive for them, to help
them know that this could be survived, to protect them from the burden of
seeing a pain that couldn’t be borne, even as I knew bearing me as I was, was a
big enough ask. Who knows what would
have been easier for them.
I was
lucky. That time. And the time before, and the time before, and
the time since, that I managed to struggle through, that pills helped, that
there were still more pills to take, that I had a dear and stolid man who stood
behind me and both let me be, and held me up.
I got happy, I got boring. I got
content. I got placid. I got fat. I got lazy. I lost a bit of myself and found
someone else, who I didn’t altogether approve of, or particularly want to be,
but who nevertheless let me live again, and so was to be welcomed rather than
shunned. I used to think I was bright
and lively and extrovert and loud and funny and full of energy, fun and insight just crackling
to get out of me. I was a person
unfulfilled, with untapped potential, an undeveloped photograph waiting for the time, the chance, to become the full picture of who I could be – clever and
talented and able and good. But it
turned out differently. I am still a
person unfulfilled with untapped potential, but I no longer have the drive to
discover it. I decided to be (in my own
eyes) mediocre, an underachiever, a nonentity because it was easier, it was
attainable, it was, in fact, me. I’m no
longer sparkly. I don’t drink and that
has taken a lot of the fizz out of my previous self-image of me as vivacious
and outgoing. I’m actually a bit of a
shut-in. I avoid social situations. I’ve become a recluse at home with my man and
my cats. I sew. I make mosaics. I make cards I don’t send, and fiddle about
in the garden that nobody except me sees or sits in. I failed with the last two books I wrote, or
at least failed to find an agent – that took a bite out of my ego too and,
probably to save myself any more disappointment and rejection – I let go of
that dream and accepted failure. I still write, but
without any feelings of future achievement or real pride because it was so devastating
to be turned down, rather brutally at times, by agents to whom I was a faceless
ant. Or to be honest, more usually,
their assistants. I gave up. I surrendered to what I could comfortably be
rather than who I wanted to be. I swallowed the knowledge that I am not special and accepted the tender scar that never heals but is fine as long as you don't poke it
So I am a
quitter in a way. And yes, I feel a
sense of sorrow about it. But on the
other hand, I get out of bed in the morning and I function. I more than function. I am sometimes so happy that I feel it could
burst out of me in the same way the fat does out of my jeans. I get these washes of deep contentment and
pleasure just because there is no pain, and there is a beautiful flower in the
garden, or my basil seeds have sprouted, or there’s a new BBC drama, or Game of
Thrones is back, or I’ve made scones and they smell divine, or I’m in bed by
myself because my man is visiting his kids, and I can spread out across the
cool sheets. Small things. Not achievements. Not winning any prizes. Not being good at anything. Just the absence of anxiety, and the pleasure
in the now.
There’s a
downside. I am afraid of stress. I don’t have dinner parties because the
effort exhausts me. I make plans that I
always want to cancel before I go because ‘I can’t be bothered’. I feel awkward around people. I chat all the time and annoy the listeners with my self-obsessed, self-referential gabble, but still don’t really know what
to say. I have, in a way, resigned from
certain aspects of life and become an avoider.
It’s not brave. It’s not
strength. It’s weakness and cowardice
and knowing my limits and being unwilling to push past them.
I am
defeated by life, even as I think I’m surviving it.
I don’t
have friends any more. I have people I
like. At work, mostly. But I don’t pursue friendships much, and
people don’t pursue me. They never have,
actually. I’ve never had a gift for
people. I am not the sort of person that
others flock to, or want to see, or miss, or need. I still care about that, and wish I had the likeability factor, but
oh god, I’m too tired to be the perseverer, the asker, the pusher, the pleaser,
the ‘like me, like me, like me’ person
in relationships. I'm crippled by my inability to like myself, so why would others. I could die tomorrow,
fade out of life and nobody much would miss me.
My kids of course. My devoted man too, but he’s
a survivor and rather cool
in his affections with everyone, despite being incredibly loyal. He’d
miss me, but get on with his life and be happy - he has the right temperament for that. And me. My ex husband is happier
than he ever was with me, with a new partner, and a new baby - who I should say is a joy to me as well. My sister
and brother would both care but I’m not in their life on a daily basis. My workmates would be shocked and care, but
that sort of thing heals over fast. It’s
like having another job – you’re just not at your desk.
I’m no more plugged
into the world by affection or need than I ever was, but I have tried to find
meaning for myself in things that give me pleasure – being domestic, making a
mosaic, sewing up little scraps of material, setting a fire, growing a tomato,
painting a chest of drawers, having animals.
It’s a small
life. I like it. I do my best.
But when you read
about someone else in the depression club, with so much insight, and so many
friends, and so many years of survival behind them, who offered so much help
and succor and inspiration to others but who – in the end – just can’t keep
going, it does make you wonder if you will be able to. If the next time is just round the
corner. If you can get through it again. If there is, actually, no hope. Nobody can save you, but what happens when you can no longer save yourself?
There’s a quote in
the paper today from someone I know who was a sort of friend, or as much of a
friend that she could be in this superficial, London, media, networking,
success orientated life whose fringes I used to cling on to, saying that she’d
seen the woman at a party once, so bright, so brilliant, so wonderful. and been unable to
believe that she could feel so empty.
I’d be the suburban
terraced house to this woman’s big detached place in Chelsea, in the
personality and talent stakes, but in me too there used to be the same dichotomy
of apparent, outward, vibrancy and inward chasm of meaninglessness. Maybe that’s why we are as we are. We are truly unbalanced.
To cope with depression, I sort of
lobotomized myself to get a modicum of balance. But today I’m wobbling.
