The Debilitating Depressive Episode

I suffer from depression. And it’s hard.

This afternoon I had a long-awaited session with my therapist. It had been a few weeks since we last met. This was partly because of the during our last meeting, we discussed how good life has been. I had been consistently in high spirits, thanks to the tools she’d given me about setting boundaries, and really making an effort to “observe and not absorb”. Putting that into practice had gone a long way in affirming that it is not my duty to carry the burden of so many others without committing the same effort into myself.

So, I decided to schedule our next session three weeks out instead of our standard two. It was my way of saying, “Look at me, Dr. C! I can take the training wheels off!”. I wanted to show her that I could survive on my own without her holding my hand. I wanted to give her the chance to see how far I could go. Ultimately, due to my need to seek approval – another complex we’re working on – I wanted so badly to just make her proud.

And then life happened.

I will admit. I was nervous to meet with her today, because during our sessions, that is the time of unfiltered truth. It is the time where I can’t sugarcoat, deflect, manipulate, or deny my truth. It is the time that I have to hold myself accountable.

As we were catching up, she listened carefully and observed intently.

• “I almost cancelled our session because I was afraid of facing what was going on.”

• “I went to the beach with family, and it was a good day, but I would have rather have been in bed.”

• “I haven’t written a new blog post in a while.”

• “I started working in the office, and after my first day back I picked up two bottles of wine”.

• “I haven’t cleaned my apartment in weeks.”

• “I put on a little weight and I hate looking in the mirror”.

• “It’s too much energy to fight for what’s right; I don’t think I can keep pushing.”

These are just some of the things I told her and while I wanted to stop when she took notes, I had to just let it all out. I tend to hold it all in and purge it all out, and that’s what works for me.

When I had exasperated myself from telling her three weeks’ worth of stuff, she asked directly, “Autumn, are you going through a depressive episode?”. And while I didn’t know I had any tears left, I just broke down and cried. I knew I was experiencing another episode going into the session, but it was something I was embarrassed about because life had been looking up during our last sessions.

Depression is hard.

For those of you who don’t know, depressive episodes are periods of at least two weeks of daily or almost daily feelings of low moods and other depressive symptoms. For me, that looks like:

• feeling sad, hopeless, or helpless

• irritability or frustration

• fatigue or low energy

• changes in appetite or weight

• loss of interest in things once enjoyed, including hobbies and socializing

• trouble concentrating or remembering

• changes in sleep patterns

• moving or talking more slowly than usual

• aches or pains that do not have an obvious physical cause

While I cannot pinpoint when I first began to experience depression, I can say that for as long as I can remember, I’ve always found it challenging to be happy. But it was in high school when I really began to take notice of how I was different and not really the person people thought I was. I started feeling like I wasn’t meant to be happy, liked I was cursed. And this isn’t to say I wasn’t active in school. I played sports, I was in extracurricular activities, I had a thriving social group. But no matter how awesome my family is, how well I was doing in school, or the number of supportive friends I had, I just… wasn’t happy. And that feeling lasted ever since.

And now, here I was, crying because I had to admit that I was – yet again – going through another depressive episode. I am usually prepared to admit when I am sinking, but this time, depression snuck up on me. It was easier to ignore since life is just crazy right now. The killings of Black bodies, the coronavirus pandemic, the movement for Black lives, returning to work after three months of teleworking, fighting racism in my home parish, debating the worth of Black folks to white folks who just don’t get it, being a resource to white folks who do, finding ways to uplift our Black folk to keep pushing forward, and finding small moments where I can just be.

Needless to say, it’s been… heavy.

In an attempt to recognize the positive takeaways and assure you (if you’re still reading) that I will crawl my way back to the Autumn that I enjoy being, I will say this: I accept and acknowledge the state of being that I find myself in and I commit to myself to do the necessary work to bounce back. I have committed to taking action to do the things that I love, hence this blog post. I have committed to cleaning my apartment this week. I have committed to reading Boundaries, written by Dr. Henry Cloud and Dr. John Townsend. I have committed to learning, not losing. And most importantly, I am committed to this journey.

Depression is very real and if you suffer, don’t feel alone. There are 264 million of us around the globe who know what you’re going through.

But please know when it’s time to seek assistance, and do your best to not let depression debilitate you the way it tried to debilitate me.

Love,

Autumn