NB: Welcome to Flashback Friday! During FBF, we’ll be resurrecting older posts and reviews that are relevant to things we’ve published on the site this week. May is Mental Health Awareness Month. Seeing as how Amanda reviewed Hyperbole & a Half this week, which covers a blogger’s battle with depression, we wanted to revive her previous post about finding the right book at the right time. This post was originally published November 5, 2014.
Last Wednesday, in the couple hours between when work ended and Amy Poehler’s book event in Boston began, I sat in the corner of a Panera and made a therapy appointment. The frustrating thing about depression is that it sneaks up on you. Well…for me it did. For others, depression comes barging in, banging on pots and pans, demanding keys to the house. This also isn’t depression’s first visit, but in the six years since I’d been temporarily cured (because we all know it’s never permanent) depression seemed to keep its distance. Maybe it’d pop in occasionally and I’d spend the day in bed, too apathetic to even crack open a book. But somehow in the past couple weeks, it buried itself somewhere – and I truly have no idea where – because I would lapse into fits of tears at nothing. And I do mean nothing. If there wasn’t some sort of distraction, the crying would inevitably start. In my room. On the commute home. During a break in the busyness of work. While eating at lunch. Seriously, I cried over a bread bowl of soup. No one should ever shed tears over a damn bread bowl.
So you can imagine how hard it was to sit in a crowded theater for an hour, simply waiting for Amy Poehler to grace the stage and talk about her book. I started reading Yes Please as soon as I got home.
There’s a saying, and I’m paraphrasing here, that the right people have a habit of being in your life at the right time. They’re meant to teach you things about yourself or lessons about life, without the bubbly montages you see in rom-coms. Right now, Yes Please is that person or rather, book. It’s the right bit of reading that I need. Though not all of the content speaks to my twenty-five year old routine (I’ve never been married and therefore, have never been divorced), a lot of themes are universal.
The second chapter in the book is titled “The Plain Girl vs. the Demon.” The demon is that negative, soul-sucking voice you give to things like self-doubt, anxiety, depression. Anything that produces those debilitating horrible feelings.
You may even have days or years when you think the demon is gone. But it is not. It is sitting very quietly, waiting for you.
That motherfucker is patient.
It says, “Take your time.”
It says, “Go fall in love and exercise and surround yourself with people who make you feel beautiful.”
It says, “Don’t worry, I’ll wait.”
And then one day, you go through a breakup or can’t lose the baby weight or you look at your reflection in a soup spoon and that slimy bugger is back. It moves its sour mouth up to your ear and reminds you that you are fat and ugly and don’t deserve love.
This demon is some Stephen King from-the-sewer devil-level shit.
Part of my depression comes from knowing I’m depressed. I never wanted to be at this place again and I prided myself on “beating” it the first time. College is a rough time for everyone and I had difficulties adjusting. I didn’t attend class. I lost scholarships. As someone who excelled during high school, this was a foreign and scary territory for me. But now, I’m succeeding academically and professionally. What the hell do I have to be depressed about?!
There are few things that are a great equalizer. Depression is one of them. It honestly doesn’t care about your socioeconomic status. It doesn’t care whether you just graduated high school or if you’re the CEO of some fancy Fortune 500 company. It doesn’t care whether you’re a mother or a father.
As bittersweet as it is, I’m grateful that I know the signs. I’m grateful that I come from a household where this isn’t taboo and I can openly talk with my parents. My friends are probably less in the know; I don’t want them to feel like I need to be wrapped up in a cozy blanket and fed cookies and warm, hot apples (because I know they would since they’re obnoxiously considerate people and I’m lucky).
My appointment was Saturday and though it consisted of the obligatory background information, it’s a step in the right direction. Amy frequently mentions time-travel in her book, her way of classifying reminiscing. An item of clothing or a smell can transport a person to a particular moment or recall the feeling you had that one summer during your junior year.
The more I time-travel the more I learn I am always just where I need to be.
It’s often a thing you don’t realize until you look back on it. I’m the biggest cause of my own stress. I plan and schedule and coordinate until the dates in my planner become a blur. Part of my unhappiness stems from the fear that I could be doing more or that things aren’t happening in whatever insane timeline I had imagined, but I just know a year from know, I’ll look back and finally come to terms that where I was at was perfectly fine. However, it’s something I need to do now. Assessing where I’ve been and what I’ve done, can help me appreciate where I’m at.
The process of treating depression isn’t easy. There’s a lot of trial and error, and I’m dreading the tough decisions I’ll have to make. Depression isn’t a switch that can be turned off once therapy starts. It ebbs and flows. It’ll retreat like a fog, only to come back the next morning. But then things will get warmer and the only remnants of fog that’ll remain will be dew on the grass. Healing is often so minuscule and slow that we aren’t aware it’s happening, but I know it will happen.
Someday you will wake up feeling 51 percent happy and slowly, molecule by molecule, you will feel like yourself again.
Amanda – I love the Bitchery and one of my favorite things about it is the perspective you bring. I’m also in my early 20’s and it’s difficult to find people my age to talk with about romance. I don’t read YA so that eliminates a lot of bloggers and Goodreads friends from the Internet pool of people since I don’t know anyone IRL who shares my
obsessionlove for reading.Thank you for sharing this small part of your story. I definitely want to pick up Amy Poehler’s book because I think she (and you) identified one of the more subtle yet, as you put it, soul-sucking aspects of depression that I never considered, and I’ve been coping with depression since I was 14. Ironically, I think this…attitude… is exacerbated because I’m actually a very positive, optimistic person. But I think that optimism has a way of holding me back. I can always make myself feel better today by telling myself tomorrow will be better. But as soon as the depression hits or something comes along to muck up my perfect day then I’m back to square one…but don’t worry! Tomorrow is another day. Rinse and repeat.
I’m glad you made an appointment when you realized depression was creeping up on you again. It was difficult for me to accept depression is something I’ll have to deal with for the rest of my life, and when the days are good I still miss the little signs as it slowly sneaks its way back into my life. Thanks for reminding me that healing does ebb and flow and that it takes time.
Amanda, thank you for sharing. I’m so happy you went to the appointment … and realized you needed to go. I’ve had depression since I was a teenager and it is an insidious, devious b——d (sorry, but I can think of profanity to describe depression this early in the morning).
I just want you to know that you shouldn’t let yourself fall prey to its nonsense about not being depressed again and that you should not be due to the timing in your life. The devious part of this disease is that it can happen when stuff is going well. Hell, that’s my depression’s preferred time to recur.
Just remind yourself that a biochemical imbalance is not your fault and unfortunately, humans don’t come with warning lights like cars to do to tell you when you need to fill up. I feel like it’s trite but for there’s a kernel of truth – depression is a disease like arthritis is and like you wouldn’t feel culpable for arthritis popping up right now neither should you feel bad about the depression. It’s something I learned painfully myself in my mid-twenties and I’d save you the trouble if I could.
I hope you let us know how it’s going (as I’m in a similar situation right now your experience completely resonates) and thank you for making me like Amy Poehler even more.
One of the hardest things about depression, I’ve found, is not blaming yourself. Blame is just another way of putting yourself down, a symptom for many people, and it sneaks in in small ways – I should have gotten help sooner; I shouldn’t have gotten stressed, I should have exercised more… But really, nobody DESERVES depression, and none of these should-have-dones can absolutely prevent it.
For me the blame is like a pernicious weed: it keeps trying to grow back in a different spot or different way, and you keep having to root it out again.
You’re on the right track in getting help, and please try to remember that it’s okay if you take one step forward and two steps back sometimes – that’s just a part of dealing with depression. Best of luck.
It’s always so helpful to see how someone else is working to cope with their depression and anxiety. I’m in a good place with my anxiety disorder right now (thanks to a lot of therapy and prayer). Sometimes I spend a good time worrying about the next time a wave of extreme anxiety will come and what it will do to disrupt my life. Your choice to appreciate the now is one I want to try as well. Thanks for sharing!
All the best. Nine months into medication and therapy I’m starting to feel more like myself again. Ironically when I looked back I realized this was my fourth bout with major depressive disorder and by far the worst. I realize that like you, this is something we have to be alert for and deal with our whole lives. Sending good thoughts to you.
All I’m gonna say is: WORD. Excellent post.
I loved Amy Poehler before reading this, but now I worship her. Thanks for the post. As a person who has battled depression for much of my 50+ years, I am always heartened to see someone who is not afraid to be open about her experiences. The stigma is much less than it used to be, but it is still very much there.
If you haven’t already read Allie Brosh’s “Hyperbole and a Half” I highly recommend doing so. She nails the depression experience and the useful (and useless) things that people say when she is in the midst of a depressive episode.
Thanks again.
Books have always been a comfort to me during tough times. Amanda, I am glad you found Amy Poehler’s book at the right time.
I definitely want to thank everyone for chiming in with their own stories and well-wishes. Mental illness, whether it’s anxiety, depression, etc, can be such an isolating thing and it’s easy to forget that it’s a much more universal feeling than we realize.
@SusanS: I’m seconding your recommendation of Allie Brosh. She’s amazing and I encourage everyone to go listen to her interview on NPR’s Fresh Air.
I was extremely moved by your story. It rings bells in my head regarding my mental illness. One day you think you are fine, but as you said, it just lays in wait for the day to pop out and show its ugly head. Be patient, take your time in finding the right counselor and if given medication, it will be a trial and error until the right medication is found. You are a brave young woman to discuss a subject that many still find taboo. Remember, no matter who you are or how you feel, you are always loved….I can say that since I am your mom.
Amanda, My thoughts and prayers are with you. What a strong, brave, young woman you are. Take care of yourself.
As someone who knew you back when you excelled in high school, I appreciate the insight I got by reading about the “real” Amanda in this article. Thank you for your honesty, and please, please, keep writing! Everything about you, even the seemingly negative stuff, just makes you more unique. (The only thing that made me cringe was the preposition at the end of the statement “help me appreciate where I’m at.” But then, I was your English teacher . . . .)
This was beautiful. I come from a culture that doesn’t believe in such things as depression, I’ve battled it alone since I was a teenager. I’m in my late twenties now, and everytime depression rears it’s head it comes with a ton of guilt and self consciousness because I’ve been taught I must not allow such selfish feelings. Like Alexandra, I am a Générale positive person, which makes it all the more harder. If I didn’t love this site before, I do now. Like the secret love of romance I have “no business” indulging, I have found kindred souls in my secret battle with depression. Thank you
Amanda,
YES. YES to all the things you wrote. And thank you for sharing your thoughts and for sharing this book. That last quote, the 51% happy, made me tear up. Not outright cry, if only because i still feel mostly empty and numb in the midst of my depression, but OMG I so want to get to that 51% happy feeling rightnow. Romancelandia is my happy, sparkling, “anything could happen” escape from many self-shaming and self-punitive feelings and thoughts, so it was particularly gratifying to see your post here. YES. And thank you.
[…] on that note, the entire reason I began this post, I read a great little piece in Smart Bitches, Trashy Books today about depression, and I thought I’d share. More specifically, it’s about Amy Poehler’s book Yes, […]
Amanda,
Thank you for talking about your struggle. It’s been years since I battled depression, but that is a hard damn battle. Be kind to yourself as you work through this.
I quibble with one thing, though. The only appropriate response to any food served in a bread bowl is tears. Seriously, what’s wrong with a regular bowl, restaurant people?
@Ceece: What can I say? I’m a woman who loves her carbs.
First, thank you for sharing.
Second, as you already know, depressing is a lying SOB. F depression sideways.
Third, my *personal* recommendation would be to share what you are going through with your friends, not because you need to lean on them, and not even because they need to know what is going on in your life (but they do) but in my experience (sufferer of depression, anxiety, and OCD for too many f’ing years), sharing what I have dealt with has helped friends who were going through similar experiences, but perhaps didn’t realize that is what it was, or were afraid to say something, or just plain needed advice.
Hearing, “Can I talk to you? Because you know what it’s like.” has been one of the few things that has been good about my mental health issues. The fact that friends have learned they are not alone in their suffering.
And truly, every time one of us posts about our struggle, I believe it provides a small beacon for someone else out there who might be trapped in that dark and horrible place. Just a tiny signal going out saying, “I’ve dealt with this too. You’re not alone.”
Please keep fighting the fight, and to anyone else suffering, you’re not alone, and depression is a m’f’ing liar.
Awesome post, thank you for sharing Amanda! I just went out and started “Yes, Please” today after reading this article. The audiobook is fabulous.
I really appreciate the diversity of posts on the Bitchery. As someone with OCD, I can relate to those long years of “freedom” which suddenly are interrupted by bouts of recurrence. It’s as if nothing ever changed and you question yourself, wondering if there’s any way to fight the demon – will the old tricks work or will you have to start all over again?
Hang in there.
Thanks for sharing. I think all of us have that “demon-voice.” It not only brings on depression, but it keeps me from doing things. I made progress on something on Sunday. I spent Sunday night thinking how I did it wrong, and a lot of time on Monday “fixing” it. Of course, it’s not perfect so therefore I’m a screw-up. And bottom line, is that I did what needed doing and there’s room to redo.
As for relating to depression, I have found some of Carrie Fisher’s riffs on her bipolar to be hilarious. I think she has a book. I just went to the one-woman show. You know, I laughed, I cried.
Amanda, thank you for gutsy post. I am what I like to call a “lifer” and have struggled with depression since childhood. It has been well controlled for the past 20 years with therapy, medication, and exercise. Good for you for recognizing the signs and getting yourself help. You are right, Depression does not discriminate with regard to race, culture,religion,class, gender, or sexual orientation. And Amy is right too, although mine is well controlled, I know it waits in the background to whisper in my ear, and that why I have to daily do the things to take care of myself to keep that “monster in my head” quiet. Don’t stop until you find what works for you!
I love this comment thread a lot of ways. Many many ways. Amanda and I emailed about this before she wrote it, and I said I thought of my depression as sitting on the edge of a slope covered with olive oil (specific metaphors are specific). If I start to slide down, I don’t always notice, and once I have, it’s hard to climb back out. And of course I am really good at blaming myself for sliding in the first place, even though I didn’t know I was sliding down at the time.
A book that helped me in a somewhat similar way is Spark: The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain. It’s about how exercise affects the body and specifically the brain on a chemical level. I take most nonfiction books with a motivational message with a grain of salt, but this one struck me differently. I listened to it while walking my dogs each day, and they got long walks because I didn’t want to stop listening.
The part that remains with me is the explanations of all the various chemicals in the brain, and how they balance one another out. Without that balance, things don’t work correctly (broad summary ahoy right there). Hearing someone explain to me which chemicals affect which part of the brain, and why imbalance has a negative effect helped me understand that if I do get depressed, it isn’t at all my fault. It’s really easy for me to hear “chemical imbalance” and blame myself – but the longer explanations helped me understand how many other things affect that balance. Plus I understood why, after I run, I feel like my brain has been scoured free of cobwebs – in a way, it has. Also endorphins.
Self care is difficult, too, because I think as women we’re conditioned to put ourselves last, way WAY last. Spark helped me understand why I shouldn’t do that.
Hear, hear! It is so easy to give in and just let the Blerch run my life. To just exist, all anxiety smothered beneath the numbness of depression. To forget that emotional stability can be stable and not asymptotic.
To act as if avoiding sleep because I hate waking up is okay.
And then I read this account, read the comments, and the fight begins again.
Thanks to everyone.
@SBSara and anyone who wants to understand the link between exercise and depression. :
From American Psychological Association Monitor on Psychology, December, 2011 issue, The Exercise Effect by Kirsten Wier:
“The link between exercise and mood is pretty strong,” Otto says. “Usually within five minutes after moderate exercise you get a mood-enhancement effect”…But the effects of physical activity extend beyond the short-term. Research shows that exercise can also help alleviate long-term depression.*
The entire article is really good. here’s a link
http://www.apa.org/monitor/2011/12/exercise.aspx
*While exercise is very important and helpful, it can not replace consultation with a mental health professional. Depression needs to be treated holistically, with exercise being one facet of the treatment. I want to make sure people do not think I am advocating running instead of seeing a psychologist.
I too have have recurrent bouts of depression over the years, decades. At my worst I can’t read, one of my oldest hobbies, which I don’t need to tell you is life-affirming and denied that I sink deeper into depression. Deep enough to have been suicidal. What I have found really helpful in the past couple of years was firstly a course of Cognitative Behavioural Therapy which helped me to recognise unhelpful thought habits and to start to change those habits Then following that a course of Mindfulness that has helped me be more aware of when I was slipping into those bad thought habits. To use my analogy (similar to Sarah’s) depresson is like being on a luge, once you start down that slope there is no stopping, the Mindfulness lets me see when I’m approaching the gate so I can say ‘no, not getting on that thing, I’ll just walk past it and go do something fun’. It’s too soon to be sure this will work long-term, but it has certainly helped me deal with a flare up in my adhesions which cause a lot of pain when they flare, so more codeine, so less able to do many things, so (formerly)self recrimination, so … this time I did see that luge gate and I did manage to avoid it! The Mindfulness has also helped me be more aware of developing pain and to handle it with lower doses of paracetamol and codeine which is helful.*pauses for a check, takes some paracetamol as that’ll do the trick this time* Finally Mindfulness emphasises being kind to yourself, not berating yourself for failures, but saying ‘ok that happened, lets jsut start again’ and saying this as many times as you need to.
Amanda I very much hope that you find away to deal with depression that means you do not suffer recurrences, but if you do remember you have dealt with it, you can do so again.
So proud of you, Amanda – for this post and for getting the help you need. Coincidentally, I made an appointment with a therapist a few weeks ago. I call it “getting a tune up”.
Tina Connolly’s book Silverblind has a character who described depression as like being under a heavy wool blanket – you can see through the weave, and hear, but everything is distorted and fuzzy, and it’s heavy, and hard to breathe. When I have a flare-up of my depression it feels like being underwater, or wearing one of those heavy backpacking packs. I’ve also described it as a radio playing in my head – and it lies like a moro. The worst lie my depression tells me is that I don’t deserve help. Fuck that. You rock, Amanda, thank you for sharing this!
I am one of those lucky people who *doesn’t* have depression. Nothing virtuous about it, I totally credit my genes. But I want to thank you for writing this because it helped me to understand and empathize better with the people in my life who do suffer from the disease.
[…] to Smart Bitches, Trashy Books. In early November, she wrote a fantastic post over at SBTB titled “Depression and Amy Poehler”. I loved the post so much that I asked Amanda if she’d be comfortable talking more about […]
I have had major Depressive Disorder since I was at least nine. My mother considered me “shy.” My depression became worse and worse and when I was fifteen, I started acting out but even then my parents did not notice. It took our next door neighbor to open mom’s eyes. As a family, we all started therapy. My father hated it and dropped out and my brother followed suit. Mom and I hung in. I don’t know what mom’s motives were but I was desperate to feel better. At one point there, mom was constantly thanking me for revealing the problems in our family. I didn’t understand that at the time because things were so much more horrible in our home. Now I know that the truth sets us free, no matter what it costs to face the truth. Anything is better than living in denial, in my opinion.
In 1995 I was deemed disabled due to depression, even though I took meds, and it took me quite the long time to get a handle on my symptoms, identify triggers etc. About five years ago I participated in an outpatient program for Dialectic Behavior Therapy and I have found this to be the single most helpful treatment for depression I have ever come across. A few weeks ago, I found a free DBT group and I am doing it again.
Dialectic Behavior Therapy may not work for everyone but it is wonderful for me. When we focus on the past, we get depressed. When we focus on the future, we get anxious. DBT teaches me to focus on the present, without value judgment, just to recognize and objectively know this moment for what it is.
I can’t be more positive about it or encourage anyone heartily enough to give it a try.
I went to a workshop on anxiety at my Y and even that little event was eye-opening in that what I thought of as my special symptoms that I had because I was a BAD PERSON were really pretty common.
@MirandaB: It’s really tough not to victimize yourself over these things. I know I still struggle with it when I have my sad days. Like how my boyfriend probably hates dealing with this or how my roommates probably think I’m a flake for not wanting to be sociable.
It’s odd (and a little darkly humorous) how things like anxiety and depression, which so many people have in one form or another, can also make you feel so alienated.
I’ve tried to be as candid as I can regarding my own lifelong struggles with anxiety and depression. Last summer, I (as Zoë Archer) and several other published romance authors spoke about what it’s like to live with mental illness and how that resounds in our careers. On a day like today, when a blogger wrote a piece on xoJane (the post is now deleted) about how her mentally-ill friend’s death was a “blessing,” it’s important for all of us to realize a few key things.
1) You are not alone.
2) You deserve happiness.
3) It’s okay not to feel good, but try not to feel bad for feeling bad.
4) It’s difficult for friends and loved ones to see you hurting, but please don’t think you’re better off dead. (I say this as someone who frequently ideates passively about hurting myself.)
5) It goes up and it goes down. Remember that on your bad days. You can feel better. You can also feel awful, but you can stand it. I honestly thought this winter was going to kill me, but it didn’t, and I’m writing again.
6) When you’re hurting, reach out for help. Call someone, even a hotline (800) 273-8255.
7) I love each and every one of you. We are all beautiful and brave.
-Eva
@Eva: Thank you so much for sharing!
I saw that article today and it made me so angry and disgusted. I’m happy to know it was taken down.
Thank you, Amanda, for sharing. There are so many of us with depression and sometimes I think we feel the need to hide it. I love that not only can we unite here in our love of books, but that it’s a safe place to talk about things like this, and I’m so happy that you wrote this post, and that SBTB is devoting the time to books like Yes, Please and Hyperbole and a Half. SBTB is my home page and is becoming one of my happy places. It’s so important to fight stigma and realize that it’s not our fault we have depression. I’ve been dealing with it since I was a teenager, along with anxiety, and then migraines later in life, and it is so hard to deal with well-meaning advice from people who just don’t understand what it’s like. @Jazzlet, I can’t read either when I’m really depressed, and I know how horrible that is. You are all wonderful for sharing. Thank you. This is a wonderful place.
“It’s odd (and a little darkly humorous) how things like anxiety and depression, which so many people have in one form or another, can also make you feel so alienated.”
It’s such a stigma to talk about and the ‘put on your big girl panties and deal’ (I HATE that saying) mindset is so rewarded, that it’s easier to be quiet. Good luck, Amanda and everyone.