I was recently chatting with someone and they mentioned sometimes they don’t feel like thinking about their postpartum depression.
I know that feeling. Over the last year, there have been many times that I felt like it was all I could think about. How to survive it, how to hide it, how to treat it, how to wait it out. How it hurt, how it was changing me, how I didn’t know who I was anymore.
Depression, by it’s very nature, is draining. It puts such a weight on the person. It makes thinking, feeling and doing hard. Add to that the constant thoughts of the above, and it can literally engulf you.
But as much as it seems like it is swallowing you whole and changing your personality, you are not your depression. It is part of you, just like a cold is part of you…for a time. But it is not all of you, even at the depths. It is not all of you.
You are still a person who loves reading, or drinking nice wine, or eating pizza. You are still the person who loves to sew or bake or go running. One of the cruelest things about depression is how it often comes in and makes those things so hard, the things that bring joy become burdens. The darkness tries to take it all.
But even in a dark room, the things you can’t see are still there. Your bed is in your room even when the room is dark and you can’t see it. The couch is still in the living room even in the middle of the night when there is no light to illuminate it.
No matter how dark it seems in the rooms of your life, you are still there. And the beauty of it is, if you can grab those things you can’t see, and bring them close to yourself, the outline begins to reappear. And even if it is only for a moment, there is a glimpse of those things you loved.
And just maybe, for that moment, you can push away a bit of the darkness, and reclaim a bit of yourself. Take that walk around the block. Work on that art project.
Doing those things will not “cure” the depression, but they give you a reminder, a moment to be able to see something worth fighting for, to remember, the depression is not all there is to you. The person you are is still there. Even just a brief glimpse can give hope. A moment of being able to breathe allows one to dig deep to find another ounce with which to fight.
Sometimes, all we need is that moment, that tiny breather to remember, the depression is not who we are, we do not have to believe all the lies the darkness tells. We will reemerge, changed yes, but as ourselves, whole and well worth the fight.
That’s what I’ve been thinking about.
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