Ever so often I think of writing a sequel to my post "A Little Piece Of Tusk" which tells a story of how an obstacle in the form of a quill that snapped was surmounted by the scribe breaking off his own tusk to carry on the task uninterrupted. Well my quill is usually intact but I can't seem to find a ready way to draw the ink up from the inkwell.
Till today, that is. Right now I find this post emerging as a tonic for my repeated bouts of deeply depressed mood punctuating an otherwise unbroken, sullen terrain of a chronically depressed feeling. Because in a sudden glimmer I'm seeing the proverbial obstacle in a new way and those glimmers make us express ourselves.
We think of obstacles as hills or mountains to climb. Bumps one has to climb up and over along an otherwise more-or-less level, if gritty, road. But today the obstacle presented itself to my perception as a metaphorical pit to climb out of. Yes those deep depressions in an already low lying terrain. Get the picture?
The slow, muddy stream keeps moving along listlessly. I carry on wading, sometimes waist deep and at other times sinking to my neck. It's too shallow to swim in. And then comes a pit and I am right down in the water, sinking into the mud. All around me, detritus floats and I push it away.
These are the moments I not only acknowledge but announce with a sad or cryptic post on Facebook, which is my reluctant doorway to a support system that feels more warm and comforting than any other. I wish that were not so and the best support systems could be in ones physical location, but I - like many - haven't a choice at the moment.
The post invariably draws attention and the ensuing interactions give me the steam to lift my feet out from where they have sunk, to climb out of the pit and sally forth a little further along the sullen stream-bed.
Is this depression* I speak of the dreaded D-word? I once was genuinely in that zone and I spent hours and days and months stranded on metaphorical mudflats till my then support system sent in the tide in one form or other, including via certain popular and now rightly much criticized feel-good pills, allowing me to swim to safety and deal with life's challenges for a while. But perhaps 25 years down the line from when I first fell into such an abyss, I am over anything so painful. These are pits and pitfalls along an otherwise stable path. And I hope the road gets smoother and the air clearer.
Will I spot a welcoming shore so I can jump out of this dull water and go bounding at the speed my feet, heart and mind ache for? I know I have a destination but my eyes feel so clouded I can no longer see where it is.
If there's anything called a prayer, it's this post. Articulating a problem and seeking a solution and sending it all out to the universe and hoping the universe listens and directs and shines the light.
Illuminating the Sullen Stream
This is for those who are navigating such streams or far murkier and more desperate situations. Many of us are far too closed or independent to speak out our problems. As are many of us, caught among people who are kind but don't have the wherewithal to understand just what ails us. I've decided a post a day might heave my feet out of that day's pit and keep me going. So watch this space!
** depression has become synonymous in contemporary parlance with depressive disorder. The word itself is nuanced and could mean different things in different contexts. There are porous borders between a low mood and a disorder that needs professional help. One can easily drift/shift into the other. Posted this here for information. The word depression means the opposite of elevation. And in this post I use the metaphors of terrain to speak of my mood and my situation.
