I tripped, and fell.

     A few weeks ago, I was functional. Sure, things were hard. Life has been full of stress lately (more than usual) and we were all beginning to crack a little under the pressure. Tensions were high, emotions were cartwheeling, and we all had our own demons to wrestle with along the way. But I was managing. Not very gracefully but somewhat effectively until I just wasn't anymore.
     I've been depressed at times in the last 20 years. I wish it wasn't true. I wish I didn't have to accept it to get past it. I wish I could mark progress along a straight line and celebrate all the success until we are overcome by all the beauty of life. Though I wish all those things, I also know my reality isn't a reflection of those desires. Sometimes, I just have a hard time. Sometimes I can't sleep. Sometimes I over eat, or don't eat at all. Sometimes I'm so sad I just sit and cry.
     Not all the time, or course. But more than I'd like to admit in polite company.
     Depression, for me, has been a part of my life that I've needed to adapt to, work with, overcome, and accept. It is not the end of the story, but rather an important component. I have spent time and money voluntarily seeking professional help for these moods. I've taken medicine and I've learned the warning signs. Most beneficially, I've learned a whole new set of skills to deal with my emotions in healthy ways. Having accepted that I was incapable of just willing myself into better health, I've worked hard at achieving it.
     Except that a few weeks ago the whole system broke down. I got up in the morning, tense and struggling, but getting by. And a few hours later I had fallen into a hole so large and so dark I couldn't begin to see a way out. While the "event" didn't happen in a vacuum - there was a specific experience that broke my hold on my peace - the sudden and complete nature of my descent into depression has been shocking to me.
     I've worked so hard to know my personal warning signs and create timely intervention to help myself.
     I've worked so hard to learn how to react and interact in positive ways that will short cut the cycle of shame, fear, and anger that locks me in a depressive state.
     I've worked so hard to accept the patterns of my mind so that I can begin to reset them into healthy pathways.
     And all that work seems wasted in light of how thoroughly and completely lost I became in the space of a few minutes.
     The hole is deep, dark, and wide. I'm no longer lost inside of it but I'm still there, waiting for the light. I know it will come. It will come towards me, and I will move towards it, and then I'll be free again.
     For now, I am surrounded by fear and shame. This sudden descent into depression has made me feel so fundamentally broken. I feel basically incapable of maintaining a normal existence. The mere routine of going to bed and getting up again in the morning seems insurmountable - I must focus just now on the closest upcoming thing to do - and I wonder how I am fit to survive my life or my lifestyle. I feel lacking in the skills needed to do the things I am responsible for... though I am doing them. Some of them. Some of the time. I'm doing each proper thing as I can, even if it takes me hours longer than it did before, because it's one way to move to the light. But this point of lacking, the basic incompetence, this sense of brokenness; I am ashamed. In the fierceness of my shame I am overcome.
     This experience has broken all my understood and accepted rules of my madness. I had put trust into my ability to recognize the descending signposts. I had created a list of things that leave me intensely vulnerable. I had created a place of safety where I could act preemptively and protect myself - and the people I love - from such an extreme place. For years I have told people that since I recovered from a depressive episode in 2000 it hasn't been "that" bad. Work, skills, tools, relationships, health building - all of it had created an environment that allowed me to stop the descent before the blackness is all encompassing. Until now, 14 years later, when the blackness swallowed me whole in one bite, with no consideration of all my work. And now I am so afraid. How do I work through the day knowing that my hold on peace can be so abruptly lost?
    Of course, paired with the reality of my illness is the reality of my success. It remains factual that I have worked hard to become better. I still have all the tools I've learned, though I may not always have access to them. My work has not been wasted, no matter how much my mind tells me otherwise. And in the middle of it are the people I need, the ones who love me. The ones who love without reason or fear. The ones who love me, not in spite of or because of my illness but for myself. The ones whose love takes wing and soars into the sky.
     I'm trying a number of things to move toward the light. I continue to work with a professional. I confess my true state of mind to my supporters. I continue to reach for and use the skills that come to me. I try to soundly reject the lies of my depressed mind and believe the truth of my heart. I need to keep going, and I'll find my way out. I don't believe, but I'm borrowing the belief of trusted others.
     In the meantime, I'm a little slower. A little quieter. A lot more afraid. A lot more lost. And I keep going, one step at a time.