Year of the Cat

One year ago, I was listening to Al Stewart's Year of the Cat on repeat, writing a novel that was semi-autobiographical about a girl struggling with depression. Cliche, I know--the author actually being mentally ill while writing about mental illness. So Edgar Allan Poe. So Dylan Thomas. So lame.
I pulled out my horrible novel and re-read it, hoping there would be pieces to salvage. To my surprise, there is. But I did want to share these thoughts I wrote regarding depression.

"Depression is like cancer you walk around with, without the flowers or the Hallmark sympathy cards. It's a slower death, too, eating you from the inside out.

Depression is the fire and ice disease. Medication can stabilize the ups and downs--turn it from the Ring of Fire into the little green kiddie dragon ride at the carnival. Mild, but still a ride.

Good days, mania, I'm invincible, electric. Those are days for buying ten one-thousand piece puzzles and put them together in a night, deciding on punishments if I don't finish them by dawn. Music seems slower than usual. The poetry I've always dabbled into notebooks turns ethereal, flighty, metaphoric for ideas and concepts I can never remember later. With mania, I conduct the functions of my body instead of sleeping--heart beat, one, two, three, four, take a breath, exhale, blink now, blink again, heart beat, go, lungs, your cue.

Days with mania, I cannot wear glasses or contacts because the world seems too sharp, too in focus. I'll run miles without a break, even though I'm not really in shape, then have sore ankles and knees for a week. I'll scoff at the Extreme Makeover: Home Edition crews, laughing evilly that it takes them a whole week to build a house.

Mania is my way of trying to cheat death, cramming as much life into a day as possible.

Depression is the other end of the totem pole--feeling utterly hopeless, powerless, and tired. These are the days when I cry for a spoon that falls behind the stove, when I feel like a paper doll being dressed, undressed, dressed--out of control. Depression controls what I write, turns poetry solid, simple, dense--final words to humankind before my twelve hour naps. I turn into survival mode, soaking up as much rest and reflection as I can before the wave of mania hits again, and I turn back into the Red Queen.

The truth is I ride through life alternating between fire and ice. There are moments of extreme heated passion, tempers, whirlwind nights of rum-worthy soliloquies, muscle hugs, forests of words. I'm moving faster than my landscape, like Wile E. Coyote scampering his legs in a circle, airborne.

There are moments when I am frozen in time, drowning in the icy blue flame, moments when my eyes are glassy, where Simon & Garfunkel make sense despite my logic.

Where does the body end and the mind begin? I've learned that when the mind is wired enough, the body can go without all sorts of necessities--food, sleep, sitting. The human brain is fantastic this way--we have these surges where the body is powerless under the tyranny of mental faculties.

When I start to think like this, everything feels like a conscious choice--mind over body. Even death becomes just a mere decision.

Which is why I usually fight the battle alone, playing chess with myself--the fire gets to be black, the ice white, and it's a duel to the finish. The prize is the wheel--control.

I feel pathetic, sitting in a cafe, surrounded with coffee, pierced teenagers full of made-up angst, hunched over a laptop, using a Microsoft product. And instead of imagining I'm somewhere else, like I want to, I laugh. This is me, and I laugh. Smiling does make it better sometimes."

So... a year later, here I am. I have not yet been hit by postpartum depression, or even baby blues. Mentally, I feel stable, especially considering what I've been through in the past year--heartbroken, single parenthood, dad depressed, mom stressed...

But I can't help but feel like the big crash is waiting around the corner, sneaking up on me. Medication isn't an option this time--first of all, I'm breastfeeding, and Fin doesn't need antidepressants. Secondly, I hated those last year. Celexa? Psssh. Horrible. Made everything worse.

How do you stock up on happiness for when the shit hits the fan? Or maybe this is the depression--waiting for it to get worse.

Lord, I was born a rambling man. Just wanted to record these thoughts and send them out into the cosmic cyberspace that is the blogosphere. Seacrest, out.