How the Pandemic Cured my Depression and Saved my Life
Nothing cures depression. I believe that we are granted a daily reprieve contingent upon us taking a few simple actions. Just like alcoholism. Just like diabetes. There are numerous effective treatments for these diseases, but no cure.
What do I know? I’m no doctor. I’m just a voice inside my head. My theory is based solely on my experience over the last twelve years of living with depression.
Eight months ago I began healing, but I didn’t know it. Because I felt like I was getting sicker.
And then the world got sick.
Like millions of people, I lost my job.
My career as a chef was one of the things that fed my soul. It also paid the bills, which is important. But not nearly as important as I make it sometimes. Being poor sucks, but it hasn’t killed me yet. The people who depend on my financial support may not agree with my attitude. Such is the life of an artist.
The restaurant was my happy place. My coworkers and customers were my people. The daily trifles became less bothersome, when I was working. Cooking was my most creative outlet. It may not have been art, but it was damn good food. And it made me happy.
So, losing my job and my most creative endeavor kind of sucked.
And as we have all found, life does not quit sucking during a pandemic. Life still happens. And it still sucks sometimes.
During the first weeks of the pandemic I began narrative therapy, which involves writing. The impetus for the therapy is not important. Let’s just say that no one shows up to the therapist’s office when their life is flowing swimmingly.
When the shit hits the fan, remember that you are the shit and you are the fan.
The point is that the pandemic is traumatizing, but it is also an opportunity to change. It is an opportunity to heal and to recreate our lives.
But it sure as hell did not feel that way in March.
5 am, Sunday, March 29, 2020 The first thing I do is check the Covid-19 death statistics, because I like to fill my brain with poison in the morning. Then, I switch from the news to my calculator, so I can divide the number of deaths by the number of cases, and get the death percentage rate. It is a great exercise to get the brain and spirit going in the right direction. Today in the United States, there have been 123,781 people infected with the virus. 2,229 of those people have died. The death rate is 1.8% in the US. World- wide the death rate is over 4.5%. According to the Worldometer, of the 678,910 human beings who have contracted the virus, 31,771 of them have died, so far. I’ve been spending more time sitting quietly than ever before. I’m not sure you could call it meditation, but it is the closest I can get. I can sit for two hours staring at the trees in my backyard. And no one tells me that I should be doing something else. Reading or watching television is useless. If I decide to watch a show, I last for fifteen minutes, and I am done. I read three pages of a book and drift off to sleep. Oh sleep. God, I am sleeping a lot.
I wish that I could say that I hit rock bottom here. I was a mess. I felt like a mess. I knew that I was a mess. But all I could do was embrace my unholy mess.
On the positive side, at least I was writing. And I was engaged in therapy which always required more thoughtfulness and energy than I thought I possessed.
But the rollercoaster ride from hell was only beginning.
Noon, Monday, April 27, 2020
I have not written a single word in a month.
When John Prine died, I had to go to bed. I turned off all media for several days. I slept a lot. I tried to meditate, but often fell asleep. I call it “sleepatating” or “medisleeping”, depending on my approach. If I go to bed and meditate with the intention of falling asleep, it is “sleepatating”. If I sit down to meditate and fall asleep, it is “medisleep”. I have been struggling to stay out of the bed all day every day. The struggle is real.
I quit nicotine, because I can’t afford it anymore.
I walk the dog three times a day. I cook and I eat several times a day. I have already gained my Covid-19 pounds. Everything in my life has become tasteless. Nothing appeals to me. Television, books, movies, food, porn, and food-porn bore me after five minutes. I don’t even feel like having sex. Now that is serious.
Here is a happy little chart tracking the number of cases and deaths from Covid-19. Monday is the perfect day to count dead people.
I made a handy Excel spreadsheet documenting the number of cases and deaths of Covid-19 throughout the world that I updated each week and inserted into my journal.
That was excellent use of my time.
11am, Saturday, May 16, 2020,
Let’s count dead people. 310,060 worldwide. You can count dead people any day you want.
Death is an event. Grief is a process. Both are equally sacred.
That’s not much of a journal entry. I know.
I wrote a long essay about my mother’s death. It was incredibly therapeutic, but not something worth sharing. Just another tawdry tale of drug abuse and shame.
Uh, that’s my drug abuse and shame. Not my mother’s! She was a saint.
9am, Monday, May 25, 2020, Memorial Day
I don’t know how many people are dead today.
I overdosed on the news and abandoned my weekly death chart. I wrote a long essay about getting sober that contained some nuggets of truth and perhaps art. But the bottom of my depression was rising up to meet me.
4:30 am, July 1, 2020
I spent the last five weeks in bed. Some days I walk around the neighborhood for hours between naps. Mostly I sit in the dark with my eyes closed. I do not understand why everyone does not feel this way. The world is ending, and I am the only one who is noticing.
If I am honest, I will admit that I have felt this coming on for six months. One of the obstacles to my seeing my depression clearly is that the world is changing so drastically, viscerally and rapidly. Because of this collective human trauma, I question and second guess my feelings, emotions and sanity. We are living in an insane world. How could a sane person not see the hopelessness and depravity of our times and not want to kill himself and others? Why isn’t everyone’s psyche being crushed by our dire circumstances?
I don’t know. I see people busying themselves with their normal activities and distractions. People talk about things going back to normal. I don’t want things to go back to normal. I want something new. Something fresh and vital should be born out of this human tragedy. If it is not, then I might as well go back to fucking bed.
Going from depression to anger can be a step in the right direction, though your loved ones may not concur. These same loved ones don’t like it when I use the word, fuck. I’m trying to stop. I swear.
4:45am, July 15, 2020
I have felt like shit for two weeks. Sleep is more like a long sweaty panic attack, from which I emerge each day with aching muscles, heart burn and severe depression. Pitiful.
Perhaps the worst is over. I am not doing a victory lap yet, but I am hopeful. At least I showed up for my life today. I have been absent for so goddamn long, I don’t know who the fuck I am right now. I am confounded by the number of days that I have done absolutely nothing this year. I am ashamed. The idea that I cannot control this depression, because I am weak is ever present.
Besides this miniscule hope, I mostly feel anger. That is an improvement. I am grateful to feel anything today. I have been null and void too long. I have been witnessing the days of my life slip into oblivion, wasted. Wasted like an unwanted, but much needed cigarette, leaving me feeling dirty, sick and snuffed out.
“Wasted like an unwanted cigarette:” I don’t know who I stole that line from, but it’s a good one. And it made me want to write more.
I started to feel as if I may have something creative and helpful to share.
So I began learning how to build a website. I didn’t really know why at the time.
5:00am, August 10, 2020
My younger son tested positive for Covid-19 last week. That’s what happens when you spend the summer in Arkansas.
The arthritis pain in my back instigated an inner surrender on Thursday. I cried till I puked. Then I laughed and cried some more. It was beautiful. My body convulsed and vibrated. I was standing in the middle of the street in front of my house. I don’t think anyone noticed. I wasn’t wearing a mask when I puked. Sorry, neighbors. I tested negative. I swear.
The absence of pain, that is what I have sought my entire life. When chronic pain subsides, I become so grateful. I try to remember to remain grateful each day, but I forget. The recovery from an illness or injury reminds me to practice gratitude. I remembered today. I’ll soon forget, I’m sure.
Guess what? I forgot. Again.
But then I remembered again this morning, when I read my journal.
I had an epiphany that day. I came to believe that I could survive my mental illness. I laughed at the image of myself crying and puking in the street. It was beautiful and cathartic.
Normally I might say that a scene of this sort is pitiful. But after the previous five months, convulsing in front of the neighbors was glorious real-world theatre. It was my truth. I was down to the core, finally.
Everything that was eating its way to my center retreated from my laughter and my embrace.
The image of my lunatic-self writhing in his front yard became my totem.
I wanted to tell the world about it.
I decided that I was going to spend my time doing things that are meaningful to me. And that I would spend less time doing things that sucked the life force out of me.
Creativity became my therapy, my medicine, my anti-depressant.
I read more books in three months than I had read in the three previous years. I actually studied. My desire to learn energized me.
I started writing this crazy blog every week. I started a YouTube channel, Cooking Away the Blues. I rediscovered a children’s book that I was writing a dozen years ago.
I have no idea what I am doing, but I do a lot of it every day. Everything I do today feels like play-time.
My life’s circumstances have not changed much. In fact, the financial outlook is dire. But I have found a way to thrive amidst a pandemic, despite depression, despite circumstances, and despite myself.
I feel like my real life has begun.
Originally published at https://julesburkewrites.com on November 11, 2020.
