learning to see

I hesitate to write about some of the specifics of my internal journey because they might sound a little silly. At the same time, however, they're true, and one of the reasons I keep notes about anxiety and depression -- aside from sharing a little of my reality with friends and curious or sympathetic (or voyeuristic) strangers -- is the hope that it will resonate with some people who live under the same black sun, and give others who don't a glimpse of what these maladies are like to the people who suffer from them (and give me plenty of raw material for a memoir).

In therapy this week as I related the start of my latest breakdown and the events surrounding it, I told Jeff, "I drove out to visit my sister -- I really like road trips, I like being alone in the car to think and sort things through without anything else distracting me, just some time to get away from everything, like a mini-retreat," and Jeff held up his hand and said, "That's the most real thing you've said so far: 'I like to be alone.' Let's talk about that."

("Let's talk about that," by the way, is sometimes one of the scariest phrases a psychologist can utter. I usually freeze into the oh-shit-I-was-treading-carefully-but-I'm-on-thin-ice-after-all posture because I know that means there's a problem but I don't know what it is and I don't want to keep talking at all because I feel like a criminal being read her rights: "Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law.")

So while I sat there and answered his questions carefully and worried while I did that maybe I'm some kind of sociopath if I like to be alone because human beings are social and maybe I'm not social, we dug a few layers deeper into a complex web of language, communication, self-expression and self-image.

I say "self-image" for lack of a better one-word term. What I mean by that is "my view of how others see me." Which is different in important ways from my view of myself. It came out that I like being alone partly because I don't think anyone will like me, and so a lot of my communication to others is tailored with incredible observancy to their actual and anticipated reactions (rendering said communication, in Jeff's word, "horseshit").

"Did you notice that?" Jeff asked at one point, interrupting me mid-sentence. "You started to say something, and the corner of my mouth turned down...and your eyes went right to the corner of my mouth and you instantly qualified what you were saying. When you're talking at me your eyes are constantly scanning my entire face. You're extremely observant. Why?"

I don't recall my exact answer. I learned early on that my performance counted in others' estimation more than my actual personhood. It didn't help that I was always a weird kid who could spend hours staring into a tree but lacked the social graces to flirt, and who preferred losing herself in books to playing sports or (especially) dancing. People have always made me nervous, and any kind of vulnerability is a big deal for me; I don't believe that people will like me if they really know me. That's the bottom line, really: I assume people won't like me. Every way in which I interact with people is, evidently, structured around that assumption.

But when I'm alone I like myself just fine. I like myself a lot. I love that I love indie music and quirky films and world cuisines and yerba mate; I like my writing, my singing voice, my cooking, my decorating style, my thoughts, my books, my company. I don't have to pretend much when I'm alone, and I can dance really badly and drift from room to room (when I think of being alone I mostly think of myself as I was alone in my apartment in South Bend; I still miss the Ivory Tower) singing mid-range harmonies to my indie music and burn candles and wear whatever (translate: very little) I want and be outrageously crazy about Simon and feel generally happy and carefree.

But somehow it all gets lost in translation when the language of being becomes the language of interacting with other human beings. Mostly I feel like nobody gets me, and I want to be understood. But I also confuse understanding and liking as synonymous when really they're not. People don't have to "get" me to like me, and the truth is that almost everybody likes me. I think one of my tasks is to accept that, and to discover why (because when someone likes me I'm always puzzled and surprised), so that I can actually appreciate myself whether I'm alone or with others.

Jeff has assigned me the task of expressing disagreement with people, which, in certain contexts, I meticulously avoid. He's teaching me to disagree firmly and yet calmly and cheerfully. In this way I'll learn to say things that are all-the-way real, and not in compromise.

Meanwhile, as if in affirmation of this astonishing notion that I'm likeable (really, every time someone expresses some kind of liking or concern for me, I'm always surprised and puzzled, wondering why), I've been getting a flood of communication over the last week from friends old and friends new, friends near and friends far away. And my life is blooming into plans for adventure and fun with some of these -- I may be more comfortable alone, but I really love being around people -- and taking on some shades of color instead of a long black stretch of grey. I'm consciously walking into social situations, and approaching conversations, with the assumption that people will like me. (It's a discipline, but it's much less worrisome than my habitual approach.)

Jeff told me, "You think no one likes you, kiddo, but let me tell you, after one session with you I care about you just as much as when you walked out my door after our last session all those years ago, and someone who has that kind of capacity to make someone care about her that much in so short a time..."

I don't remember what he said to close off that sentence; I was battling my instinctive internal response, which was, "I don't believe you." But as I cautiously absorbed that information, and started to reevaluate my interactions with a lot of different people, I realized that I, who am so intensely focused on always being right, am wrong in this area. (And the world didn't end.)

Actually it's really freeing. There's something about the me-ness of me that is likeable. Even my supervisor for my grading job -- a Christian who also understands my struggles with anxiety and depression, and let me tell you, folks, that is a rare and priceless gem -- whom I have kept updated, when I remembered, about this latest, and long, bad stretch, to explain to her my inactivity, has expressed huge amounts of encouragement and understanding, and I've never met the woman; we've had a few online training sessions and she and I have emailed back and forth with student exams.

So maybe I find all this confusing as hell, and kind of a lot to absorb; I know it's going to take a lot of time as I untangle this great big snarl of wrong assumptions and follow the main thread to its source; but it's confusing as hell and a lot to absorb in a nice way. It's funny, usually in therapy you discover all these bad things you've been suppressing and have to deal with, but in this case I'm discovering a really good thing I've been suppressing and now need to learn to live in.

It'll all be better. I don't know if I'll ever be really free of this thing (what was that thorn in Paul's side which he pleaded three times for God to take away from him, and God said, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness"?), but, as Carol, my fellow suffering believer, wrote to me, "Don’t worry about 'beating this thing.' Instead of fighting against it to do the 'normal' things, just be with God in the midst of it. He isn’t punishing you with depression, though He is allowing you to be in that state. Let Him take care of the doing and wait on Him with whatever curiosity you can muster."

Extraordinarily wise advice. And, as God has been reminding me repeatedly lately, the people who served Him most powerfully, from Genesis to Revelation, weren't usually the people who had it all together. A lot of times they were wrecks, drunkards, crazies, murderers, adulterers, depressives (I love you, Jeremiah), liars, tricksters, cowards, idiots, grudge-bearers, idolators, womanizers, prostitutes, doubters and deniers. And sometimes these people were in the midst of their imperfections when God called them. Not everyone was Daniel or Joshua or John. They were nearly always stunningly human, and that didn't matter to God ("for he knows how we are formed, he remembers that we are dust").

So I keep remembering that "my times are in your hands," and that God has said, "I will restore to you the years that the locust hath eaten," and that however He does that will probably surprise me. And most importantly, I don't have to be perfect to be loved by, or useful to, God. Perhaps this affliction is the thing that keeps me remembering my humanity, and makes me dependent on God -- and on people -- where I would fight against that dependency. Perhaps this is the thing that keeps me connected to those who suffer where I might not understand. Or maybe I will be healed of it completely one day after all. But wherever I am with depression and anxiety, whether in the depths of the ocean or resting on high ground, I'm with God.

Where can I go from your Spirit?
Where can I flee from your presence?
If I go up to the heavens, you are there;
if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.
If I rise on the wings of the dawn,
if I settle on the far side of the sea,
even there your hand will guide me,
your right hand will hold me fast.
If I say, "Surely the darkness will hide me
and the light become night around me,"
even the darkness will not be dark to you;
the night will shine like the day,
for darkness is as light to you.

Psalm 139:7-12

Which, really, is all that matters.