The longest friendship I never wanted
CW: Mental health, depression, suicidal ideation, and mentions of suicide
If you or someone you know is in crisis or experiencing suicidal thoughts, please seek help immediately. You are not alone, and there are people who want to listen and assist you.
National Suicide Prevention Lifeline:
Call 1-800-273-TALK (1-800-273-8255)
Text “HELLO” to 741741 for the Crisis Text Line.
Available 24/7, this lifeline provides free and confidential support, connecting you to a trained counselor who can offer guidance and assistance during your time of need.
In December 2019, I wrote the following essay, and a friend of mine shared it as a guest post on her blog that was focused on mental health. In some ways, it seems as though a lifetime has passed since I wrote it, so I have updated it a bit to reflect over a year of therapy, lots of work, and a whole pandemic.
The song came on in the car when I was with a group of people. The familiar throwback rock chords were catchy, so I turned up the volume a bit as we all started to nod along. The upbeat song was a few years old, and just a couple of weeks prior, the lead singer of the band died by suicide.
Someone commented, “Oh, it is so sad that he committed suicide. I just don’t understand it. He had a wife and four kids. How could he do that to them?”
I paused.
I know Someone well after working together for several years. We have spent hours and hours in conversation on everything from food to families to faith. While Someone’s life experiences have presented its own set of adversities, depression is not something that they know well. They have never felt the weight of her wrap around their shoulders, pushing them further and further into the ground until they do not recognize themselves. Someone has never seen others pass them by, celebrating various life milestones, simply because depression slows them down, demanding attention and drawing attention away from their goals. Their running commentary of thoughts have never been co-opted by doubt, criticism, and hopelessness for so long that, at this point, they no longer notice their presence, only fleeting moments of their absence. Someone has never experienced so much overwhelming mental pain that it is more real than the worst physical pain they have ever felt, pain that is not socially acceptable to discuss because society has convinced them that they have done it to themselves -- blame which her criticizing internal voice is more than happy to confirm.
They do not know depression well, and I realized in that moment that I am envious of their naiveté.
I quietly took a deep breath, and it caught in my chest. I felt my voice shift just the slightest as I replied, “I don’t think it was something that he did TO them necessarily, but instead, as incomprehensible as it seems to us, something he did for himself. I think he was in pain, so much more pain than anyone could see, that dying by suicide was the only way he thought he could make it stop.” I feel Someone shift in the seat beside me, even though my eyes remained on the road in front of me.
I also have zero doubt that as a smart and empathetic young individual, they understood what I was not saying: I understand that kind of unrelenting, compounding pain because I have tasted it.
Depression is commonly portrayed as something with a definitive start that is exacerbated by external factors or actions, which may be how she shows up for some. However, for me, she is different. She is that friend who is always nearby, speaking her mind, regardless of how many times I try to ghost her or move, and, believe me, I have tried. It is one of those friendships we have all had where the division of emotional labor is not equal: she demands, and I give. She demands to dominate my thoughts, shower me in shame, distance me from things & people I love, and overwhelm me with pain. She demands, and I give. I give her everything.
Almost seven years ago, I realized that I was tired – tired of the manipulation, tired of the isolation, tired of the pain. I was tired of being tired, so I did something I had quietly considered for at over five years: I finally saw my doctor and uttered the word “depression.” Tears stung the back of my eyes, and my voice cracked.
It was absolutely one of the hardest and most shameful moments I have ever experienced. In so many ways, it felt comparable to – and, in other ways, even harder & more shameful than – when I came out of the closet for the first time.
My doctor listened, truly listened, and she read the desperation and sheer pain in my body language. She suggested that I start an anti-depressant and wrote me a prescription to fill before I left the office. I will never forget the feeling of tapping the first pill into my hand. I stared at it for just a moment, sighed, and a deep feeling of failure and blame swelled in my heart.
Shame and stigma around mental health run deep in my conservative lower-middle class family, as I suspect it does for many others, and it was something that we never discussed with any seriousness. However, as much as we avoid talking about mental health as a family, we have always talked openly about our physical health. My dad has had an auto-immune GI disease practically my entire life, and he has always been the type of person to deal with things through jokes, so we were all well-versed in potty humor from a young age. I remember a conversation as a preschooler where I kept trying – and failing to the amusement of the grownups — to say “cholesterol” because I knew someone had to take a test. With four people living in a small home, there wasn’t room in our lives for shame around physical health.
My parents both grew up in poor families where seemingly simple things like having nutritious dinners every night and even indoor toilets were luxuries. Like almost all parents, they wanted to provide more for their kids than they had growing up – and they absolutely did – all while centered on one key value: gratitude. They taught us to be grateful for everything that we have because there are others in the world who have far less, and they knew what that felt like first-hand. My parents are pros, even now, at employing what Brene’ Brown calls the act of “silver lining” things, which is such a strong need to focus on the positive that we dismiss the negative through comparison. For example, my mom often busts out the “at leasts,” like “So what if you wear glasses? At least you can see,” or “Eh, you have a cold. At least it isn’t the flu.” Simply put, there is never any room for “pity, party of one” when my mom is around.
The frequent use of “silver lining” through “others have less” and “at leasts” proved to be an incredibly effective tool for teaching gratitude. Gratitude is a guiding value in my life, and it developed into a love of caring for others that became my full-time career.
However, there is a flip side: it instilled a deep guilt-ridden belief that something is wrong with me if I am not happy. After all, what “right” do I have to be depressed with all of the good things I have in my life?
As it turns out, that first appointment with my doctor was just that – the first one. There have been many more, and there are many more yet to come. I have accepted that this will be something I have to work to address for the rest of my life. Since medication and therapy work better in tandem than either one does independently, I started seeing a therapist weekly. The work in therapy has been incredibly hard, but is also rewarding. The first anti-depressant pill that I tapped into my hand years ago did not turn out to be the best for me. I wish I could say that I have found the right combination that works, but, my doctor and I are still working through the trial and error process. This summer, I found myself in the deepest, darkest low that I have experienced in at least a decade. My pain teetered between completely unbearable and a constant buzz just under my skin that I couldn’t ignore. Medication and therapy are just two tactics I employed to help get it back under control. My support network — my real-life friends — provided invaluable care for me when I was in too much pain to care for myself, and they have helped me push the friendship I never wanted into the background. Depression is and will always remain the friend that I cannot shake, but at least, for now, she is no longer the embarrassingly loud, drunk date I brought to the party.