Darkness, Hope

Like everyone, I'm exhausted.  Minnesota has one of the highest covid transmission rates in the country and has held that position for weeks.  I've been afraid to do much of anything outside our home, other than the usual and necessary errands.

It's becoming apparent that this way of living is not sustainable.  I feel depression creeping up.  So F. and I are going out for breakfast tomorrow, early, to escape the crowds.  I hate to take the risk of getting or transmitting covid, mostly because our doctors and nurses are desperate for relief.  But depression can be just as dangerous as covid--it makes me push away those I love most. 

I'm trying to cling to the news that is most hopeful: the omicron virus is less deadly, the Pfizer antiviral pill is 90 percent effective early in the disease.  I need that hope.  For the first time I see why Jesus listed it among the top three: faith, hope, and love. 

As a survivor of childhood abuse, I've noticed a pattern: I feel my worst just before a memory or insight that propels intense growth.  I hope the pandemic is like that. I hope it precedes a world-wide  reckoning, a humbling here in the U.S., where our sense of control and entitlement has been blown to smithereens--then ushers in a new era of intense growth and innovation. 

I hope. 

Covid and PTSD

I’ve been struggling mightily with depression. Someone has suggested medical marijuana, which sounds like fun.

Is it addictive? I don't know. What are the effects of long-term use? I don't know. Will it give me the munchies? Make me too sleepy to drive? I don't know. But I’m intrigued.

I feel for all those out there with PTSD, depression, and anxiety--like me. Covid has created a perfect emotional storm: I feel trapped, isolated, afraid, and powerless, with no end in sight--exactly how I felt in my childhood home.

I’ve been stable for several years on a cocktail of three anti-depressants, but I hate being on these medications. Whenever I try to get off them, though, I grow weepy and self-loathing. Still, I don’t trust them. After a few years, the positive effects peter out, and I have to switch to something new. Plus, though they keep me from plunging into the abyss, they don’t keep me from hovering directly above it.

At some point I decided that, though I had to keep taking the medications, I would not rely on them. With the external focus and structure provided by teaching, the day-time solitude I could count on for working out my emotional knots, and therapy a few times a month, that strategy worked. But the pandemic has upset that delicate balance. I am no longer teaching, my son does not need me in the same way, we’re all home all day every day, there are no cafes I can escape to when I need to get away.

Life events can pile up. The struggle can become too much for myself alone. I see now why I went on meds in the first place, and why I may have to raise the dosage yet again. It takes a certain humility to admit this. An admission of powerlessness. An openness to the intervention of a power greater than myself. A new med, a new 12-step group, a medical-grade mood-altering weed. A miracle cure, for Covid and me.

To Fail, to Begin Anew

A few weeks ago, I was so concerned about Max's depression that I lined up six potential therapists for him to choose from.  He picked out the one I wanted him to: Xoel Rodriguez, married with kids, Spanish-speaking, and a former tattoo artist.  I knew Max would think this was cool.  

I left a message at the clinic. But before they called back, Max had a friend over for the first time in months.  Not just any friend, but his best friend since childhood--Vernon--who had a habit of dropping off the grid for a year or two, then suddenly reappearing.  

The next day, Max's depression was gone.  He told the clinic he no longer needed their services.  I still thought counseling would've been helpful.  But Max said, "I already have a therapist: my friends."

A week later another friend spent the night: Genuine Jack.  A 6-foot-tall teddy-bear of a young man.  He pumped Sam's head full of the pros and cons of college and its costs and benefits--stuff I've been saying for months and Sam's been refusing to hear. 

Vernon teaches Max to be grateful for what he already has.  Jack teaches him to weigh practicalities.  All his friends have told him over and over to have more faith in himself.  Apparently, unbenownst to me, there was one night they talked him out of a wish to die.

ISO: In Search Of ...

In the panicked early days of Covid, I posted an ISO (“in search of”) on the neighborhood app Nextdoor for sanitizing wipes.  I got a list of suggestions for places to get them, but all the stores and pharmacies were out.  There were none to be found on Amazon, or anywhere online.  Finally a man named Jason offered some of his own. I was grateful.  But when I picked them up from his front stoop, there was a single container, already open, only a quarter full.

Then someone posted an offer to make face masks.  The masks were not cheap--$20 each—because she was donating one for each one paid for.  When I got them, the elastic loops were too big for my ears.  I had to pinch a segment of the elastic and staple it together to make the mask fit more snugly. The staples kept rubbing against the back of my ears.
 
Now, I’m engaged in a what my husband and I call a “cleaning frenzy,” a mad purging of clutter and grime.  We call it a “frenzy” because the impulse is both intense and rare, and motivated by despair.  This impulse flies against my life-long hatred of vacuuming and dusting.  When I was 12, I informed my mother that I would not be helping her and my sister clean on Saturday mornings.  In fact, when I was older, I’d be hiring a maid.  I was planning to be a doctor, so I’d have plenty of money.  For some reason my mother let me get away with this; I guess we both figured I’d be wealthy enough to take care of the whole family.