Tribute

Sitting beyond a window

This entry is based on a pair of experiences on my loungeroom chair this afternoon just half an hour apart.

Sitting beyond a window.
Blue sky roaming, sun beam warming,
Flower blooming, life is moving,
Not lost on him beyond the window
Yet lost as if it surely were.

Sitting beyond a window.
Sky is storming, wind is blowing,
Leaves are scattered, life is battered
Not lost on him beyond the window
Earth mockingly well aimed it's dart.

From a Psalm of David

Deliver me, O God,
for the water has reached my neck.
I sink into the deep mire
where there is no solid ground;
I am in deep water,
and the current overpowers me.
I am exhausted from shouting for help;
my throat is sore;
my eyes grow tired of looking for my God.

Psalm 69:1-3 (NET Bible)

Reply - reflections on hope

This post is a reply to comments left in "Trial By Terror". For context you should read that first. I wrote a little too much for a comment so I put it here.

It is true (and not crass) that having a child puts a higher cost on abandoning hope as well as giving hope itself a greater value (perhaps through it having a physical object to identify with). My daughter (and wife) through whatever means definitely take me to a place where I virtually 'have to hope'. While I am fighting with all my strength to hold on to my life and on to my hope, and doing quite well most of the time with it - even though my health has been quite appalling lately - I don't think I am beyond the capacity of losing hope just because I have a child, or a wife, or any other object or means of supporting that hope. Unfortunately there are common enough examples of persons with children and loved ones who abandon hope and succumb to the darkest fantasies of despair and I don't think that I am intrinsically more capable of holding on to hope than these.

I have actually thought quite a lot about hope since being depressed, and again more recently after reading trial by terror, and I do think hope is something that can be built, nurtured, and maintained. Whatever the 'process of hope' it is definitely not the path of least resistance so is, by default, at times inconvenient and at others damn near impossible!

For me there are three powerful foundations in my life that sustains and maintains my ability to hope.

My family (wife and child) - they are an unfailing inspiration to my determination to get better and be as well as possible in the midst of my depression (ironically they also cause me the greatest grief, especially at those times when my depression is the worst, because I know that my illness traumatises them and places a burden on their lives that noone should have to carry and that I can't bare to see them carry). They actually have to do nothing to underpin my hope. The fact that they tolerate me and even give me a kind word or look when I am at my worst is amazing beyond understanding. When occasionally (and this is rarely) I receive a cruel word or glance from them how can I hold it against them as they naturally get frustrated (or confused in my daughters case) and are burdened with something they are not compelled to endure. Ties like this certainly give me something to live for both in way of inspiration to me and also with a desire to repay the faith and love that they have extended to me.

My friends/supporters - I have a few of these that support me at all times but especially when I am at my most vulnerable, as I am coming out of a deep dark place. In the depths of depression I find I get frustrated, angry, agitated, numb, feelingless, my mind doesn't work, I can't concentrate, I barely eat or sleep (or over eat and sleep often), have dark thoughts, barely move 20m in a day (a couple of toilet stops and the occasional fridge stop) etc. A place where I am too far caught up in the illness and can exist only in the immediacy of my depression's depths. As I come out of the worst of this my mind begins to straighten out and my activity begins to increase slowly. I soon get enough breathing space from the illness and am able to reflect on my depression and the impact it has on my life and my loved ones. I do this though with a weakened mind that easily gets drawn into speculation about ultimate recovery, or about feeling cheated by another episode of depression, or with certitude about my lack of worth, or get hooked about some crazy scheme to restore some of the things I have lost in my life due to illness - money, usefulness, routine, normality, or just a little further on I become lucid enough to hate myself for what I am as measured by my symptoms (a do nothing slob that can't think or eat or shower or add value to another's life - especially to those who endure his frightful presence in these times). It is at this point that my friends are like gold. I have simply made an agreement with myself (with the support of a few close friends/supporters) that no matter what I am going through as soon as I am well enough to be at this point I will call them and let them know. They reassure me, deconstruct the false conclusions about my worth or about my burdens that only my distorted mind is capable of drawing. They reaffirm my value to themselves as friends and speak on behalf of my family. They reconstruct hope in my thinking where the disease of depression had previously wrought havoc. The fact they do this spares my wife from being faced with the pressures of my darkest mind when it requires energy and strength to fight against it on my behalf - this too makes me want to live for my friends. If my friends think it's worth fighting for my life and my family then I can certainly use their judgement. It gives me hope that people are willing to spend time and energy on me - even when I am at my worst - there has to be a message of hope in that. But it doesn't end their with my friends. They also tolerate my need to be 'normal' and do what they can to do 'normal' things with me when I improve a little more. It doesn't matter if I am not well enough to engage the rest of the world they will meet me for coffee, watch a dvd with me, talk about sport or politics or religion or any interest or just sit silently with my, virtually any place any time just to give me an experience of normality when ordinarily I am not well enough to be normal. To glimpse that light at the end of the tunnel brings hope.

Faith/God - This is a worldview/ideological advantage as well as a practical one. From the beginning my faith tells me that I am not a biological or cosmological accident but a being with value, meaning, and purpose - immediately this is a reason to hope and live regardless of my circumstances. It provides me with comfort through prayer (although unanswered prayers become a challenge from time to time), through reading of texts that relate to my situation with a message of hope, and through the tool of faith itself that provides an avenue to hope when rationality can't (basically a belief in the unseen even in the midst of doubt).

I hadn't intended to write this much in reply (I often won't reply to posts - not because I don't essentially want to but because I don't want correspondence to be a burden that turns me away from logging on to my site and reading it if I need to or feeling obliged to reply before I write a post I think it's important for me to write). But I had been thinking about hope and I had intended to jot a couple of additional things to my last comments. I have forgotten a little of what I was going to say (as my mind is getting a little tired after writing the above) but it was along the lines of the disaster it would be to have hope become an anathema by virtue of embracing it as something that keeps one going just sufficiently to suffer more in the future. It's enough that hope is shattered by setbacks in health without it becoming something to fear and despise of itself.

Trial By Terror

" ... the steady battering of the mind by hope aroused and cast down could be more punishing and destructive than truncheon or rubber hose crashing against skull or jaw."

Paul Gallico, Trial By Terror

I recently read the book from which the aforementioned quote was sourced. It was the story of a vigorous young man (Jimmy) in his prime who was captured by secret police behind the "Iron Curtain" during the cold war. The story gave an account of how Jimmy's soul and will was broken down by psychological means (fairly easily in the end) and left him as a broken mind in a still hearty shell of flesh. His ultimate fate was to falsely testify against himself in a public court as a western spy - fully believing his guilt. Whilst I have read novels I have liked much better the parallells I saw between Gallico's story of Jimmy and my own experience with depression were quite interesting.

The quote itself was the punchline following a series of ploys from the interrogators to keep Jimmy on edge and uncertain about his case. Jimmy would be brought in for questioning from complete isolation randomly, arbitrarily. The key to his torture in this was his not knowing when the isolation would be broken. His agony was increased by anticipation of his case progressing - especially when confronted by familiar cues of hope eg. guards walking past etc - only to be left alone and waiting again. The combination of these and other psychological events did much to break his spirit and hope and left him vulnerable to a false truth constructed wholly by his interogators.

Immediately I read this section I recognised the parallels with my depression. The waiting in hope of a breakthrough in my health, the uncertainty of when the next period of recovery will take place, the familiar footsteps of normality echoing in my ear only to pass me by, cruelly, taunting me with the promise of normality but leaving it yet again unfulfilled, the battle to remain hopeful of a recovery in my depression - or at least for a break in my health where it is reliably manageable - and life as 'normal' resumed again.

The uncertainty, and the taunting nature of my illness, has at times worn down my will and terrorised my soul with impending doom, utter hopelessness and despair, and growing desperation. In these times I have been tempted by (and have at times succumbed to) falsely constructed realities. "My life has no value" "Liquor will numb my pain" "Gambling can provide a replacement income" "Amphetamines (speed) will pick me up out of my depression" "My death will please those for whom I am a burden". And others less dramatic. "There's no point in trying" "You'll always be like this" "You're not really sick - just lazy and good for nothing".

Many of these sound completely ridiculous when phrased as above especially when considered in times of a clearer mind. But these phrases, like the Sirens voices, embody an irresistable reality when being terrorised by the uncertainties of depression and its cycle.

In parallell with Gallico's assessment I think much of the power of my 'trial by terror' is the constant uncertainty of my health coupled with the breakdown of hope. There is not much I am able to do with the uncertainties of depression except develop undying patience - the quest continues. The constant uncertainty makes me vulnerable to unfair assessments of myself and other false realities but works most strongly against the hope of recovery (or hope of reliably managing my depression).

Fighting against the breakdown of hope is a battle I must renew often and thankfully is one I keep ahead of most of the time - thanks to supportive family and friends.

The flashlight

Did you ever have a torch with dirty contacts or a dodgy set of wiring? You know the type that doesn't work properly. You'll switch it on and it will work. You move to shine the beam to a point of interest and the movement disturbs the continuity of electrical current from the battery to the globe and the beam flickers and dies. You shake the torch and hit it. The beam responds to the bursts of energy wrought upon it by the owner. At each crescendo of effort in the shaking and beating the torch the beam brightly flickers in the darkenss. It dazzles but only momentarily. A few gentler shakes follow and aha! You've found a position where the beam is emitted continuously from the torch through the dark - but dimly. You move the beam to different targets ever so slowly and gently to keep the circuit of the torch intact (what a ridiculous sight to an onlooker). You keep searching different targets with the beam that is left. You fool! You made a false move, or at least moved at normal pace, and the beam dies. You shake your torch and beat it and bang it violently but the more you abuse it the less often and less brightly it flickers. Is the torch good for anything? In this case it has to suffice as there is no provision to purchase another one. Can it be repaired? Much work can be done on it but so far there has been no fix for it. Perhaps one day it will spontaneously regenerate.