Drowning

The first signs of depression crept in as the seasons shifted that year, as life began to grow in little buds outdoors fighting for its place after a difficult winter. Instead of the long-awaited sense of relaxation I had longed for following my father’s death, a distinct feeling began to make its way on tiptoe past the vigilant guard I had constructed over the past several years. This feeling, which at first I could not put a name to, crawled slowly through my open pores and took root, clinging with a fierce joy at its triumphant return.

This feeling which I was later able to remember as depression scared me almost to death. The times before when it had managed to climb out of the deep place where I had buried this devil and it had burst forth with a vengeance had caused such hopelessness and despair that I had either experienced suicidal ideation or actually attempted to kill myself.

I was acutely aware of how low I could go and I was also aware that I was headed in this direction. The train had left the station and I was trapped. The doors were closed and although I tried with all my might, I couldn’t force them open.

At work I would feign a smile and force conversation with my colleagues in the front office where the administrative staff sat and where the patient charts were kept. There we would banter about the events of the day and the news that blared from the television set that hung from the wall in the waiting room.

The minute I returned to my office — which happened to be the last after an odd series of twists and turns down a narrow hallway — I closed my door and burst into tears, not even waiting to wrap my head in my arms on my desk. I stood in front of my window and squinted out of the closed blinds through my tears, wondering how all those people could just go about their business without wishing they were dead. Eventually I wound up sobbing, with my head encased in my arms on my desk, piles of papers wrinkled and damp and me not caring one way or the other.

Finally I called my psychiatrist from the office and told her that I couldn’t take it any longer.

“Do you want to go to the partial hospitalization program?” she asked.

“Something, anything,” was all I could muster.

My boss at work was furious when I told her I would be taking another extended leave of absence. I had just been out for three weeks four months prior to attend the chronic headache program at the Cleveland Clinic and now I had the gall to be ill again, this time with depression, a mental illness. I kept wondering if she would have reacted differently if I had been struck down with a physical illness. I pondered the thought that had she made the decision that the depression was my fault, a weakness, a deficit of my character, despite the fact that we all worked in a mental health clinic.

The day program was structure, someplace to go, to be with others who were also depressed. The staff remembered me from when I had been there in 2007. Other than that it wasn’t very helpful. We tried several different medications but they weren't effective.

So when I began having the passing thoughts of suicide I didn’t tell anyone. As a social worker I knew exactly what would have happened. They would take me aside, question me about intent (how much did I want to die), plan (had I figured out how I was going to do it) and means (did I have in my possession the method to which commit the suicidal act). Then depending on the answers, they would tell me I had to go inpatient, into the psychiatric hospital. I imagined how my boss would react to that piece of news. More time out of work.

So I returned to work on schedule.

That first week back was worse than before. My boss had transferred my small caseload of patients to other therapists because I was no longer dependable, so I was now conducting intakes which took longer than the forty-five minutes than I spent with the new patient. I still had most of my administrative work. I felt as though I was drowning.

I didn’t know what to do, how to communicate my sense of desperation to anyone. Everyone was trying to help me and I was failing everyone, including myself. The tide was taking me out further and further into the deep sea and I was too tired to kick, to fight, to do anything to save myself. I was going under and I didn’t care.