Some Words on Depression

I just had the greatest first week of school ever. All my classes were so interesting. I took notes and was excited to the do the reading; I talked with people in my class and made comments. Today I was sitting in bed and remembered that I needed to refill a prescription, so I grabbed my phone and refilled it right after remembering that I needed to. Yesterday, I thought I should prep my lesson for tomorrow, so I did, and today I printed out all the crap I need to hand out to my adorable new students tomorrow.

All of this is in stark contrast to the way I felt about things last semester. The first week was hard, and the semester only got harder. Everything was terrible; I didn't have the energy to do anything. I stopped going to class halfway through the semester, and if I did make it to class, I missed at least the first half, except for the one class I had with my boyfriend, since he picked me up and drove me to campus so that we would be mostly on time.

I had also broken my foot, so getting to and from campus (and to and from everywhere) was a little tricky. But I didn't realize until this week of school started how terrible things actually were last semester. They were a huge, gigantic bummer, and it sucked.

The main contrast is that I feel like I have energy today--energy to do my homework (some of it, anyway) and to refill my prescriptions. You don't realize how draining it is not to have that energy until you regain it and wonder how you ever survived without it.

This isn't to say that everything about last semester was awful; I made a lot of friends in my new program, which was fun. I started out dreading teaching but came to like it and changed from hating my students to thinking they were cute. I read some interesting books and saw some good movies and did a lot of hanging out with my friends and boyfriend and had some good times.

And it isn't to say that now everything is magically better. My classes are better, I actually know how to teach now, and I'm actually interested in the subject matter I'm studying this time around, but just because today has been a good day doesn't mean that every day from here on out will be. I dread the next time all this perky energy leaves me and I slouch around the house and up to campus feeling empty and useless and the only energy I can gather is to wish I were dead.

But days like today give me the confidence that not every day has to be like those days. That some semester, or days, or hours, or minutes, can be better than others. This is always a good time to refer back to The Return of the King and poor sad Frodo Baggins, who I way over-identify with. Last time I watched that movie, I sobbed and sobbed and sobbed, not just because Frodo was getting more and more depressed and more and more suicidal but because he always had someone who cared about him--whether it was Galadriel outside of Shelob's Lair or Aragorn and company at the end or, and most especially, Sam, who followed him around even when rejected and ultimately says that while he can't carry his friend's burden, he can physically (emotionally, mentally) carry his friend. Maybe it's overwrought and dramatic and I know it's just a fantasy tale, but it is so incredibly emotionally resonant with me because I spend so much time feeling like Frodo and I just need to be reminded that everyone around me has been a Sam to me at different points in my life. No one can be a Sam all the time; that would be emotionally exhausting, and even Sam can't save Frodo in the end. But I think we can all take on the role for someone else when we have the energy and love to do so. If you don't have a Sam, I'm so desperately sorry; I hope that you will find one later in your life, and keep believing that you will. And I hope that silly us on our silly, heartfelt blog can be of some help, Sam- or otherwise.

Anyway, this has been a long and silly ramble, and all of my energy might leave again when I go to my parents' house for dinner tonight, though I'm trying to be optimistic. Regardless, I'm glad I had this week and this weekend to float out of the sludge and grime of depression, even if I just sink right back down again. Good luck to everyone struggling with this same thing; I very much sympathize and empathize with you, including those of you who I know and love very personally and those of you who I've never met. I'm not always on my best behavior, but I hope that sometimes I can help people around me like they've helped. Cheers and love to all of you on this cold and sunny day, and please stay warm and remember that there are people around you who love and care about you, online or off. Loves.

-Kylie

Little Fishy Thing
Jenny Browne

When I learned of you I tattooed
a morning glory
round my belly button

and played Bach's 6th Cello Suite
every day, left
headphone to womb so you'd know

the sound of the world waiting.

I snorkeled the coast of Carmen, hovering
my little fishy thing, among sea-
suck green and leaning
over webbed purple lungs, six ton
brains, such fluttering. We are

breathing below every surface
a glare, salt a skin
floating belly, butt, bloody hole
you call home.

Eyes on the side of a head turn
inward, turn
nicked black seeds half inch below earth winding
into a cord between sky
and it's time.

When I learned I licked
salt from behind your father's knees. Can you see
the ocean floor inside our one body, two
webbed hearts attached to stone,
half life to make, half
second to break?

Of you I swam
where every voice its own echo. Keep keep
turning to feel

anything. Everything

now a window in the tropics propped
open by a spider web turning
from dance in the dark of wish
to tongue in the deep

mouth of when.

Busy

Today is busy. Or, it's supposed to be busy. I've worked a little bit on a paper draft that I'm supposed to finish, but I also watched an episode of Psych and an episode of Community, may it rest in peace. I'm not sure I have a lot to say today. I was trying to brainstorm ideas when I was falling asleep last night for my post this morning (afternoon...evening....), which was helpful, since I was having an unhappy night and it was a welcome distraction from suicidal ideation and the one sharp knife in the kitchen. So that was nice. That's part of why I write on this blog, I think--I'd go crazy if I didn't have some outlet in a place that I can control, with words I want to say. I'm tired of lying to people. This blog doesn't feel like a lie. Which is a nice change. This helps me.

I've also seen the new James Bond movie three times now. There's a hugely problematic middle section featuring a used and abused sex worker that pisses me off. Apart from that, though, I really enjoy the movie...which I don't think makes me a bad person. I had a film teacher at BYU talk about the old mutual activity featuring a milkshake made with a bug or a pizza with rat crap on it, usually used in relation to chastity or movies or both--doesn't this milkshake look good? It has a bug in it...but it's just one bug, right? Doesn't this look sooooo good? The Sunday school answer is, of course, even one little problem can spoil the whole batch! One swear word! One kiss too far! One little slip and, oops, you're a milkshake that no one wants to drink anymore! My film teacher's argument was that we should treat movies like we treat people--a mixture of good and bad. If a human makes a mistake, we should forgive them; maybe we should forgive our movies and other works of art too. I like that.

I'm interested in Javier Bardem's character in the film--for those who haven't seen it, he comes across very strongly as an evil!bisexual. Which is fun. I'm trying to think of bisexual characters in movies or books whose sexuality isn't rapacious or lewd but, well, normal, and there aren't many (....no really, I can't think of a single one). Of course, this is the villain, who rapes and pillages and murders women and men willy-nilly (much like James Bond, our supposed hero) and has an incestuous mother/son complex that makes the film really enjoyable to watch. I just admire Javier Bardem so much as an actor and I think he pulls off this bisexual character amazingly well, which is a nice change from so much of the current dialogue surrounding bisexuality.

Alright, I gotta get back to this ridiculous paper drafting. Such are the woes of grad school. But thanks for letting me use this as an outlet; it's helpful. Good luck in your own stressful weeks, folks. If you're feeling blue about the upcoming holiday season, might I suggest this blog? It induces tears more often than not, but it's a comfort during a kind of tricky time. And here's the poem of the week, as always.

The Thing Is

to love life, to love it even

when you have no stomach for it
and everything you’ve held dear
crumbles like burnt paper in your hands,
your throat filled with the silt of it.
When grief sits with you, its tropical heat
thickening the air, heavy as water
more fit for gills than lungs;
when grief weights you like your own flesh
only more of it, an obesity of grief,
you think, How can a body withstand this?
Then you hold life like a face
between your palms, a plain face,
no charming smile, no violet eyes,
and you say, yes, I will take you
I will love you, again.

Ellen Bass

Clutter

I had a lovely Thanksgiving Break, but I woke up this morning and lay (lied?) in bed for an hour thinking about all the things that were stressing me out. All the clutter in my head. I picture crinkled balls of paper, tangled red yarn, strips of caution tape drowning out crowds of good thoughts. Bad thoughts include and are not limited to the following:

-Going back to school tomorrow, writing three term papers, planning a lesson for my baby freshmen tomorrow
-My brother coming home from his mission in January and trying to friend me on facebook; me eventually having to explain why I've blocked and then defriended my entire family
-This time last year, when I had to write several term papers, I was more suicidal than I've been in the whole last year, and it was basically hell, and I'm starting to get worried about that happening again
-I have to go to therapy on Tuesday (well, I mean, I don't have to go....I'm the one who made the appointment), and therapy is helpful but also stressful and what are we going to talk about and how much am I going to cry
-Thanksgiving is over and wasn't too terrible with my family, but now I have Christmas to worry about, and for Christmas Break I actually have to stay at my house, instead of this break where I only had to be there for three hours on Thanksgiving

And so on and so forth. It was not very restful. 

In contrast, Thanksgiving Break was lovely. I watched three Harry Potter movies and a ridiculously adorable adaptation of Snow White, tried to catch up on Once Upon a Time (I am now officially on episode 8...of season one), and spent one whole remarkable day just reading my favorite Harry Potter book (which is the fourth, which is THE BEST ONE OKAY except for the seventh and okay possibly the third). I graded student papers and read one essay for class. It was the best five days of the entire semester.

School is hard. Grad school is harder, and grad school at BYU is the hardest. I'm just throwing that out there. I guess the light at the end of the tunnel is that there are only two more weeks of actual school. Two weeks of writing papers, staying up late, frantically cramming, planning a final for my poor hapless students. I'm hoping I can keep the suicidality down this time around, but I'm not sure how. I guess that's what I can talk about at therapy tomorrow. In the meantime, I think I'll keep focusing on my good old Harry Potter books, watch the sporadic tv show, and maybe kick of my Sailor Moon rewatch:

Sailor Moon is the best, and don't try to deny it. 

Otherwise, there are still helpful quotes to read when I start having existential crises about faith and God and religion and the future, including this one:

“…through all our lives we are faced with the task of reconciling opposites, which, in logical thought, cannot be reconciled… do it by bringing into the situation a force that belongs to a higher level where opposites are transcended – the power of love… Divergent problems, as it were, forces us to strain ourselves to a level above ourselves; they demand, and thus provoke the supply of forces from a higher level, thus bringing love, beauty, goodness and truth into our lives. It is only with the help of these higher forces that the opposites can be reconciled in the living situation.”
~ E. F. Schumacher

And maybe by rewatching Beasts of the Souther Wild, which was the best thing to come out this last year. Here's the gorgeous clip I'm showing my little BYU students tomorrow

And, as always, here's the poem of the week. Not a happy poem, but a beautiful one, and I find solace in the strength of words. I hope it helps in the coming weeks.

There was a point in our lives

where if I slit my throat, it was you who would bleed.
You say goodbye too often in autumn.
Tonight the last leaf fell off the tree beyond my bedroom window,

and I could hear the sound of branches aching for love to wrap

around their leaves like limbs.
It was three a.m. in the last stretch of May.

Springtime calls for heartbeat symphonies

and when we pressed our bodies together they coincided like

chords, like staccatos when I ran my hand down

your spine.
Fog is one of the top reasons that drivers get killed each year.
In the backseat of my car we almost caused

the hundredth casualty,

but all I got were bruises in the shape of apologies

along my thighs.
There are certain people who leave scars when they go.
Tonight I cut my thumb while I was peeling an apple.

I thought of you.”A Rendition of Autumn, Shinji Moon