Emergence
Last Monday, I admitted myself to the emergency room with neck pain, nausea and a fever; a combination of symptoms two friends in healthcare said could be meningitis. As I drove to the hospital on their recommendation, I couldn’t help but become overwhelmed by emotion. I’ve heard stories about people frantically reflecting on their lives when confronted with their mortality and I’m guessing that’s exactly what I was feeling. After some bloodwork and an IV, I was diagnosed with a nondescript viral infection and discharged. However, that experience sent me into a depressive tailspin.
The Black Dog
As someone who has suffered from anxiety and depression since middle school, but only learned that I had a few a years ago, I’m still fairly new to processing them. I talked briefly about anxiety last week as being the feeling that everyone assumes the worst of you. Depression is more amorphous and because of the stigmas, difficult to explain to the uninitiated. Depression can be the conventionally understood “woe is me” Eeyore or it can be a more languishing malaise sitting just below the surface coloring decision making and behavior, but usually it’s the full continuum between those two points.
For me in this situation, I experienced the full range. The immediate reaction was stunned sadness that my life could be in danger at 37. This sadness slowly transitioned into an overwhelming feeling of regret, like wearing a rucksack full of wet blankets that makes you want to quit moving while paradoxically forcing you forward; regrets that I have made so many mistakes that even after learning my life wasn’t in danger, I felt unsure I could atone for all of them.
Mistakes and Failures
This period of internal confrontation forced me to take a hard look at those failures and mistakes. Why did they occur? Were they avoidable? Why had I not sought help sooner? Will they always impact my relationships? Like Eeyore, I sometimes feel like my failures are a perpetual cloud over my head, a constant reminder of what I’ve done and who I am and over the last two weeks, it’s felt more like a thunderstorm.
I would like to say that confronting my failures led to a feeling of resolution, but that’s not how depression works. It has more of a compounding interest effect that makes failures seem insurmountable, even though they have already happened. This delusion that my failures are in front of me has made for daunting, albeit distorted reality.
Am I a good man?
I’ve read this essay at least a dozen times since it hit my inbox last week, each time more salient than the previous and each time, the same conclusion: I’m not sure I am a good man.
Maybe there’s potential for me to become a good man? The sliver of optimism in me would like to think it’s possible, but that’s also not how depression works. However, like the writer of the essay, I know I’m capable of goodness and the best I can hope for is that I’m strong enough to not let my past affect my future so I don’t leave my life unfinished.