My Head is a Water Harp
The Week in Selfies: 3/15/21 - 3/21/21
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Thank you, as always, for being here. Especially this week, when sending this edition scares me a little bit.
Note: Because of the length of this post, the format of the selfies will be a bit different. Back to normal next week. …probably.
CW: suicidal ideation, depression, mental health
Seriously, friends, if this would not be a good thing for you to read, save it for later. Or don’t read at all. Take care of yourself first and foremost. And either way, I’ll see you next week.
I am going to write this in first person even though I don’t want to. I don’t want to be so close to these feelings. I’d rather put them on an imaginary you. I don’t want to point to myself and say that I’ve felt this. That I’ve felt this over and over. I don’t want to acknowledge that it will continue to come up because that’s the way these things go. I want to write this down in some nebulous way and then walk away and smile because it wasn’t just me, it was all of us. And, you know, maybe it was all of us. Or some of us. Or all of us at different times. Or some of us at the same time.
But it was definitely me. And it was not the first time. And it was and will (likely) not be the last.
When I started this newsletter, I knew this would eventually come up. In some ways, I did this whole thing as a challenge to myself. To be open, I guess. I’ve been thinking about this particular day’s newsletter for a whole year. I could, of course, never touch on the stories behind the pictures, all the feelings that were there. I could go on, overcompensate with more jokes, tell some story that is unrelated, and move on.
There are a lot of “don’t wants,” “wants,” and “coulds” in the opening to this week’s edition. It’s not any of those. When I look at the pictures from these weeks in March and April 2021, I know what is there. Taking each of these photos, I knew what I was trying to tell myself. I knew what I’d prefer to see in the future. And I also know the exact moment I knew I was in trouble this time around.
It was March 12th. And it was goddamn Catherine O’Hara.
I was making a cake for someone and I had Schitt’s Creek on in the background. At some point, I put the cake in the fridge to set up and sat down on the couch, offset spatula still in hand, to watch. It was the episode where Alexis graduates from high school. She has her diploma and she’s sitting in the audience and singing starts. The curtains pull back and there is Moira, leading the choir. Alexis’ mom showed up and she didn’t expect it. The biggest smile breaks across her face. Moira gives a little wave.
And it broke me. In this beautiful moment, in a show that meant (means) so much to me, it all of a sudden meant too much to me. I felt like I couldn’t catch my breath. All those months of isolation and distance were stuck in my windpipe and barely anything else could get through. I didn’t know when I would get to spend any significant time with my friends again. I didn’t know when I would get to see my family again. I wasn’t sure where my community had gone or if I would ever find it again. I was almost certain I would never get the opportunity or be able to write or create something as witty and well-crafted and heartfelt as this show or that I would have any sort of career at all. I wasn’t sure of anything. I was sure that I knew absolutely nothing.
Bolted is probably the best way to describe it. I was out of my house as quickly as possible. I needed a little air and to see the sky. It did help. It helped me breathe a little, to get it together a little bit, to make it through the rest of the day. But the break was letting out the noise.
Recently, I’ve begun to think of my long-term clinical depression like it is those musical water glasses which is also known as a glass harp, apparently. (Thanks Google.) My head is a glass harp. In my early teens, someone ran their finger around the rim of a glass and the depression has been a constant hum ever since.
It may seem counterintuitive but the more glasses that are being played at once, the more sound I can hear, the better I feel. I need the noise. I need so many sounds and everything those sounds evoke: joy, laughter, sadness, anger, contentment, despair. With so many sounds to listen to and enjoy, I can move from one to the other pretty effortlessly. In those times, it is so much easier for me to understand that no feeling lasts forever, things come and go, and even if it doesn’t feel like it, the sound will be more robust again. Just wait for the finger to go around another glass.
When I get down to a few glasses, when, say, the song is ending and the next one isn’t starting yet, I have a problem. With only one or two tones, the quiet is deafening. So many other tones disappear and I struggle to remember what they sounded like in the first place. I get stuck, bouncing around in the one or two notes that keep playing, unadorned. There are no other sounds to distract, nothing to fill the walls inside my brain.
I didn’t know but, when I sat down to watch that episode of Schitt’s Creek, I had knocked a few glasses from their place. And when I stood up to escape my apartment, I knocked a few more over. I may have seen them at that point, but I didn’t know how much water to put back in to make the right sounds so, I left them rolling around on the floor.
And, it got quiet.
The next week, the week of the selfies in this newsletter, it got so quiet, that the voice became crystal clear and unmistakable. “I don’t want to be alive anymore.” I am, honestly, not sure I have ever heard it so clear before. And it scared the shit out of me.
After that, all I could think to do was wait. Wait for glasses to be refilled. My therapist was on maternity leave at that point, so I tried things we had talked about before but, mostly, I waited. It was a long couple of weeks.
Eventually, tones started to come back. One or two at a time, not noticeable for a while. And then noticeable. And then it was a new song and the notes were accessible. I could jump around, focus on the notes I wanted to. From time to time, I would switch my focus to a new tone. Mostly, I just hoped the sounds would get loud enough and the song would go on for a while.
I have dreaded revisiting this time for the last year. But there really is something to writing it down. I’m hoping there is something in sharing it too.
Sometimes, I wish I could go back to a time when I was less self-aware. A time when I didn’t really know the difference between the noise and the quiet so I just kept pushing on, noise be damned. A time when I got out of bed everyday because I was sure I had to and because I didn’t know that there were other forces making me feel like I couldn’t. A time when I was tougher on myself because not achieving whatever it was was failure and one failure would surely cascade into many failures.
I also know that’s a bit ridiculous.
If I went back to that time, I wouldn’t have any of the tools or knowledge I have now. It would mean abandoning all the extremely hard work I have done to learn about my brain and my soul. It would mean that tuning into quiet would mean eventually tuning into silence and that would mean not being here anymore. Going back is the very definition of not being kind to myself. It would mean not understanding that it’s cyclical and yes, times will be bad, but they will also be good again. And if I went back, it would mean not knowing that I can get through it. Fuck, I can get through a lot.
I don’t think everything has to end hopefully. In fact, I think that’s unrealistic. I mean, it’s still water glasses up there in ye olde brain box and those can be very precarious. And here’s where we move into third person: some things just are and sometimes you just have to be. (I tried to explain this to an older director of one of my plays once and she really didn’t get it and still tried to make the ending of this play very hopeful and it…did not work.) That’s also the nature of things like depression. Whether it’s situational or clinical, sometimes to get through it, you just have to be. But, and I say this with the deepest sincerity, fuck, you can get through a lot.
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love you so big, with you all the time. 💚