Depression Is My Companion

I've been homeless in New York City, and have depended on countless acquaintances to lend me safe bedded harbor. Housing has never been easy or a certainty here. Strangely enough though, jobs have. I've (very loosely) lived in near a dozen abodes since packing up my U-Haul from what now seems like a country away in Northern New York. But I've recently only started my second job in the City. The first, beginning as a very temporary position through an agency; turning into a three year stint where I garnered a sense of relationship, position, and respectability. In fact, let me toot my horn a moment. It was due to my exit interview that my position title was renamed for the entire department, and wages re-evaluated to be equitable on an otherwise completely arbitrary scale.

Yet, all that took time. And I know it was needed to position me for where I am now. But where I am now, I'm not happy with. Small, yet building stresses, perceived gas lighting, high and unorganized volume, and a tense office environment is making me re-think it all. Is the money even worth it?

Many would answer, 'hell yeah, deal with it!' And I'm sure I shall. I've been able to talk myself off the ledge for the most part. But there was a deeper realization here: how incredibly four I am. How feeling I am; how sensitive. But in a corporate legal environment, know that those are not the top traits you're likely to be respected, praised, or prized for.

Yet again, I find myself a square peg in a round hole. The greatest of all the four fears.

By the way, if you're lost in this "fourness" language, I'm referring here to the enneagram: https://www.enneagraminstitute.com/type-descriptions, the best personality type descriptor I've found, and easily been able to key-in on.

Suffice it to say that in the New Year, I've felt consistent and tremendous pangs of loneliness, untetheredness, and depressive anxiety. Most of which, I believe, are tied to my new job. Reality has set in, and my eyes are wide and scared shitless. And scared not just of failure. That isn't really it. The job itself, although unorganized, is pretty straightforward. 

I'm fearful of the deep unhappiness I feel. Something about this new season has dredged it up, intensely.

Thankfully, a ten hour sleep did help last night. As did taking time to talk myself off the emotional ledge in the quiet stillness of my bedroom. And strangely, I noticed the language toward myself change. In my years of high religiosity, I saw depression and unhappiness as emotions to fight against; to bring 'into submission.' But this time, I gave myself permission to feel my depression; to go there with it--to sit there with the unhappiness.

It was ok to feel.

And in those very sad moments, I sat and breathed. Deep, knowing, accepting breaths. I really felt how sad I was. And I affirmed it. A permission of self, I suppose.

I also gave my body the benefit of the doubt that it needed deep rest and recovery, too, if it was anything like my mind. So before I bedded down, I took a moment to reassure my heart and mind that I was in agreement with them. Thankful they had alerted me to what in my conscious self, was likely to be disregarded and ignored as over-reactions. But in reflection, stillness, and feeling--the heart, mind, and body all seemed to calm down together. We were not at war, seeking to subvert any part of the other. But rather, mindfulness was brought to all the senses, and I rested deeply with a quiet mind I'd not had in weeks.

Often the first instinct when depression, fear, or uncertainty even begin to graze the brain is to knee jerk--'no.' Fight, count your blessings, distract, control. Anything but to feel those emotions. Depression is what unhappy people who can't deal, have. Depression conjures up questions of depth that we fear will take us into an abyss of self.

But they don't have to be enemies we seek to ward off or submit to our positivity. Rather, could they not be instructors and guides to deeper issues of the heart. Ah, but that pesky reveal of unhappiness. For the pain that depression often directs us to is exactly what makes it all hurt like a mother fucker and is so avoided and feared. We’re not masochists.

But, to learn and be instructed by it. Not controlled by, but co-existed with. I'm willing to take the hurt that accompanies that instruction, because there was a marked turn when I allowed myself to immerse into what I was actually feeling. To sit, be, and breathe it in.

Not fearing the negative, but finding what is instructive and healing there.