Collared Calm

"We might also discover that depression has its own angel, a guiding spirit whose job it is to carry the soul away to its remote places where it finds unique insight and enjoys a special vision......Hiding the dark places results in a loss of soul; speaking for them and from them offers a way toward genuine community and intimacy. "

"Care of the Soul: A Guide for Cultivating Depth and Sacredness in Everyday Life" by Thomas Moore

Diagnosis: Depression

Placed around my neck like the bell-tingling collar on a feline with an instinctive need for a game of cat 'n mouse.....or cat 'n bird.  Can the cat continue to truly be a cat with that bell around his neck? Or is the joy of forever stalking the prey taken from his kitty soul with one clip of a pretty sounding collar? 

His purr slightly altered from here on in, his contented stretch from a slumber on a sunny step missing something vital to what it means to be a cat, the jingle-jangle of the bell following him with every step he makes.  The silence that cats are known for jingle-jangled away with every move he makes.  Rendering him.....a little less cat. Slightly off. A wee bit left of centre. Affected.

Yes....there it is.....affected.  How will depression affect the familiarity of what I think is ......ME.  

The question since D-Day.......Diagnosis Day.......days, months, now years ago.   When a million questions were asked of me requiring not a straight 'yes' or 'no' answer but a rating in numbers as to how often I find myself ruminating and lost in the darkness of my head, heart and soul. A final tally revealing me to be......depressed. 

Like a handprint in the sand or a curve in the natural grain.....this is how I arrived I suppose. Then as childhood, adolescence, young adulthood, sex, drugs, rock 'n roll and the rest of the combined ingredients of my life up to now played out I got lost. Scared. Confused. Alone. Angry. Ashamed. Silent. Affected. So sad it was palpable, hanging thick in the air, like mist.

CIPRALEX ( escitalopram)

Take the pill

You're mentally ill

So afraid it will eventually kill

Words put to paper

that might give y'all a chill.

                                             Then again maybe it will

                                             Prove I'm merely run of the mill

                                             As a writer, a wife, a mother so shrill.

                                             An ordinary swill of a life without will.

                                             A passion-less sadness

                                             Turning a day's work to nil.

                                             Stare at the pill

                                             Wonder if this pitiful pain

                                              is only a drill.

                                             True self is in there

                                              waiting patiently 'til

                                             My blues find the will

                                             to show my soul a new thrill.

                                             Not this darkness leaving others footin' the bill

                                             Living life with a woman

                                             Who needs saved by a pill.

                                                                       S.E.U  ~July 2008










  Livin' with someone who's livin' with depression?

Remember this....it just might help.

"When you're depressed....there ARE no molehills"
                                                             Randall Jarrell: 1914-1965
                                                             American Poet




S. E.U.