…it is only a darkness, it is not an end, or the end. (Henry James)
I’m used to expecting depression in the winter, especially if I’m somewhere north, where it gets dark early and the cold leaches the serotonin from my bones. It’s strange to find this existential despair even in a climate of warm winds, unyielding sunlight, and hot salsa in abundance.
I’m trying to remember what seemed like such a great idea about visiting Phoenix, Arizona in the middle of summer.
The heat shimmering up from the pavement makes it hard to retain any clear thoughts. I vaguely remember that someone told me to make sure and stay hydrated. But the journey to a water source seems so far, even if it’s only across the room to the kitchen.
It’s easier to lie on the couch, and think wistfully of the things I might have accomplished, if only…
In some ways, it’s worse, because with no obvious reason for these feelings, I’m inclined to wonder if I might be going crazy. Which, you know, is always a great add-on to depression.
The last time I felt this bad was the year after I graduated from college. It was hot that summer, not to mention humid. But the real problem was the misery I felt in leaving behind the place I’d felt happier, more accepted and valuable, than anywhere else I’d been before.
Once out of college, I felt the same way I had before — awkward, dorky, overanalytical, underskilled in social situations. Worse, I felt old, poor, and bereft of ideas on what to do next. I was sure that everyone who laid eyes on me would see nothing but my uselessness, and that until I could get myself together, my future was utterly shot.
Depression can for some of us come with an oversensitivity or hypersensitivity that at times does feel almost unbearable. Almost as if the signals that enter your brain are no longer filtered or properly selected, no longer tuned in proportion, but instead they all smash with full force straight into your head.
You want to lock the windows, close the curtains, put your hands over your ears, you want to escape from this relentless stream of sharp and painful sensations, to make it stop at any cost – but it is inside you, too.
You want to stop feeling yourself.
This eagerness to escape the self is curious, and probably needs more than a blog post to do it justice. For now, I’ll just speculate that the self-occupation of depressed people isn’t always just a matter of morbid narcissism, as many non-depressed people believe. Sometimes, it’s a heightened sensitivity to reality’s dark side.
It’s why I close the Venetian blinds against the sunlight — to protect myself from poisoning the world with my mediocrity.
It’s why I’ll listen to Ryan Adams for hours at a stretch — I need someone to express my feelings for me, since I can’t find the wherewithal to do it myself.
…we never cease to feel, though at moments we appear to, try to, pray to, there is something that holds one in one’s place, makes it a standpoint in the universe which it is probably good not to forsake. (Henry James)
We tend to think of depression as a first-world, modern-era problem. Check this: it’s not. Not only do other countries and cultures have plenty of instances of depression, and all its darker side effects (like suicide and drug abuse), but it’s a problem that’s been around for centuries.
Back in the day, they called it low spirits, melancholia, ennui, nervous illness, vapors, or “the hypo” (short for hypochondria). Obviously, medicine didn’t have a clinical category for it. Neither did they have Prozac, sun lamps, electroshock therapy, or even Ryan Adams.
So what were OG depressives supposed to do?
They could drink. They could dose on laudanum. Or they could deal.
What follows is a list of 20 tips for handling “low spirits,” straight from the practical but sympathetic pen of 19th century essayist Sydney Smith.
I saw it in my inbox, sent by a friend, and I was going to write it off.
Then it occurred to me that for famously depressed folks like poet Rainer Maria Rilke, president Abraham Lincoln, and explorer Meriwether Lewis, advice like this was all they had for combating their melancholy.
And look how they turned out.
(I’ve highlighted the ones that resonated most with me.)
1st. Live as well as you dare.
2nd. Go into the shower-bath with a small quantity of water at a temperature low enough to give you a slight sensation of cold, 75° or 80°.
3rd. Amusing books.
4th. Short views of human life — not further than dinner or tea.
5th. Be as busy as you can.
6th. See as much as you can of those friends who respect and like you.
7th. And of those acquaintances who amuse you.
8th. Make no secret of low spirits to your friends, but talk of them freely — they are always worse for dignified concealment.
9th. Attend to the effects tea and coffee produce upon you.
10th. Compare your lot with that of other people.
11th. Don’t expect too much from human life — a sorry business at the best.
12th. Avoid poetry, dramatic representations (except comedy), music, serious novels, melancholy sentimental people, and every thing likely to excite feeling or emotion not ending in active benevolence.
13th. Do good, and endeavour to please everybody of every degree.
14th. Be as much as you can in the open air without fatigue.
15th. Make the room where you commonly sit, gay and pleasant.
16th. Struggle by little and little against idleness.
17th. Don’t be too severe upon yourself, or underrate yourself, but do yourself justice.
18th. Keep good blazing fires. [or, in my case, good humming air conditioning units]
19th. Be firm and constant in the exercise of rational religion.
20th. Believe me, dear Georgiana, your devoted servant, Sydney Smith
To this list, I’d add one more:
Stay the hell out of Arizona in July.
