And Things are Shockingly Okay (A Series of Quotes)

“You had every intention of being depressed forever, but as it turns out, there's work to be done, meals to eat, movies to see, errands to run. You meant to be in ruins permanently, your misery a monument, a gash across the cold hard earth, but honestly, who has the time for that? Instead, you survived - apparently, you both did - and things are shockingly okay.” (Raphael Bob-Waksberg, Someone Who Will Love You In All Your Damaged Glory)

This is one of those quotes that I read, and re-read, multiple times. In sixty-seven words, this quote captures what it feels like—and looks like—to move through a period of depression. The funny thing about depression is that it feels incredibly individual. There is an isolating nature to those feelings of sadness. It feels as though no one on earth can possibly understand this experience—your experience. And yet, I have a feeling that this quote relates to me as does to so many people.

Terms like ‘depression’ and ‘anxiety’ are thrown around casually today. There was once a time when this frustrated me. As a person who has experienced and lived through periods of both depression and anxiety, these terms came to represent a failure in my mind. Depression was a term that I had trouble relating to. It felt defeating.

“I think I’m depressed,” I’d say to myself. This word stung. It felt like a dramatic way to describe the constant state of sadness that I lived in each day. But not sad as in crying sad. Sadness, or rather depression, for me, felt like living in a constant state of thick, flat fog. The fog was thicker on some days and thinner on others, but it was there for many years.

At the time, I sought to disassociate from this seemingly clinical term. I repressed these feelings for years. That’s not to say that it didn’t seep out at every possible opportunity. It did. The depression shot through my veins causing intense waves of anxiety and the occasional panic attack.

A change to my routine? Anxiety.

An exam? Anxiety.

Hungover? Anxiety.

This only got worse when I repressed the anxiety. Emotions are funny like that. Like a pot boiling over, the lid does not stop the water from overflowing. If anything, it encourages the pot to keep spilling its contents over the edge and onto the stove. The boiling only stops once the pot is removed from the heat. Of course, this leaves traces of burnt water all over the cooktop; marks that need to be wiped down once the heat in the element subsides. You’d think this experience would have taught you something. But it didn’t. And you let the pot boil over once again, as though you didn’t wipe the cooktop down the other night.

I’ve come to realise that my anxiety and panic attacks felt like—and looked like—a pot boiling over. A relatively normal occurrence that happened in the privacy of my own home. And yet, despite its regular occurrence, there was a sense of surprise in each time that it happened. Sometimes, it felt as though I knew the pot would boil over and allowed it to happen anyways. Other times, I had no intention of boiling the pot over and it happened regardless of all my efforts to prevent it. I began to recognise that I had little control over these emotions.

However, in retrospect, I wonder why I repressed these emotions. Whether it was the depression, anxiety, or panic attacks, I swept these experiences into a box and placed them under the bed, only to be opened and felt in secrecy. I can’t help but see this repression as an element of performative femininity. Indeed, repression is inherent to the female experience. From a young age, girls are taught to repress themselves and their emotions. As I’ve grown up, I’ve come to realise that women continue to live in a constant state of self-imposed repression. In the 20th-century, overly emotional women were diagnosed with the pseudo-illness: Hysteria. Today, ostensibly overly emotional women suffer from anxiety.

We are taught to see female depression and anxiety as products of selfishness. Individuals in this school of thought believe that depression, anxiety, panic, and other mental health disorders can be cured through service to others. Ironic, isn’t it? The very emotions that elicit intense destress are perceived as occurrences caused by periods of dis-service to others. That is to say that women who ‘help’ others are fundamentally happier than women who only seek only to help themselves. So, what do women do, you might ask? They repress these feelings and return to their patriarchal duties to serve others before themselves.

The trouble with this perception is that this relationship between mental health and femininity is construed to be selfish by other women. Women internalise misogyny and subsequently police each other to categorise some as selfish and others as self-less. Consider the (male) addict. His acts harm only himself. On the other hand, women experiencing addiction are condemned and criticised for how their actions ostensibly harm her others, particularly their families and their children. I use this example to illustrate the narratives surrounding women suffering from mental and/or physical challenges contrast those narratives that surround men.

This argument can be applied to women who live with mental health challenges. The depressed female body is selfish because she fails to fulfil the role in which she was born into. On the other hand, while men experiencing mental health challenges are also subject to criticism, this disapproval has nothing to do with whether or not their acts are selfish.

Indeed, this leaves women with one option: repression. They are encouraged to repress themselves and their emotions to fit within the roles deemed appropriate by their peers and by society. Their depression and anxiety reveals itself behind closed doors, in privacy, whether it be the home, the bedroom, the kitchen floor, or the restroom stall.

The other night, my partner and I were talking about our experiences with depression and anxiety. It’s fascinating how our experiences are similar and yet completely distinct. The ways in which these feelings manifest within different bodies and minds is simultaneously isolating and comforting. There is a sense of commonality and shared experience that enables us to empathise with each other. While mine felt like a pot of water boiling over, his felt like being pulled in two separate directions.

This conversation reminded me of a line from the quote at the top of this page: "Instead you survived—apparently you both did—and things are shockingly okay." In one single sentence, this line captures the feeling of post-depression life. Sure, there are moments where depression, or anxiety, or perhaps panic, seeps back into your life. There might be days or weeks where depression or anxiety consumes you. However, this consuming feeling is not what it once was—it's a shadow rather than a blanket. And for me, this feeling, this shadow of depression or anxiety which lingers from time to time is, to put it frank, "shockingly okay."