For a few years now I've heard people say that depression is depressing your feelings, or that it is anger turned inward. I did not get this. Sometimes when I would dissociate really badly certain friends of mine with some knowledge about trauma would ask if I was angry and I thought they were on crack. No, I'm not angry. I'm confused. I'm disoriented. I'm frozen. I'm paralyzed. But I'm not angry. I don't exactly have real feelings right now. I can't identify anything. Just frozen. Ashamed. Want to be taken care of. Don't want to be seen. Can't speak. Far away.

But I'm starting to get it.

I watched it happen tonight. I leave my body when I'm deeply angry or deeply sad. I depress the feelings and sink into melancholy paralysis. Or I turn them inward and start having these terrible violent visions in my head of tearing out my own spine or smashing my own head against the wall. I don't know how to turn the anger outward towards the people, systems, and forces that caused it.

I've been reading The Courage To Heal. It's a book for survivors of child sexual abuse. About how the abuse affected you, and how you recover.

I've been remembering some terrible shit. How my mom took me hostage every afternoon for years and psychologically tortured me. How my dad kissed me on the lips when I didn't want to be kissed and touched me in ways I didn't want to be touched. Some of it I never connected in my whole life. Like that my mom was jealous of me cause my dad gave me attention, and gave me attention in a sometimes creepy way. That that is probably part of why she resented me so much, and why she was so invasive about the way she would watch me and keep surveillance over things that were none of her goddamn business.

But I don't know how to be angry at my dad. For years I've constructed this idea that he was the good parent. Even though he allowed me to be totally neglected and abused. Even though I saw him for maybe an hour a day and provided no emotional support or nourishment or anything. Even though he never left her. Even though he never got me any kind of help.

And then tonight I watched this thing happen. I ate dinner with my aunt, and was fine. Then I was alone. Then suddenly I had no energy, got confused, overwhelmed, distant, scared, wanted to hide, wanted to stop existing, felt lost, couldn't remember why I'm alive, or the meaning of anything. At some point I realized it was depression sinking down, that it wasn't all real.

I decided I was going to try to do something differently than just wallow in it and believe it. I flipped through my journal and found a page of Buddhist writing called "This moment is the perfect teacher." I decided to turn off the lights and sit cross-legged and meditate for half an hour.

After about 10 minutes of my brain swirling it started to get clearer. I realized that I was really, really angry. That I wanted to smash the room apart. And that I wasn't angry at myself. That I didn't do anything wrong. That I don't get all lost and confused in my life because I'm bad or lazy or unfocused or not busy enough or or or or. I get all lost and confused and melancholic because I'm the survivor of crazy abuse, because people fucked with me, neglected me, and abandoned me, and I was never allowed to experience my anger and I was never allowed to get away. There was no other side. There was nowhere to go. No one saved me. No one made it better. No one listened. No one made them stop. I was told it was my fault. When I got angry I was told that I was overreacting, or that nothing was wrong. When I got sad i was told to calm down. When I got hysterical I was begged to calm down, or I was screamed at. I was never, ever held. The only place I could cry was alone in my room. The only place I could scream was out in the woods. If I screamed at my mother she looked at me like she was made out of stone and I was a freak. It was never ever safe to disagree with them or to fight back. They fed me and housed me and fucked with me and then told me that I was spoiled, lazy, indulgent, whining, had bad taste in friends, overreacted, etc etc etc. And I still carry that around.

And suddenly I got it that they did something wrong. I didn't do something wrong. I didn't deserve it. I didn't cause it. I was a kid. I'm not just some bipolar defective hyper-sensitive brat. I was a really sweet earnest kid living with totally insane people. I was abandoned and left completely alone most of the time, and if I wasn't, then I was being actively attacked, harassed, belittled, derided, invaded, and brainwashed.

yeah. there are reasons why I get depressed.

After I finished meditating I wasn't sure what to do. I still couldn't really concentrate and didn't want to talk to anyone, but my mind felt calmer. Then suddenly I remembered this book on tape on my computer called Healing Trauma that Will gave me. I decided to listen to it. I can listen to things when I'm too disoriented to read or make decisions. So I put it on. It started out with exercises to get you into your body, which I had completely forgotten about. Tapping your skin. Feeling your muscles. Oh yeah. I have a body. Right.

And then I got it. Will has been right all this time. I do leave my body when I don't think it's safe to be angry (or when I don't think it's safe to say no). No body at all. I go right up into my mind and some distant altered state zombie space where I'm sort of puppeting myself but mostly I'm frozen. And I have no idea that I've left my body, or that I'm angry or sad or what. I'm just in this place where I can't really think clearly or feel. I have no idea what I'm avoiding. The only real emotion I can usually feel is shame.

Once I started reconnecting with my body I started coming back. I realized that I was safe. I realized that the depression was just a wave that was passing. I realized that I was angry, but not crazy, and that I was safe in the present moment, in my room, and nothing threatening was actually happening or was going to happen. I relaxed. I fell asleep. I woke up and I felt fine. My housemates were talking loudly and I went out and joined them in the kitchen. I was part of the human race. The feelings didn't kill me or separate me forever.

It's really painful and interesting to watch all this. To become willing to believe that the hard stuff is not all going to last forever. To see how my meditation helps me witness things more and identify with them less. To give myself permission to hate the people who fucked with me instead of hating myself. Even though I love them too. Even though.

Depression is so much more complicated than neurotransmitters. Fuck those pharmaceutical companies and their one-sided messages. Fuck all the people who acted like the only reason I had such a hard time with life was because I had a brain disorder. Thank god for the people who are compassionately helping me heal, and telling me that it's not my fault, that other people have been through it too, and that it will get better.