Chapter 3: Descriptions of Depression Are Depressing

Jack made a grab for the telephone receiver as I hung up the phone, and got a handful of my hair instead. “Ouch!” I pried the strands loose from his pudgy fingers, put him down, and then whirled to face my husband. “Jim, my Visiting Teachers from church are coming over! I forgot all about them!”

My husband and I scanned our cluttered, neglected kitchen and living room. “How long do we have?” he asked.

“Fifteen minutes!” I ran my hands through my tangled hair, thinking fast. We could do this.

“How can I help?”

“Toss all the toys in the playpen and vacuum the living room. I’ll get the kitchen.” I dashed to the sink, scooped up piles of dirty dishes and stuffed them in the oven. They wouldn’t all fit! I stacked the remainder of the dirty pans away in the cupboards and hoped the baby wouldn’t find them. Thank goodness the deep double sinks hid all of our cups and silverware. I tossed a washrag over each sink. A teasing voice in my mind quipped, “Voilà, zee newest concept in kitchen décor! Avant-garde Grunge!” I stifled a giggle.

The clutter on the kitchen floor was easy to hide; I swept it under the computer table, out of sight. The dirty laundry in the hallway fit perfectly in the dryer. Eight minutes remained on the clock. We were winning.

 The vacuum roared in the living room. The debris hitting the hood made a sound like a million tiny hailstones. Had it really been that long since we vacuumed?  Our three children watched, goggle-eyed, at their parents’ hyperactive tidy-up.

“What can I do, Mommy?” asked Jamie, our oldest daughter, and I kissed the top of her head in passing.

“You can stop Jack! He keeps pulling the toys back out of the playpen.” Hands full of opened and unopened mail, I yanked the desk drawers open, one after another, until I found one with enough headspace to shove it all in.

As Jim rewound the vacuum cord and pushed the vacuum against the wall, there was a knock on the door. “They’re early!” I hissed. “What did we miss?”

“Too late now,” Jim said, and opened the door. Jack made a dash for freedom, and Jim spun him around and sent him careening off in another direction, like a human pinball.

Only one of my Visiting Teachers, my friend Peggy, stood on the porch. She looked like a bedraggled stray.  Her normally sleek hair hung lank and wavy, her usually-impeccable clothing was wrinkled and her eyes were bruised from lack of sleep.  “Sorry, Barbara couldn’t come. It’s just me.”

I gave her a hug. “It’s so good to see you.”

“Don’t say it’s ‘just you,’ say, ‘It’s ME!’ ” Jim teased.  

Peggy tried and failed to smile. Jim’s gaze met mine over the top of her head; something was definitely wrong.

“Come sit down,” I said, “You look worn out.”

Peggy collapsed onto the cushions of our couch with a sigh, rubbing her seven-months-along baby bump. “Did the morning sickness come back, Peggy? Are you feeling ok?” I asked.

Peggy’s eyes filled with tears, as if sympathy was more than she could bear. “I’m not feeling ok, I’m really not,” she said. Her fist tightened around her car keys. “I’ve never felt this bad in my life!”

The girls stopped playing and stared at Peggy. This conversation didn’t need an audience. “How about I take the kids to our room?” Jim asked, reading my mind.

“Great idea,” I told him. “Bring the Little Smart Driver, Jack loves that thing.”

Jim grabbed the back of Jack’s overall straps and picked him up like a suitcase, and our son crowed with laughter. “C’mon, girls. Mama needs some privacy. ” The three of them trooped down the hall.

I scooted closer to Peggy and put my arm around her shoulders.  “What’s going on with you?”

“It’s depression,” she said, and a tear rolled down her cheek.  “My anti-depressants haven’t kicked in all the way, and the doctor said it could be another week or two before they do.”

“I didn’t know you were depressed.” This was the first time I’d ever seen Peggy without a smile on her face.

“I felt so bad, Heather, like everything I did was wrong. I couldn’t stop crying. It was awful. One of the doctors I work with at the hospital said the pregnancy probably caused it.”

I was amazed at Peggy’s willingness to open up about her depression. Mental illness is a taboo subject in my personal universe. I heard myself blurt out, “I get post-partum with my kids, but I didn’t know you could get depressed while you were still pregnant.”

Good grief, I’d just admitted to having post-partum depression. I couldn’t believe I’d said that out loud. Peggy didn’t flinch, though, it didn’t faze her. “My doctor said it can happen before or after the baby’s born.”

“I’m so sorry you’re dealing with this right now.”

“Once the drugs kick in all the way, I’ll be ok,” Peggy said, and wiped her eyes. “I already feel better than I did.”

“Well, that’s good, I’m glad they’re working.” I handed her a tissue.

“I tried to shake it off, and I couldn’t,” Peggy said. “And I was scared, because it hurt so much I wanted to die, and I was afraid I’d act on that feeling.”

I had no idea how to respond to her, and we both went silent.

Her desperation was difficult for me to understand, as was her fear she’d somehow lose control and kill herself. Depression was my constant companion. It had been for eighteen years. It waxed and it waned, but it never went away.  You fight it, you push back, that’s all you can do. You don’t let it win. But how could I say that to Peggy? Depression had her in a choke hold.

I looked at the mangy carpet, and thought of all the times depression had knocked me over and kicked me when I was down. Sure, sometimes it hurt so much I’d longed for my life to be over, but I didn’t want to end it. What good what that do? Suicide would mean never-ending regret, a spiritual torment that could well last forever; how could I ever forgive myself for doing something so selfish? The thought of eternal pain in the next world made suffering for a lifetime in this one seem like a bargain. I wondered if I’d feel differently if I were agnostic, like Jim.

Peggy pulled her thoughts together. “The doctor told me not to blame myself. Depression is a chemical imbalance in the brain, it isn’t anyone’s fault. I was worried about the baby getting hurt if I took Prozac, but he said the risk to the baby was a lot worse if I didn’t take my meds, because depression kills people.”

Not me it doesn’t, I thought. It never will. So that risk doesn’t apply.