Sometimes the trauma of war or the trauma of life can lead to a dark place. If the mind is weak, as it often is, that dark place may beckon to you in perverse but appealing ways. In a day-to-day life where anxiety is hell and depression is heaven, slipping into the darkness, where nothing matters at all, seems as natural as a puppy's wagging tail.
I know those feelings as though they were my closest friends. Anxiety was like the crazy friend who was an integral part of your struggle with life's troubles ... but had no sense, had no grasp on what was really happening, always felt as though the devil or the angel of death was close at hand, always acted as though that terrible thing that happened long ago was happening right now in some other and totally unrelated form. That crazy friend was exhausting. That crazy friend would not let you rest; would not let you sleep.
Depression was like that way-too-cool friend who had spent too much time high on life and controlled substances, with too many brain cells burned off, the friend who did not see danger anywhere, the friend who could not care about anything, the friend who said," Just lay down on that comfy couch and listen to the television, all day and all night. Don't worry about one thing. To hell with it all. It ain't nothing."
But I did not just have two friends. I had one more. I had a friend that sometimes saved me from my other friends. I had a friend that took me places I have never been. I had a friend that took me places I could never go in real life. I had a friend who could let me relive a pleasant memory and make it even better. Throughout all those dark days my dearest friend was fantasy ... and not the fantasy of wild women, like you might think ... but the fantasy of a full and better life, a life that seemed forever unavailable to me.
The better life I fantasized about was sometimes not much different from the life I once had. Bigger houses, more money, fancy cars, adoring women were certainly part of it. But most of it was just floating through a life where my three closest friends were no longer necessary. That life had kittens, begging to be petted, smiling children, happy family, long walks on a cool spring day, an unscarred body, an unscarred mind, true and real-life friendships with people who knew the real me and loved me anyway.
How many times I pierced the barrier that held me on that couch and found myself alone in the city park where I often walked. But it was not loneliness I felt. It was peace. The reality I now remember included yapping dogs, yelling children, folks talking loudly, as though their conversation deserved no privacy. Their intrusion did not spoil a nice day, but my fantasy never included them.
One of my favorite fanciful excursions was one from real life, a walk along a flowing creek that fed the Reedy River, just outside the zoo, with no whooping monkeys spoiling the silence. The fantasy led me along the creek to the stone bridge, up and over, across the little park road, around the tennis courts and up into the woods. My mind could recall every detail, every detail that I wanted to remember. Soon I would turn left and away from the creek onto a path below another park road.
In my mind I would reach stone steps. I would stop there. Looking up, I could see the two stone columns at the top of the steps. And beyond that, a beautiful light. I had often walked up those steps in real life. But in my fantasy I never chose to do that. I did not care to know what was up there. I just wanted to believe it was something wonderful, something that might someday save me from myself. I'm not sure I want to know why my fantasy could not take me up to the light.
I must tell you, in truth, that I have not said goodbye to my three friends. I have learned that my anxiety can be controlled by taking diazepam. I only take it when I need it. I only learned about that drug, at least about how it could help me, in 2009, after decades of dealing with anxiety on my own, after a life tainted by avoidance and denial. There had been times in the past when I could not sleep for days in a row because of anxiety. Now, just knowing that I have something that can help makes the thought of anxiety coming on me not so scary. Quite often, I can overcome it just by concentrating on something for a while, giving it my full attention, not allowing my mind to obsess over some issue I'm having to deal with.
A low level of depression has been an intermittent part of my life ever since returning from Vietnam. It usually comes in the warmer months. I can't be certain, but I suspect that warm weather reminds my subconscious mind of the dangers I faced in the hot jungles of Vietnam. Medical doctors offered different medications for depression. I tried a few. I could not stand how they made me feel. I preferred the depression. Those doctors were never inquisitive enough to learn that my anxiety and depression were symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder. That knowledge escaped me until 2009 when I had my first sessions with a psychiatrist.
I've had two fairly severe bouts with depression, both of which lasted about six months, both of which happened after I left my career. One of them occurred right after I learned that a small company I was trying to build was never going to work. It got caught in the Internet bubble that burst around 20 years ago. At that same time the tragedy of 9/11 happened, which I saw live on television. One of my nephews was in that area at the time. It took a while to learn that he was okay. I was in an online relationship with a young woman who lived in New York. We were just getting to the point of making plans to meet face-to-face when 9/11 happened. As you might imagine, those plans changed. We never met. She needed a level of friendship and comfort that I could not provide so many miles away.
My other long bout with depression came after my mother died from cancer in 2003. When I left my career, I moved back to my hometown and bought a condo in the community where she lived. Because of all the moving around I had done, I had not spent as much time with her as I wanted. For a few short years I saw her every day. We took walks together. And as her illness got worse my sister and I took turns, staying with her day and night, in the hospital, and at home, after they sent her home to die. It was so hard to lose her. I guess my mind just did not want to deal with that.
I need to leave out a bunch of bad stuff here and move on to the present.
For a number of years, I lived with my sister and brother-in-law, and then they moved to another condo close by, leaving me here in the nice condo they had bought. I am eternally grateful for their lifesaving generosity.
I still have my three friends. Depression and anxiety are no longer debilitating for me. They are still there, but so far I've been able to handle their effects. Fantasy, on the other hand, will always be a part of me, will always be important to me. As long as I can differentiate between reality and fantasy, I think I'm okay. After all, my mind is creative and needs to be put to use. If you're following my blog posts, you have seen some of the results of that creativity. Many more things are floating around in my mind, wanting to escape out onto the page.
Things tend to come in threes. Seemed like I've heard someone say that, or I read it somewhere. Maybe it was good things come in threes or maybe it was bad things come in threes. I'm not sure which. But those three things - anxiety, depression, and fantasy - came to me and became a part of me. And I cannot see a future where I will escape them. And as long as the first two don't destroy me, I am quite pleased to entertain the third.