Breathe
By Graciela Rock
A little less than two years ago, after a long period of stress, a lot of uncertainty, life changes, failures and grief, one day I started crying and I couldn't stop. I slept very little, everything overwhelmed me and seemed to me a proof of my uselessness, of my failure as a mother, partner or person in general; when I didn't cry, I was flooded with a deep rage that quickly turned into guilt and shame. My partner didn't know what to do to help me, even though he tried, and I felt even more guilt, sadness and anger as I felt my emotions were preventing me from taking on my caregiving responsibilities with our daughters and our home. Every morning, I thought I should throw myself down the stairs.
It was not the first time something like this happened to me. During adolescence one day my mother was called by the high school administration because they were worried that I was crying in the hallways and they suggested that she take me to a psychologist; I don't remember that on that occasion they gave me any kind of diagnosis, which surely could have been something between adolescence, anxiety and an eating disorder. Between that moment and the idea of throwing myself down the stairs, I went back to therapy at various times, but it wasn't until 2020, after spending three months in almost complete confinement for covid, that a doctor scribbled a prescription and gave me words to name the worm I felt crawling under my skin: generalized anxiety disorder and depression.
Migratory grief, the sadness of being an outcast, a misplaced person, is a very insidious sadness and takes advantage of any opportunity to twist us. Shortly after the episode I narrated before, I read a text that said that when you are sad at home, there are many things that remind you that you can stop being sad, because it has already happened (you have already walked those streets sad and then walked them again with happiness); but that when you migrate, there is a void of memories to heal the sadness. It helped me understand that I needed to create memories of resilience.
Finally I didn't throw myself down the stairs, and a few weeks after another doctor came back to scribble a prescription for anxiolytics and selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, the crying stopped. My therapist would say, depression is not cured - alone - with meds, they are like a mattress at the bottom of the void that you have to walk across to get to the other side; therapy is the rope we walk across it with. And yes, but if therapy was the rope and medication the safety net, affection and love were the rescue helicopter.
I started talking to the people I love about how sad I was, how scared and lonely I felt, I told them about the emptiness, the shame and the guilt. And what I got in return was love, it was hugs and whole mornings listening to my sorrows, it was invitations to mountain hikes and parties, it was above all, networking and collectivity, the collectivization of care and pain.
According to the WHO, key aspects of depression care, in addition to medication and specialized care, include maintaining contact with friends and family and telling someone you trust how you feel.
In the face of the abyss, in the face of emptiness, we are always saved by love.
*Graciela Rock is a specialist in public policy and gender, has worked as a journalist, diplomat, communicator and failed trad wife, and is currently the Director of La Cadera de Eva.
The opinions expressed are the responsibility of the authors and are absolutely independent of the position and editorial line of the company. Opinion 51.
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