Standing with Dr. Proudie

Living in Puerto Rico, it didn’t seem surprising that I knew someone who knew Andrew Solomon, since everybody on the island knows everybody else. Still, why should I have run into someone who not only knew Solomon, but had been to his wedding at Althorp, the family home of the Spencers, of which Diana, Princess of Wales, was one?

The guy explained—they were childhood friends, since Solomon’s father had been head of a pharmaceutical here on the island. And so they had remained friends, though Solomon had attended Yale and later Jesus College, Cambridge. Solomon’s story had similarities to my own: we’re both gay, we’re both depressives, he had written a book about the planned death of his mother, and I had written a book about my mother’s life and, especially, death.

More, his book on depression was titled The Noonday Demon: an Atlas of Depression, which was a phrase I had encountered when reading up on acedia. So I had contemplated reading the book, but decided no; it was too recent, you see, my own last bitter bout with the disease.

But I’ve returned, over time, to consider the disease, or the condition, or perhaps just the mindset of depression. And the fact that I can write that depression may be a quality or state of mind indicates how tricky, how elusive, depression can be.

Because Solomon is right—in some ways the world of depression seems like the real world. Really, is there any sense cleaning your house? It’s just going to get dirty again, as will your body, so showering is out, and eating? You’d have to open that refrigerator and get a nose-full of all that rotting food you’ve not had the energy to throw out, and besides, getting out of the chair? Too much work….

Following this logic leads to tumbling down the very slippery slope that ends up—as it did to Solomon—with his lying in bed, unable to get up, and unable to extend his arm for four hours.

As Solomon remarks in the clip below, depressives in some ways see the world more clearly. Most people, for example, overestimate their abilities, and certainly most people underestimate the amount of time and trouble that things will take. And that was one of the problems you had—or at least I had—in the university. Of course I can research and write a fifty-page term paper the day before it’s due! Hey, no problem!

And so the cheery optimism that most people arm themselves with is highly adaptive, but not necessarily real or true. It may be true, as Thoreau said, that the mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation, but a great many of those men—and women—get through their days by telling themselves that everything is fine, and will get better.

Will it? Not for a depressive, or at least not for a depressive who cannot do the simple, rational thing: pick up the phone and call a therapist. Because paradoxically, the farther you have sunk into the pit of depression, the less likely you will somehow manage to crawl out of it.

And Solomon asks the question: is there anything to be found in that pit? Any diamonds, or even lumps of coal? Isn’t depression linked to creativity?

I don’t think so. Yes, the depression I endured may have lead to more compassion, more understanding of suffering in others. Yes, for philosophic reasons, I have to embrace my depression, since it’s part of me, it’s part of what shaped me.

But when I was severely depressed, creativity was impossible. And even if it had been there, would I have had the patience, the endurance to learn a Bach suite or write a book? Those are more than acts of faith, they’re inherently improbable shots in the dark. And the likelihood that anyone will hear the suite or buy the book? Not high….

Really, the worst part of the depression I suffered was the loss of so much joy in the world. But it was more than that. For decades, I was starting ten feet behind everyone else in whatever race we were running. And the effect of losing so many races meant that I was pulled farther and farther behind everyone else. The feet became yards, the yards miles.

Most people…well, let me copy and paste from Wikipedia’s article on the epidemiology of depression:

People are most likely to suffer their first depressive episode between the ages of 30 and 40, and there is a second, smaller peak of incidence between ages 50 and 60.[8] The risk of major depression is increased with neurological conditions such as stroke, Parkinson's disease, or multiple sclerosis and during the first year after childbirth.

My depression started when I was in my teens, and may have stemmed in part from knowing that I was different, fearing that I was gay, and enduring the isolation that bearing that secret entailed. But more than that, the depression occurred when I was forming—quite literally—my adult self. As such, it became part of the warp and weft of my personality; in those periods when the black dog—Churchill’s metaphor for depression—had trotted off somewhere, I was still depressed. However good I might feel, I knew the dog would be howling and butting his head against the door and sighing, and I would have to rise and let him in again.

I grew up and became a fatalist—the marriage would end, the audition would be botched, sickness and death were right around the corner. And I had no baseline of happiness by which to gauge my depression. It was the only land I knew; reports of other territories I deemed anecdotal.

Had the depression been treated in my teens, what would my life have been? I might have been happier, would I have been the same? Would I have sacrificed some sensitivity, some knowledge of suffering?

If I believe that, aren’t I saying that people who have not suffered depression are less sensitive than we who have, or who do? I’m not sure I’d go there.

Nor am I sure I’d trade the decades of silent suffering for decades of euthymia, the technical name for feeling good. I think I feel as Dr. Proudie did, when his wife died: the good Lord had sent the affliction (to paraphrase Trollope), the Lord had banished the affliction; blessed be the name of the Lord!