On January 11th, 2016, I started a daily practice of writing a joke meditation of the day called Cracked Pot Meditations. I was still recovering from the treatment of cancer, and I was having very challenging cognitive issues, so I chose just to put something simple and easy to write every day. Posting it to the blog allowed me to have some accountability. Some of those meditations were poorly written and unedited. I have gone back and begun editing these and adding an illustration, starting with the April 27th meditation. I hope you enjoy.
Meditation for June 1st
Dear Depressed Person,
I hope this letter finds you well, but it probably will not. Maybe you just smiled at someone, said you were doing great, and thanked them for asking. Perhaps you asked them how they were doing, and they told you. Maybe you pretended to listen while wishing you were anywhere but there. I know that you aren’t well, you’re depressed.
I know that depression isn’t sad or self-pity or anything to do with an event that causes a reaction. You’re just depressed. It just happens. It can happen on a rainy day, and it can happen on a sunny day. Depression can happen while doing your favorite things with your favorite people.
You either embrace it or you pretend that everything is alright. Either way, it isolates you. Sometimes people try and relate, but they are explaining sadness or having a bad day, but not life crippling depression. People will think that there is a way to fix it, and while there is some excellent advice to alleviate the symptoms, nothing will ever cure depression.
This letter is to say I love you and to hang on. I know that sometimes life just seems futile. Why try? You can look out the window at the world outside and see it happening without you, and how no one is doing anything with any real purpose. Why trudge through mud while normal people, people who do not suffer from depression, glide by with ease? I can tell you that it is worth hanging on.
We are extra sensitive to the world. We are easily burned by it. Our nerves extend beyond our skin and move with the painful currents of life. We seek solutions in bottles, pills, needles, sex, gambling, danger, and anything else to get us out of that dark place. We see the ugliness of it all. We see how very real people’s hideousness can be, but at the same time, we can see the beauty. While we see the inherent evil in every person, we have difficulty breathing when we see something so beautiful.
Normal people can’t. They think that just some positive thinking will alter the course of someone’s day. They want to see the movie and not read the book, they want the details hidden, and they want everything to fit in their neat boxes, while we know nothing belongs anywhere.
You, a depressed person, are beautiful, worthy, innovative, creative, funny, and I love you. I don’t even have to know you to know this. I know depressed people are the best people I know. You might think you aren’t worthy of love, but you are. Love is the purpose. It won’t take the mud we have to slug through, but we can find a small ray of purpose.
This is why I’m tired of losing you. I have spent the last four-plus decades watching the greatest people burn to the ground. They die with needles in their arms, they pop too many pills, or they end it themselves. Their loved ones couldn’t break through the walls to save them. The pain is too great. The horrors of our world are too abusive for some to want to go on.
I wish every time that I could have said something, done something, been something better and more worth living for, but I know that all those things are no match for depression. I know that the best speaker in the world can’t reach the depressed ear.
I sometimes dream of all of those that I outlived standing around my bed watching me sleep. When I wake, I see some of their faces in my peripheral vision.
You can tame it with healthy living, therapy, and sometimes medication. You can learn how to take care of yourself when you are in the darkness. You can learn to owe nobody anything for having depression. You have it, and that’s okay.
What I want to tell you is that you are special. Depressed people are loved because we are so deep and genuine. When we know someone, we wear no more masks. We are looked upon for strength because what we must endure with our minds is harrowing. People are attracted to us.
We can sometimes feel like we have to hide our depression because society wants to see only our best sides, our inauthentic selves.
I want you to know that you give people hope, happiness, and love by being who you are. Even when you struggle, you inspire someone who loves you.
You don’t have to drown in chemicals and isolation if you want. You might think you deserve an early death, but you don’t; you deserve as much love and support as anyone. You can get help. I have been helped and loved even when I couldn’t see or want it.
Sometimes, I still don’t see the love and hope around me. The internet and my customer service job sometimes skew my view of the world. Sometimes, I don’t want to anymore. I want to sleep forever, or at least for a few days. I get so tired. I see nothing to look forward to, even when there are great things to look forward to. I feel no love, even though there is proof otherwise.
Then it passes. Sometimes, it happens in a day or a week; sometimes, it takes months, but it passes. I know it’ll happen again, but I also hope that I’ll enjoy some of my life. I try to help people when I can, be creative, and do what I love with the people I love before I feel the unbearable weight of being again.
Depressed person, I love you. I have felt your pain, and when I see your pain, I feel it. It hurts me so bad. I love you and hope to give you some hope or laughter. I want you to know that there are things to live for. There is nothing wrong with how you feel. You don’t deserve to feel that way, you aren’t doing something to make you feel that way, and you don’t need to act like you are okay so non-depressed people can feel comfortable around you.
I wish that this letter cured depression. Please read this and have a good cry, and never hurt again. I want to say that you just had regular emotions instead of the big cement block we swim in. I wish I could say ‘I love you’ and you’d be free.
I wish I could be free as well.
Anyway, this letter is for the junkies, the drunks, the whores and the hustlers. This letter is for the artists, the writers, and the dreamers. This letter is for the people who try to put this shit into words that the regular folks to understand. This is for the kids and the codgers. Please know I love you.
Yours in light and laughter,
David Everett Fisher