Darkness falls

I've experienced chronic physical pain and I've experienced deep and chronic depression. Given the choice, I'd choose physical pain any day.

Physical pain is tangible. It has a beginning, a middle and an end. When my body hurts, I can articulate where it hurts and how it hurts, and I can usually take a pill or two to make it stop. When I have a headache or a backache, other people get it. They can understand and empathize. They don't expect me to grin and bear it or to think positively to make it go away. They don't tell me that it's all in my head.

Emotional pain is different. It doesn't have a predictable course or a quick fix. I can't take a painkiller, or wear a brace, or use an ice pack or a heating pad for relief. Sometimes I can pinpoint a specific trigger, but many times I can't. The pain is just there, and nothing I do, think or say will make it go away.

This weekend was like that. My heart and my head were dark. There was a blankness, a blackness in my soul that draped me like the heavy blanket that the dental technician places over my chest before I have my teeth x-rayed. Only instead of keeping harmful x-rays out, the blanket of depression that covers me like a shroud keeps all the painful, harmful stuff inside.

When I'm feeling dark, helpless and hopeless like this, I miss my hypomania. I need it like an addict needs a fix. I look at the dishes piled up in the sink, the mountains of dirty clothes, and the stacks of unread newspapers and mail and I wish for a fraction of the energy that I have when I'm hypomanic. I know I'd feel better if I could bring myself to straighten things up, but I just can't find the strength. I'd like to curl up an read some of the dozens of books that line the shelves of my home office, just waiting to take me to far away places, but I can't find the energy to do that either.

Intellectually, I know that this too shall pass. There will be brighter days, I know. But right now, all I can see is day after day of darkness, with no sunshine in sight. The emptiness in my soul is so vast that I can't imagine the hole ever being filled.

There is a bit of hope though. Like a single candle flickering in an otherwise pitch blackness, I try my best to hold on to my faith, my belief that even though I don't understand it, there is a reason for all things, even this. No matter how depressed I am, I know that my life, my salvation, is a gift from God, and that to attempt to end the pain of this life would only bring an eternity of suffering that would be far worse than anything I can imagine in this life.

So, there you have it. The choice doesn't seem fair, but it is a choice nonetheless. I choose to live with the pain of this life. I choose to believe that no matter how things appear today, there's hope that tomorrow will be better.