When people describe others as “suffering with their nerves”, I wonder if they say it about me too. I’ve tried all the remedies. Sleeping, counselling, meditation, energy cleansing, sea swimming, long walks, yoga, journals, healthy food, unhealthy food, talking to friends, and medication when necessary.
I can see the clouds gathering, darkening, swirling. I prepare to get sucked back to the darkest place I have ever been, which took years to get out of. I’ll sound the klaxon with my family, friends, and colleagues as the wind picks up.
Sometimes they know before I know. “How is your mental health?” my friend Brian boomed at me recently, sensing, I suppose, that I was off. I was putting the washing out when he called, and I laughed and said: “Okay.” His abrupt attentiveness put tears in my throat, and I looked at my feet, twirling a clothes peg in my fingers as he tenderly repeated encouraging mantras.
They hold me tight so I don’t get lapped up into the black whirlwind, and I worry that I, in turn, am draining them of their energy. That one day they’ll go, “not this again,” which is exactly what I’m thinking myself. I go through all the things the doctors and counsellors told me to do and get ready to work, and it is work.
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It’s often the summer when it comes. I’m circling the drain, I told my friend. By the weekend, I was alone on a bus to a hotel with a tired body, a steady stream of tears, and a bubbling guilt about her forceful generosity and my family left behind.
The hotel was plush, all silvers, deep purples and twinkling chandeliers. I ignored the masseuse’s nattering while she positioned hot stones on my back, the searing heat a welcome release. Powerful jets of warm water pummelled me, and stretching and pulling my body through the blue-lit water, fully immersed, was soothing. I took a twilight stroll under the trees and turned when I came across a tiny graveyard and the unrelenting, human shrieks of a flock of jackdaws.
Bath, book, dinner. Bath, TV, breakfast. Bath, book, bus. I had dipped my toe into deliberate, rare, luxurious, solitariness.
In previous bouts of depression, in the worst spell, I had an impulse to hide. I had found a nook in the bathroom, under the sink, that I could fold myself into. Even those few moments of wanting to be alone felt like a weakness, felt like running away.
I understand a little bit better now how little things attach to me, and I can’t shake them off. Each administrative and emotional task is slapped on to my back like a heavy Post-it note. I am like a fish covered in metal scales that I can’t see or touch. Each payment due, tantrum, leak, each unmatched sock clicks into place on my shoulders. At the wrong moment, in the midst of an onslaught, an email from the school about another lice outbreak smashes at my feet like a stink bomb, and I am undone.
People offer to help, take the kids somewhere for an hour, do housework, make dinner, or go to the movies. One friend offered that I could stay in their house for a couple of nights when they weren’t there. I was nervous that it would seem like hiding under the sink again.
Arriving at the house, I stood in the perfect hallway, on my own. It was like something from a magazine, not in opulence, but in space and curated order. Everything inside was different shades of cream. Everything outside was different shades of green. Everything was so quiet.
I felt the scales fall away, the noise in my head dissipate. The bag of clothes for the charity shop that has been at the front door for a month, the tricky report, the lost gum shield, the woman at school’s sick daughter, the volunteer causing chaos at the club, the looming end of humanity, all forgotten. It was the equivalent of a padded cell to me. The simple, elegant rooms had little to interact with visually or physically, which was a relief to my senses. There was no history, no memories, no sounds, no people. My family and friends were making sure my to-do list was left behind.
I was comforted by being in the care of my friend and their willingness to share this special place with me. I slept deeply, for hours on end, unafraid of the remoteness, the silence, the blackness of the tall surrounding trees.
Days of hush, with the only human contact a nod to someone on a dewy walk. Twenty-four hours without moving my mouth to form a word. Soft beige and pale pink furnishings. Black-eyed sheep and chirruping birds. Electric green grass and the rustling boughs. Natural pools of cold, copper water to sink under. Flaming orange sunsets and biblical steel storms. I could take it all in. My bare feet on the shiny floor. One cup, one plate, one towel. I could remember myself. I leave with appreciation for the space.
I come home, unshackled, ready for the clutter and the chatter. I go to the bathroom, under the sink, and take out the lice comb.
