We all have something in our lives that is hard, difficult and often times impossible to explain to someone else who just doesn't get it - especially if that person has never been through an experience that is remotely close to whatever we have or whatever we are we are experiencing. For example, I was viciously mauled by a dog when I was eight years old, which isn't something I would say 99% of the population has experienced or has the ability to understand what I went through. However, I am not writing about dog mauling's. I am writing about something much much darker but still has a major impact on our society. I am writing about mental illness. Mainly about MY mental illness and how I view it, my experience with it and how I explain it to other people who do not have mental illness.
Oh My Gosh, here I go.
Depression is a disease that is serious. I am not talking one or two days of you or I feeling blue/sad I mean the lingering days and days - months of deep dark painful sadness. These symptoms interfere with my ability to work, sleep, study, eat and me to enjoy life. Many of my closest friends are gone because I pushed them away. It is my fault. They didn't understand ME, and I gave up, I push everyone away. I live in a dark lonely world because of it. No one understands, when I explain, they don't care enough to stay by my side through the darkness. So, if they don't care, why should I? That old saying of you know who your true friends are......blah blah blah, is true.So, I started thinking of a way I can explain MY disease to someone in a way that they could understand it. At least partially enough where I, Jennifer, am coming from. I say Jennifer because, I have to keep saying that this is about my experience, no one else. I am not an MD. This is just my story. Mental illness is not an all-encompassing disease, no two people are alike, each person rates differently on the five axis scales, and no two people feel the same way even if their axis scales were similar or identical.
During one of my most recent hospitalizations, I was in a group session and the group leader asked me to check in and I said I felt like an octopus was drowning me at the bottom of the ocean. He looked at me with intrigue, yet like I was on crack, and asked me to explain further. I told him my depression was so deep that I felt like the eight tentacles of an octopus had a grasp on me at the bottom of the ocean and that I couldn't come up for air. I was drowning.
This is where Bob was born. (Although Bob wasn't named until much later, but he was born in that group session)
You see, an octopus has no internal or external skeleton allowing them to squeeze through very tight spaces thus keeping me at the bottom of the ocean. The octopus can also expulse ink against its predator's to get away (in this instance, the predator's are the therapists, psychiatrists, medical professionals, church clergy, friends, and anyone else willing to help). Lastly, the octopus can jet away very quickly through the water and has the uncanny ability to get away from the predator's (aka the help) that is FOUR strikes against me, making it nearly impossible for any human to help me out of the grasp of this venomous predator.
Each octopus has eight tentacles covered in suction cups holding on to me, grasping me, drowning me, from any and all help that any one person or 'medical team' that tries to help. I have labeled these eight tentacles of how I feel (1) self-hatred. (2) anger. (3) fear. (4) abandonment from God/people. (5) incapability of reaching out. (6) loneliness. (7) isolation. (8) self-harm (suicidal idealization).
Now we also have the little rubbery space between each tentacle that allows the tentacle to wrap itself over one another, double over itself, multiple times, etc. It does every to block my escape from this damn octopus, to make things easy I am calling this little rubbery space the 'negative space' so that I can label them as well because there are also eight of those are killing me. (1) uncontrollable crying. (2) hatred of others. (3) inability to take care of myself. (4) inability to find happiness. (5) my negative tapes that play over and over telling me how dumb, stupid, fat and ugly I am, (6) fear of opening up - even to my own doctors. (7) overeating to fill the pain. Last but certainly not least (8) unbearable emotional pain.
For me, the octopus was the perfect example of how to explain what depression is because we all know what an octopus is, how it holds on to its prey until it suffocates to death. The only question left is how to get each individual away from their own encompassing octopus! Mine seems to have a death grip on my life and won't let me free. Some days I feel like I can see the top of the ocean and only need a few inches to come up for that gasp of air, other days, I am drowning, down so deep I don't know up from down or left from right.
Is my octopus trying to teach me something? Like how to breathe without a snorkel or a oxygen? If I name my octopus will he/she finally lighten up and loosen its death grip? I do not know what lesson I am to learn, except how to live with depression.
I do know that no matter what lessons I am to learn, I know that this damn octopus has not stolen my ability to think, my demented humor, or my ability to laugh.
I could name this octopus Jack Ass after my ex-husband, but no one wants to say they have a Jack Ass inside of them, so this naming ceremony needs to be more pleasant. Like Bob. Kind of like the movie. What about Bob, then everyone would ask me, what about Bob? or I could give it a strange quirky name, but I like Bob. Bob is short for bobbing, as in a fishing bobber. Eventually, the bobber has to surface for air, I can tackle (like that fishing pun) one tentacle even if Bob jets back down to the bottom of the ocean, I can get one tentacle at a time each time the bobber floats.
So Bob it is.
This is Bob (found on Google images - not my drawing)
Don't worry, Bob returns a lot. Bob and I develop an intimate relationship. A hatred relationship.....of me hating him.
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