Yesterday, the World lost a gem. a truly unbelievable gem. I know he was an important icon, because 4 out of every 5 posts in my Facebook feed are about him.
And I cried. Yesterday in shock... on the inside. Not where people can see me crying. I'm good at that, have been doing it all my life.
And then it hit me. This morning. With every post being about his death, and his life. Only not his real life.....Just the life he put on camera. His funny (now that's an understatement), outgoing, extroverted, "Stage" persona. The person he let us all see.
I watched tributes, and read quotes, and saw image after image used as a byline and tribute to the man. The man that none of us really knew. He is gone. And we didn't get to know him. No one did. Not even his loved ones. Okay, I'm sure they knew his fight, and they understood the idea of his suffering, but no one really gets "in" to a person with mental illness. With Depression. Even those of us who share, or shared, his "affliction"..... those of us who really understood what he was up against. We don't get to be "on the inside"...."sharing his pain".....
And today I cried. A little, only, on the outside....But this void of grief sits heavy in my throat, in my chest, threatening to leak out in the form of more tears, and heavy sobs, at any second....
It hit me today, talking to someone I cherish as a friend and admire as a professional. That mask really works! It is possible, easy even, to hide one's true feelings from the world. Too easy. What's harder is trying to make the pain make sense to someone who doesn't experience it day-to-day. It made me realize that most people don't "get it"... and never possibly could. This isn't an insult, or a fault, or their lacking in any way. Mostly just another realization for myself....
The pain of depression is nothing like anything anyone else can understand. Even others with depression. Each person lives within their own little sphere. Inside the smiles and funny, the false armoured image of self-confidence, self assured-ness, the shield we present to the outside world, lives each individuals' prickly little secret...like a prickly little ball that bounces around inside us...poking us, chipping away at our insides as we ride our bumpy rides of life....
Sometimes that prickly little ball is in our head - obscuring our thoughts, confusing our intentions, our ability to read situations, exhausting our brains, giving us headaches, migraines, creating vertigo, dizziness...making the knowledge of how to interact with our day-to-day functions disappear as it vibrates away in there.....
Sometimes that prickly little ball is in our limbs - making us too tired or in too much pain to move, making them too heavy to lug around, too conscious of our own inabilities to even attempt the abilities....
Sometimes that prickly little ball sits right behind our eyes - distorting our view of the world around us - creating tunnel vision, or wavy vision, or even blurred vision..making us look "too fat" or "too thin" or "too pale" or just "too ugly" to exist in public...to feel worthwhile.... bouncing and prickling us so that every smile from a friend or stranger seems distorted, insincere, making mole-hills look like mountains, every interaction needing to be questioned....read and reread....
Sometimes that prickly little ball is in our guts - tearing us up inside, creating physical symptoms, physical pain, nausea digestion issues, the need to eat incessantly, or starve...messing with our ability to lead normal lives...
Often that prickly little ball is in our hearts - making our ability to show or receive love and affection, even in our interest or ability to have healthy sexual interactions......
My entire life....I have questioned intentions, questioned my worthiness, my attractiveness, my desirability, my competence as a friend, a lover, a partner, a parent, a child....every compliment received tempered by my own disbelief, every compliment given amplified by my own envy.... It is exhausting...It is defeating..
A friend of mine posted this quote:
"Killing oneself is, anyway, a misnomer. We don't kill ourselves. We are simply defeated by the long, hard struggle to stay alive. When somebody dies after a long illness, people are apt to say, with a note of approval, "He fought so hard." And they are inclined to think, about a suicide, that no fight was involved, that somebody simply gave up. This is quite wrong." - Sally Brampton
That Mr. Williams fought the good fight for 63 years is no less than a miracle. Look at every image of him. Almost every one. Look at his smile, and look into his eyes. His eyes belie his smile. His torment was available for everyone to see, every day. If you only knew how to look.
The most fitting end to this post is a tribute by a friend - I will post it just as I saw it:
Thank you.
My depression is a bottomless pit, filled to the very top with black, writhing snakes... when the panic sets in, those snakes seem to grab onto my esophagus and squeeze. You're right, everybody's is different. Everyone copes differently too. Talking about it, knowing that we're not alone in that panic does help.
ReplyDeletevery good
ReplyDelete