Unit 4  Section 1 Depression
Section 1 Depression
Vignette Now I am on my way there. Something stirs in me as I climb the stairs and wander down the long deserted hallway to the office door with its nameplate: this crossing marks my entry into the storybook grotto. To the untouched heart this magical retreat seems remarkably shabby. The chairs are rickety and there is a common kitchen that looks quite old, as though no one has really decided who should be tending it. On Tuesdays or Fridays, I sit in this anteroom--never very long, because my therapist is punctual and so am I. The punctuality is not military but deferential on both parts, like a Japanese bowing ritual. Keeping the promised hour anchors the present, even as perhaps it redeems failed commitments of the past.
I’d arrived at this place from a dark, unruly sea, a swimmer searching for a beacon on which to fix my eyes, to keep from sinking into the waves. My depression hadn’t lifted, as I thought it would, on its own. Day after day, I’d been lying in bed, surrounding myself with pillows to soften the pain, which coursed from top to bottom like an electric current, arching my back off the plane of the bed while I begged for it to be over.
Of course I tried swallowing antidepressants. The first week on Zoloft was promising. I called a friend: “This is so good, I’m going to tell everyone to start taking it.”
“They already are.”
My serotonin-induced euphoria was short-lived. The drug sank into my limbs,
which hung from my body like sandbags and the pain was still there, rumbling in the basement.
Somebody recommended Dr. M. “He’s wonderful.” I felt I could use a wonderful therapist. Earlier that month, I’d had a session with a psychologist who worked regular hours at my HMO. “Have you been feeling sad for more than two weeks?”
“Yes I have,” I sniffled.
“Sleep?”
“Awful.”
“Tearful?”
“Very much so.” My eyes welled up. Suicidal thoughts--I knew from my own work as a doctor that question was essential to the evaluation, but the psychologist didn’t mention it. I wasn’t sure if I could tell her anyway of my longing to fold down my covers and find under them the green viper, my wish for a graze of its teeth.
“Here.” The psychologist wrote something on the back of a card. I took the paper from her and looked at it. A newcomer’s guide to finding fun and friends, it said.
“It’s a book,” she explained encouragingly, looking at her watch. “Some people have found it to be helpful.”
The purpose of this section is to explore the causes of depression, its diagnosis and treatment, as well as to gain an empathic understanding of the experience of depression.
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