ACCOZZAGLIA

[I write this entry under a filtered readership option. This is obviously very personal information I'm sharing here, so I humbly ask that it not be discussed with other people, full-stop. Comments, if any, shall be screened.]

I may understand myself a little better now.

It turns out that that not only am I withstanding clinical depression, but evidently, for each time someone with clinical depression experiences it again — a relapse, if you will — the neural pathways responsible for depression expand and strengthen their synaptic connections. In practical terms, this means that each depressive episode, regardless the trigger and causation, is potentially more intense and severe than the previous, even if the triggers are minor in comparison to those responsible for legacy episodes. In my present episode, the trigger was by all measures minor compared to some which I’ve endured in the past, but this feels like the second-worst depressive episode I’ve lived through.

In this case, I am able to count no fewer than eleven distinct, severe episodes of severe clinical depression during my lifetime, the first starting at the age of 9 and lasting for about a year. It was a direct response to widespread violence against me and my body. I even visited an ineffective child therapist for it — impotent because he was being paid by my parents, one whom was the agitator of said violence, to tell them what they wanted to hear, rather than to address my needs.

There may be one or two prior depressive episodes to that, as well. My memory starts to disintegrate with holes before 1982, ostensibly because of some of this abuse, which dates back to when I was a two-year-old sprog (and is ironically documented in writing by my ex-mother, who was the instrument for so much of that violence). Anyone who knows me well is very cognizant of my crystal-sharp memory for the smallest details, so to have holes is not something to be taken lightly.

I guess, by logical extension, depression will eventually kill the person afflicted if left untreated. Until recent years, with the advent of anti-depressant medication, this was probably the case. It must be a part of natural selection to keep humanity going: those encumbered by depression are not good candidates to carry forth the gene pool; ergo, only the healthiest shall survive. Given that depression is caused by a response to coping with severe, even extreme circumstances, it is my finding that abuse, torture and destruction of others — which leads to severe and extreme situations — in turn destroys the human race.

My biggest oversight was borne from a fear of chemical dependency: since 1987, I have confronted every depressive episode with an abject aversion to complementing my therapy with anti-depressants. Understanding depression a little better now, in terms that I can grok, I now cry “uncle”.

Also, the person with whom I met yesterday for a therapist intake pointed out that — as I was answering one of her questions about some of the abuse I’ve withstood — I wasn’t breathing. It prompted her to ask, “And when did you last breathe?” I responded, “It’s been a few minutes.”

She later suggested, a bit to my surprise, that I am all but struggling with post-traumatic stress disorder. This was, of course, nothing more than a cursory assessment and observation, but it apparently appeared very prominently to her, as she later noted. I can’t make these determinations on my own, because the experiences are relative, eh?

It might not seem so severe to me (I mean, I’m not dead yet), but apparently, the experiences were severe. I’ve only been coping ever since. As I shared recently with someone important to me, “coping != healing”. She couldn’t have agreed more. We’re both in our own modes of healing right now, which seemed to illustrate how hard it is to even get to this point in life, this point of trying to bring closure to unhealed wounds. Some people never make it this far — electing to continue to medicate the pain through long-term destructive means: chemically, with eating disorders, self-injury, workaholism, material distraction, whatever.

Also, another person (with whom I recently shared that I was experiencing a lot of pain lately) brushed it off and suggested the “pull yourself up by the bootstraps” attitude to getting through this. I was angered to hear this at first, but I chose instead to let that anger go and dismiss her instead. I did this, not because I have any grievances towards her, but because I know that she doesn’t really grok this yet — well meaning as she intended her statement to be. I have no basis upon which to be angry with her.

At this point in her life, it is the only method she knows; the “bootstraps” method only works when one is trying to cope. After a lifetime of coping, however, I’m trying to heal. Healing requires a completely different way to examine things, though it’s by no means painless. Waking up each morning and feeling lead weights throughout my body is my Exhibit A, the frequent anxiety attacks my Exhibit B, and the increasingly severe nightmares (where I wake up unable to breathe because of adrenaline coursing through my veins) my Exhibit C. I’m sure this must be like physical therapy in the amount of pain involved for recovery.

Further, that these old wounds are making themselves apparent now is not really an accident. I seem to be ready to pinpoint, understand, resolve and bring closure to the continual abuse I sustained for many, many years. This healing must come about before I can continue to grow. I want to grow, because I feel I’ve countlessly wonderful things to experience yet, and I cognitively and logically find no incentive in dying — despite my physical brain suggesting emotionally that dying would be a far more suitable alternative.

Finally, a last statement: much of what I write and share with people as of late is me on auto-pilot. I sound mechanical and wooden precisely because this is the only part of me that can function, communicate or interrelate with others with any degree of efficacy. The rest of me is still here, but is simply in too much pain to be very effective at empathy and connection. Please be patient with me as I work through this. Thanks.