Mute Button
- Jun 29, 2018
- 8 min read
by Allison Douglas
I have nothing to be upset about.
It’s just that when you’re driving down a curvy country road fantasizing about the car reeling off of it resulting in your bloody death, your attention should probably be roused. When you miss your turn because you’re carried away imagining the pain of your skull cracking the windshield alongside the scream and force of crushing metal, you should probably take notice. When it feels good to think this way, reasoning that all of it could end and nothing would be out of sorts, then there might be a problem. But really, who hasn’t had that thought before? It’s almost laughable that my death wish is so very trite; I mean, couldn’t I have thought of something a little more unique and interesting to end my life? The thing is, it’s not a thought. It’s vacant of thought; it’s more like a lack of protest.
First of all, I’d never intentionally kill myself because it’s not very responsible, is it? The fact is there’s an emotional aftermath that is not fair to leave behind. I have no tapes or letters to hand out, no angst-filled revenge to exact on anyone. I have nothing to be upset about. And scientifically, we must acknowledge that it’s not about “crazy,” and it doesn’t have to be about circumstances, either, let me be the first to say, because there’s a lot of wonderful beautiful things in my life. Depression is about brain chemicals, which can be treated. Still you have to admit: it is awfully goddam frustrating searching for the mute button and not finding it.
So I came up with this bullshit term. It sounds pretty enough. Holy loneliness. I’m usually real in love with destiny, and fate, and the universe having a plan and all of that spiritual nonsense, so on days like that I can feel really wise about my little concept. The selling point behind holy loneliness is that in the moments where it really is just you, starkly by yourself, the moments where there’s no escape from your own mind, you’re forced to look internally and commune with the spirit within, and that’s where true strength lies.
Honestly, the last couple of years have been the master class of that. I have the good sense to know that you can’t react to depression as if the shit it’s selling you is real. You have to deal with it and go on with life, being a Good Samaritan, a good mother, a good wife, a good teacher, a good person. But someone should warn the kids and youngsters that eventually — if it’s not sooner then it’s going to be later — you have to face being alone. That is the truth. I’m alone in a crowded room most of the time, and I consider myself pretty normal.
Have you ever met someone that causes you to believe in people again just by the goodness of his or her presence? I have known a few. There’s this woman I work with and she’s like that. She is so caring. Her heart just radiates sweet humor and real genuine kindness. She’s sassy and fun, and she’s no push over. She is like a blender freely mixing up prana milkshakes for everybody (there goes my bullshit again). Yes, I know perception can hide a multitude of sins. I know that even people like my friend at work have their mean streaks and traitorous human characteristics, but you know what I mean. When I talk to her even about the most inconsequential shit, I feel better. It makes me happy and, funnily enough, more lonely at the same time.
I think a large part of growing up and being a woman in the real sense of the word is learning how to deal with holy loneliness. Or hell, let’s take away the gloss. Just loneliness. That’s what it really is, and you can’t always talk about it with other women. Why? Because in one way or another every woman has the same shit, just in different bags, and who wants to be that person handing someone more bags of shit? Then you look like the husbands trying to carry all the groceries into the house in one trip. We’re all tired, we’re all overlooked, we’re all surprised at what life actually is, a good many of us are really happy in the big things, but even so, we’re all coping with the world around us. And some of us are failing.
Like I said, I have nothing to be upset about. But life is similar to those nature documentaries where it shows a magnificent sunset in a remote location. The beauty is breathtaking, but it’s dangerous and threatening terrain. Death is always a possibility. Is this where I make some metaphor about learning how to sterilize your own pee to survive in the wilderness? Take lemons and make lemonade? Gross.
***
So I wanted to throw a Girls’ Night snack and cocktail party. It’s summertime, I’m off from work, and I thought, “Okay, Self. If you want friends or to connect with people then, by damn, have a get together.” I have lots of little factions of friends. Teachers are really good at that. I have a teacher group here, a teacher group there, and a group of college gals that now only see each other every four or five months at our kids’ birthday parties. Every once in a while we might text each other in a group text. I might remind you, Reader, in these groups there are a lot of precious ladies with whom I can have fun, but at the same time, I can’t seem to find connection. See, I wouldn’t call any of these girls up and say to them, “Hey, isn’t it a bitch that suicide is irresponsible?” I wouldn’t text it either. Laugh out loud. Laughing emoji icon.
I invited about sixteen people all across these different factions. I realize with schedules and kids and vacations, I might as well spread the invite across all the land and maybe that way I would get a good showing. Only four ladies showed up. Several never even responded to the invitation and a couple indicated they would be there, but then never came and never communicated as to why. I really don’t want to sound like a seventeen-year-old Hannah Baker when I’m trying to explain how that made me feel, but if I do, I’m sorry. I’m not Hannah Baker, I’m a thirty-five-year-old music teacher with two precious kids and a handsome and loving husband. I’m not a teenager trying to navigate the fucking jungle of adolescence, so why did this affect me the way it did? It affected me because I felt disrespected. It affected me because it seemed to confirm that I’m just as isolated as I thought. It’s like one of the four girls pointed out to me, there’s nothing personal to friendships anymore. With the advent of social media and texting, hell, you don’t even have to see your friends. You can just say “Hi” every now and then, nod at them with a “like,” and send them an invite to your kid’s birthday at Chuck E. Cheese. There. Friendship at its goddam finest. I know I’m being sensitive, but there’s a lot of times that I feel like I take the commitment to friendship way more seriously than other people do. (Disclaimer: there have many times I’ve been a horrible friend, so maybe I should pull my high horse out of the race, right?)
Maybe it goes back to having to just live with a corpse on my shoulders all the time: the rotting, dead, ugly depression that I literally can’t talk about to any of my friends or family. So maybe it has less to do with friends, and more to do with trying to find some relief.
***
God is close to the brokenhearted.
Isn’t that how it goes? (I know how it goes, I’m just mocking the sincerity of it all.) I’m a lifetime churcher. I was raised all the way up in the gospel, the good, bad and the ugly, and when I was a teenager I used to spew the nastiest rhetoric in the name of righteousness. I look back and thank God, so to speak, that I did not remain such a head case. My heart and my view of my religion changed dramatically over the long course of about fifteen years. I became more open and felt spiritually fulfilled in the love of God.
Lately, though, I’ve been butting my head against philosophical and theological walls to no avail, which is not really like me. Before this depression I could polish anything up with “God is love.” Good for me, huh?
These days all I do is keep my eyes open during the prayers. I watch others talk about God and devote their lives to it. And I’m actually jealous. Hell, I’m even teaching preschool music during vacation bible school and still all I can see is how innocent these babies are. I feel so fake, like I’m lying to babies. I feel like I’m handing them colorful bags of false hope. I never used to be a fake. But lately, my inner light has become a corroded, non-operational lighthouse. I can’t point anyone in the right direction because I don’t even work.
I love to study different religions and I always have. And I know a secret. The voice of God? It’s just you. I mean, that’s not even theologically wrong if you acknowledge that God is in your heart. Right? It doesn’t matter. My listening device is not detecting a signal. I thought I’d had a little luck praying to the Divine Mother in the Hindu tradition a couple of days ago. Yogananda Paramahansa wrote that Master Mahasaya was a gentle and humble person who preferred the female image of God rather than the strict, fatherly image. I thought it was working. But now all I hear is static. So God, I’m sorry I’ve become the wayward doubter. At least I’m honest.
I still believe in something. All I’m saying is that you can’t pray your way out of depression.
***
My blood is like sludge today. My lungs are pinpricked with last night’s tobacco and tar and my head is full of swollen passages, a home to a dead headache that refuses to do anything but lay heavy like a goddam smog. My husband tried conversation with me but I was angry and embarrassed so the only ship I had a chance at today has sailed.
I hate for the kids to see me like this. It’s not a very good example. I can’t help but see and smell everything in this house that needs to be cleaned. But even if I had the precious energy it would take to do something about it, I’m not sure cleaning things would get me anywhere. I’ve also neglected the exercise I need to do to counteract all the fried food, bourbon and copious amounts of wine. Even if I could do it, what’s the point? It seems like every time I get to point B it just takes me back to point A.
I can’t make you understand it. I can’t make anyone understand it. It’s a monotonous gray like the color of sidewalk. It’s the feeling of queasiness right before you throw up. It’s the aches and pains of lying in bed too long. It’s the disappointment that finds you after crying and realizing your tears didn’t relieve you. It’s the endless mile markers on the Interstate. It’s the cool steel of a gun in the gun case. It’s the melancholy piano licks from a Fiona Apple song that make you remember what passion used to feel like. It’s your fingers typing on the keys and still not finding a voice. It’s the trick of having friends but no one who calls. It’s the broken pieces of glass in the driveway where you dropped your rocks glass when you were drunk last night and everyone else was asleep.
Depression tells lies and it does it well. It tells you random things you don’t need to have in your head. It tells you you’re the only one home and the gun is in the gun safe. It’s loaded. Aren’t you curious how it would feel against your temple? Depression, you’re silly. I would probably just turn myself into a vegetable and mess up the job.
Alright, Divine Mother. Help me up, because I’ve a pretty face to put on and laundry to do. Because I have to deal with this and go on with life, being a Good Samaritan, a good mother, a good wife, a good teacher, and a good person.
Allison Douglas is an emerging writer in Knoxville, TN, where she works as a school teacher. She holds a Bachelor of Music Education degree from the University of Tennessee and has been teaching for eleven years. She is a married mother of two.
