Red and Howling: Life

When I was little we lived near a small pond that would freeze in winter; I remember the ache of excitement waiting for the water to transform into ice thick enough, so I could skate its surface.

I loved skating, but I loved staring down through the frozen water even more. I was mesmerized by its mysterious, murky darkness and thrilled with the possibility of the ice breaking and me falling in—never to be seen again.

I'd clumsily skate-walk across the pond to a desolate corner in search of thin ice and listen for any inkling of a cracking noise.

If this failed to produce results, I'd repeatedly kick the back of my skate into the ice, chipping away the surface, bringing me closer and closer to the unforgiving, cold water below.

And this is where my mind dwelled.

OK, so I'm being a bit dramatic. I didn't literally want to plunge through ice and drown in freezing water, but I did have an "impending doom" sort of brain, where unpleasantly tangled thoughts like this took up residence and wouldn't leave.

I should have been thinking about dolls and ice cream cake, not the bottom of a pond.

I've felt different ever since I can remember and not a "good" different, like "genius" different, but "odd" different.

If pressed, I would describe myself as a happy, but tormented child.

Eventually, I discovered that my brain state had a name—DE·PRES·SION, a three syllable noun with a clinical definition that only scratches at the surface of its meaning like a lazy termite.

The dictionary describes it with pocket-sized words like "sadness" and "gloom", disregarding the crippling, insane reality of it all.

More accurately, it's like I'm stuck on a "My Dog Just Died" loop— a never-ending sorrow that circles back again and again.

It's an illogical sadness that maniacally drips on without any end in sight.

Sometimes, it's like being stuck in a hole for absolutely no reason other than: A) There is a hole. And B) I'm stuck in it.

My depression has always been liberally sprinkled with recurring nightmares.

I was sure that if I compared my brain to others, it would look something like this:

Another element of this twisted torment was a perpetual feeling of being separated from everything; it felt like I was trapped in a box looking out at a colorful world that I wanted to be part of, but could not.

––

Life in my brain was an imbalance of goods:

Most of what I was thinking and feeling was way above my ability to understand or process it:

My life wasn't a constant hell-hole, I did have moments of pure pleasure, but "it" never seemed to be far away, lurking in the shadows, ready to make my next moment miserable.

I didn't know how to extract this anguish from my brain, so I just lived with it until I was old enough to drive.

Alcohol and food became my sloppy coping mechanisms which only made things worse.

This went on for years until I decided to go on antidepressants.

For a brief time, pills were magical creatures that rescued me from my menacing brain—I loved them.

The heavy blanket of hopelessness lifted. Things that used to gut me became manageable. Silly things that tormented me, just bounced off me like a little rubber ball.

For example, this is what I was like BEFORE pills:

AND THIS IS WHAT IT WAS LIKE AFTER:

I was newly functional and invincible, but the side effects were horrible. Pills did get me out of my box, but they just stuffed me in a different box. The pills turned on me like tiny terrorists and made my life worse.

So I weaned myself off the pills and got back in my familiar box.

I look around and wonder if others are as messed up in the head as I am?

I wonder if perfect-looking people with their perfect hair and nails, crisply ironed clothes, and matching accessories are depressed or if it's just the people with stains?

People who have never experienced depression just don’t get it; I don't blame them—how can a non-depressed person understand a broken brain? It's almost useless to explain any of it, so I often opt for exaggeration:

They confuse depression with the Sunday blues and offer up well-meaning nonsense.

Bless their hearts for caring at all and for trying to help.

My never-depressed brother always suggests therapy. Therapy never helped me, it only revealed more of my issues and gave them labels which briefly validated me, but ultimately made me feel worse. I would have been better off spending my money on something pretty or donating it to homeless kittens.

I did therapy and all I got was this lousy t-shirt!

As I get older and depression sticks around like an annoying friend, I'm discovering something devastating that I didn't see coming...it gets worse! When I was in my "Twenty-Something Depression", at least I was young and sorta pretty. Sometimes I would look at my face after a long sob and think "damn, not bad"—my skin glowed and I didn't have chin hair.

Smear on the layers of years with its inevitable decay and instead of a daily minefield of drudgery and responsibility, it's now a daily minefield of drudgery and responsibility WITH SAGGY TITS.

This is what it would be like for me in the Garden of Eden:

Selfishly, I'd feel better—a bit cozier—knowing that many others are struggling and messed up, too. So I Googled it and recently found these statistics on how many of you are depressed across the globe:

And I found this!

"If you're a woman living in the United States, you're six times more likely to be depressed than a man living in China, says a new study."

So we are not alone, a lot of us are depressed—YAY! We can all suffer together and then it isn't so horribly-terribly-bad...is it?

I don't know how I ended up the way I did and most of you probably don't know how you ended up the way you did either, so let's...

...in fact, let's celebrate them!

THE END

Like millions of others out there I’ve been floating in a warm pool of adoration for Allie Brosh—she makes me laugh and takes my brain places its never been before. I don't “leak” like The Bloggess, but I do toot while giggling quite a bit.

Unfortunately, my pool of adoration evaporated pretty quickly after reading her post Spiders Are Scary*. In this post Allie states:

And this is where my head exploded into a million raging pieces of disappointment.

Go ahead Allie, if you must—HATE. Those. Spiders:

Talk trash about them:

Mess with them:

but KILL them? Why Allie, WHY?!

You have a zillion fans who worship the sofa your curl up on and probably would leap at the chance to sniff your stained hoody. Your fans regurgitate your words, share your art, and NOW they'll probably kill spiders for you!

I fear that the population of spiders might dwindle because of you. At first glance, some might think,“Great! Who cares?" But did you know that we are totally screwed without spiders? And here's why....

Why Allie Brosh And Anyone Crushing Spiders Should Reconsider Their Position
(fantasy version):

1. Evolution:
Let’s hypothetically say that Allie and her devoted fans manage to wipe out all the spiders in the universe— even the ones floating in space (yes, they've found spiders floating IN space).

Somehow a handful of the cleverest spiders will be able to outsmart Allie and her minions.

It’s almost a guarantee that spiders will come back bigger and stronger—they’ll have a hundred legs, not a measly eight, and triple the eyeballs.

They will go after Allie and her gang with a vengeance—they'll have remembered their ancestors and THEY WILL BE PISSED.

2. Law of Attraction:
Like attracts like: Positive thoughts attract positive things, negative thoughts attract negative things:

According to the law of attraction your hyperactive hate-fear of spiders will only bring you...MORE SPIDERS! If this goes unchecked and is permitted to grow undisturbed during your lifetime, the spider manifestations in your life will be never-ending. For example:

There are 40,000 known varieties of spiders and just one acre of meadow has been estimated to be bursting with more than 2 million of these splendid creatures.

Some spiders float through the sky on updrafts of wind, so they'll get a fantastic arial view of your blazing "spider-hate" aura, which, regrettably for you Allie, will act as a spider-magnet.

3. Projection:
Projection is a defense mechanism in which a person unconsciously rejects their loathsome characteristics and transfers them outwardly onto unsuspecting beings and objects.

4. Karma:
Allie, you could be reincarnated as a caterpillar who gets stuck in a spider's web in order to balance out the karma of a lifetime full of massacring hundreds of spiders and inspiring others to do the same.

5. Legacy:
As time marches on, things get lost in translation. Your current innocent declaration "CLEAN ALL THE THINGS!" could morph and twist over time:

Why Allie Brosh And Anyone Crushing Spiders Should Reconsider Their Position

(True, Factual version):

Vital to Our Survival:
Spiders play a crucial role in the food chain. Without them, insect populations would explode, decimating our food crops, and ecological balance would be compromised. Many scientists believe that without spiders, the human race would die within months because of lack of food and insect borne diseases.

That's how important spiders are, so don't kill 'em, put 'em outside!

6 Things That you Probably Didn't Know About Spiders

Spiders avoid people and are much more afraid of us than we are of them.
Spiders are not bloodsuckers and they do not feed on humans.
The majority of spiders are not toxic to humans.
Many spiders aren't capable of piercing human flesh.
Only about a dozen of the approximately 40,000 spider species worldwide can cause serious harm.
Spider silk is stronger than steel and more elastic than nylon. The ancient Greeks used spider silk to stop bleeding wounds.

Spiders are truly magnificent and more importantly they are vital to our survival, so Allie I hope that one day you make friends with ALOT of spiders.

THE END

*Allie's Spiders Are Scary post
Author's note: Allie, I adore you with all the glitter and sparkles in the galaxy and I know if you knew how important and magnificent spiders are you probably would not want to kill them.
Maneka Gandhi's enlightening article on spiders.