Sinking into Davy Jones's Locker

I'm sorry I didn't post more about the experiences which made me who I am. My depression took hold and I couldn't face writing about it. Even doing this post has taken weeks of thinking about it ti find the willpower to do it. For the moment I'm going to leave the 'my history' posts although they will come. Instead I want to tell you what depression is to me - sinking into Davy Jones's Locker.

Imagine you're sailing on a stormy sea. You are the captain of a ship which you've spent years building, crafting, learning to command, but your journey isn't going to plan. You've been tossed around by the waves, lifted to dizzying peaks and thrown into trenches. Your crew have all been swept away and you have whiplash. You're exhausted. You just want it to stop and you consider giving in.  Surrendering, letting the storm win and allowing the current pull you under, seems ever more tempting, but you stand at the helm, gripping the wooden wheel as tightly as you can, struggling against the pull.

That's only part of your battle for survival.

Eventually the sea grows calm, completely still. No wind fills your sails and even though you haven't dropped anchor you can't move forward or back. You're stuck in place and it feels a lot like drifting, directionless, even though you aren't going anywhere. It's dark and sunless, and even the moon has turned black. You can't see, not even to find a candle or lamp to illuminate your charts and compass. Worse, you have no food or drink, and you're too weak from your previous battle with the storm to fish or get water. You're too weak to do anything but lie on the rough timbers of the deck, wishing you had a crew to help you.

Over time, hunger and thirst begin to gnaw at you, and your failure to captain your ship presses down on you but it only registers in fleeting moments because there's a greater weight on your shoulder. Everything you've done plays through your mind over and over. The guilt is relentless because your mind insists that your actions alone have cost you your friends, family, your ship. It tells you you're stupid; that every disaster is your own fault.

You should never have tried to captain a ship or chase your dreams. You're worthless. Trouble. Others would be better of without you. Such thoughts become a chant in your mind, a mantra that never ceases. It doesn't allow you to sleep or concentrate or even comprehend what's happening around you. The voice in your head is the only one you can hear.

Hatred sets in, surrounding you and swamping your awareness. You hate yourself far more than you hate your situation; so much so that you stop feeling your hunger and thirst at all because the only things you can feel are shame and self loathing. It doesn't matter that you didn't create the storm, or that the wind, rain, and monstrous waves were beyond your control. You're the captain, right? You should have been able to do something to salvage the journey...

It's not until you're already swamped that you realise you're sinking, that the sea is rising up around you, cold and inescapable.  Your ship, your life's work, slides into the sea and as it does it pulls you under. You can't breathe. Even holding your breath, you know you're floundering, failing. You're too weak to swim and even if you could, it's too dark to see and you don't know what's up and what's down. Your body's instinct is to fight, to keep breathing...but your mind, that just wants the struggle, the pain, and the shame to end. After causing so much anguish and being so worthless, it seems only right you go down with your ship. It's the captain's duty, after all. It's the one good thing you could do with your life.

The only 'right' thing you believe you can do is to die.

So you open your mouth and let your lungs suck in water.  You hope it's over quickly, that the pain won't be prolonged, but in truth it doesn't matter. You'll escape the world sooner rather than later and in so doing you'll save everyone else from having to deal with the suffering whuch getting close to you brings. No one will ever have to get close to you again. No one will take that risk and be injured by your certain failure.

Your pain will end, and the world will be a much better place without you.

That's what depression feels like. A long struggle. A slow starvation. Loneliness and self-recrimination. Sinking can become unavoidable without help, but the only way to get help is to drag yourself off your ship's deck and find a flare before your damaged boat slides the surface and beyond recovery. You need to find the strength to signal for help even though you're exhausted, lost, and alone on a vast sea with no land in sight. You have to persuade yourself that someone will see your flare, even though it seems hopeless. Harder still, you have to persuade yourself that even though you feel worthless and undeserving, calling for help is the right thing to do.

If you manage to send up a flare, well done. It's a step. A step towards salvation. At least that's what you think as another flare sparks to life in the distance. A response. A promise of help.

If your rescue boat arrives, you're lucky. In my experience that isn't how mental health services in England work. That flare will give you a day or two of hope. For a week you'll believe that someone will come for you with all the correct equipment to ensure your survival. However, as the weeks become months, your ship sustains further damage. Its sodden timbers begin to rot and you can't maintain it on your own, not in your fragile state. The water starts to rise faster and no matter how many flares you send up, the rescue boats never arrive. Sure, they send up responding flares. Some days the flares even seem to be closer, but then they move away again as if your rescuers have decided you aren't worth saving. Not yet, at least.

Truth is they have other priorities and although you know you're dying, your death isn't imminent and so your rescuers decide you can wait. Another week. Another month. It's the best they can do because there aren't enough rescue vessels for all the captains who have floundered in the wake of their own storms. The problem is, that the longer you wait the less you believe anyone will come. The neglect seems to confirm your own worthlessness. You have no value. Nothing to tempt a salvage team to head your way.

Months pass. Maybe even years. Eventually sending up flares seems pointless. You are dying and nobody seems to care and the thought that the world would be better off with out you joins with the need for your lonely suffering to end. Thoughts of a reprieve, free of pain, shame, guilt, and loneliness become a plan. Make your suffering end. Jump overboard. Take yourself out of the picture so that the rescue boats can focus on those who are more deserving than you.

You might fight off that urge most of the time, but it only takes one defeat to lose everything. To become just one more captain who was blown off course and was never heard from again. Your family will be left wondering what happened. Could the have stopped you setting sail? Could they have kept you safe at home? Maybe if they'd just talked to you beforebyou set out...

Those manning the rescue boats will wonder why you didn't hold on that bit longer. They will claim they would've gotten to you eventually, but your demise isn't their fault. They would've been faster if only they had more rescue teams... more boats... more support from the community, the government, anyone with the power to help. Responsibility lies with you, only you even though you didn't cause the storm.

It isn't your fault your crew couldn't hold on as your ship was battered by the tempest. It isn't your fault that you fought and fought but ultimately succumbed, yet there will be some back on land who will say you were responsible for your own death. You should've toughened up and weathered the storm. You should have just kept going even though each further breath end every small endeavour was a tortured disappointment. You should have been better. Stronger. You could have willed yourself to survive, after all you were physically healthy. It wasn't like you had lost a leg or were suffering some terminal disease. You should have saved yourself. You could have swum to shore if you'd told yourself it was possible rather than telling yourself it was too far.

Right now, I'm sinking. I sent up my first flare almost sixteen years ago. I've managed to get myself to shore numerous times since my teens, but this time I'm too far out. I can't see land. My compass has broken. My charts were washed away. I sent up a flare in January, after months of trying to save myself. Since then I've been on waiting list after waiting list. In April I attempted to jump overboard but someone pulled me back onto the ship. For a little while I had someone to talk to, but even they left me to continue my wait alone. Now I don't have the strength left to function. The words 'I can't help you' tell me I'm not worth more time. Assisting me is too much work.

In desperation, I've sent up further flares. The water is starting to creep over me again. I'm tired and I hate myself for my weakness. My failure. I'm ready to open my mouth and let the water in, but until I do, I think I'll be left on this sinking ship.

There aren't enough rescue boats, you see, and someone else needs those there are more urgently than me. I don't think I can bear to send up another flare. I don't have the strength to find the flare box. I certainly don't have enough hope left to persuade myself it's worth the effort. Maybe once I start to drown, someone will pick me up again. Maybe they'll help me back to shore then...

It's that or I'll slip into the depths and it'll be over. All of it. I'll never struggle again. I won't care either way; save me or let me die, either is better than lying on my ship, lost, ashamed, and in pain. When I drown some will ask if I was trying to cry for help or if I truly intended to die. They won't believe the truth, that opening my mouth was neither of those things while at the same time being both of them.

I want to live differently or I want to die. Either will do just as long as my current existence changes. That won't matter if I make an attempt to end it. They'll say I was unsure of myself, unsure if I was calling for help or seeking to die. They won't accept that I hadn't care which outcome I achieved; summoning help or ending it all, not as long as I achieved one or the other.

If I'm pulled from the sea again, surviving my second attempt to end it all, they'll say I have suicidal ideation. They'll say I'm crying for help. They'll say I'm not truly seeking to die or I would have tried more often, tried harder, needed to be hospitalised rather than needing 'cared for' in the community. That's what they'll say, or how their words will seem to me. But the truth is, when I open my mouth I  do hope to drown. I hope to end it all.

If someone hears my instinctive gasps for breath and comes to my aid, finally deciding to try and get me to shore, then I'll be grateful, sure. Yet at the same time I'll be disappointed and anxious, dreading the battle for recovery that I'll have to endure. But if I die? If I die, then there'll be nothing. And nothing can seem like the best out come for someone who is exhausted and in pain. Just like a someone might crave sleep after a long day, I crave an end to a long period of struggling. An end which I can't retract. A safe nothingness where I'll never face another storm or loss.

That's depression to me.

Pseudonymous Zombie
xxx