This is a post about my depression...

Hi, friend.

Are you there? I know it’s Sunday, and this is an unplanned, unscripted post, but I was hoping we could talk. Something my friend Nicholas Trandahl posted on his Substack inspired me to share. What he wrote about his mental health hit me hard, and it urged me to write openly and honestly, too, as we bid Mental Health Awareness Month farewell.

In his short essay (and poem), “Cinnamon Bear on Deadman Mountain,” Nick calls depression his Cinnamon Bear. You’ll have to read it to know what he means and what I mean when I say I call it my Blue Octopus. Sometimes, I even call it my Dark Cloud. Both names are appropriate because mental illness knows how to appear and disappear and how to morph. I have other names (epithets I won’t say here). And I’m sure you have names if you’ve been visited, too. But of all the names, my Blue Octopus is the one I like best. I carry him with me wherever I go. And though he’s been a burden, one I wouldn’t wish on an enemy, he’s taught me things nothing else could.

In fact, here’s my poem, “My Blue Octopus,” which I published with Inkwell (formerly Ekstasis) and is in my bestselling debut poetry collection, Of Wings and Dirt. It expresses my experience better than I can articulate tonight:

MY BLUE OCTOPUS
by Kimberly Phinney
I.
In your cloud of arms,
pressing down,
I am dragged:
Oh, you invertebrate!
I am no match for your grip
(eight-fold and tentacled).
My Medusa, my Leviathan—
you blue-ringed,
bulging,
bulbous thing
I am unable
to shake
or swim
without.
II.
In your deep waters
I go
down,
down,
down:
Oh, how you collapse me—
flattened and unrecognizable—
like you,
soft-bodied and disappearing
into
the
smallest
of
spaces.
I am held close—
cradled and anesthetized—
like your prey,
an enveloped nervous system
in your electric glow.
Down,
	down,
		down
			I go.
III:
In your den, so familiar,
I am reminded
how to survive:
Oh, to ask the right questions
of death
and my despair.
Oh, my Blue Octopus!
Are you my predatory guide?
Pointing me eight-times
to watch the pearls fly
as they float to the surface—
those miniature pockets of life
I am meant
to trail behind?
Did I hear you mouth,
“Save yourself”
or was it
“Stay a little while”?
I do not know.
Or am I now a part of you?
A scrap of the living
you keep
in your cavern,
going on and on in
our own mythology—
and finally seeing
in our decay
and drowning
that under
great pressure,
we need only
bleed ink
to survive?

The DSM-5 (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, if you’re asking) calls my Blue Octopus Clinical Depression and Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD). I hate them both, but it’s the anxiety that undoes me. First, it’s the depression that slips in unannounced and hangs out with me for a while. It’s nagging and heavy, but then it shapeshifts to a simmering panic and dread that I can’t shake—even when I have more than enough to make me happy… and even joyful. Instead of feeling peace, my heart races; I feel like I am being thrown off a building, and sleep eludes me when I need it the most.

You know it, and I know it. Depression and anxiety do not play fair. They attack your mind and your body. They don’t give a rip that you have blessings, that you have done the work, that you (separate from them) have passions, responsibilities, and so much to live for.

They come and lie to you anyway. They come and tell you everything is going to hell, and you will be alone. Or that you’re crazy, and no one knows—and if they did, you would be alone, too.

I have dealt with serious mental health issues since I was in my early twenties. I went through some traumas that I’m not ready to write about in my childhood and some in adulthood that wired my body for chaos. Little did I know that my stage 4 endometriosis was also playing a gigantic role behind the scenes, long before it tried to kill me in my thirties. And then, my critical-turned-chronic illness complicated my mental health in ways I can’t even begin to address in this post.

Now, I am in my forties, and it still lives with me alongside my physical illness. But having battled it more than half my life, I have learned a few things along the way (as a sufferer, an educator who worked closely with at-risk teens for two decades, and a doctoral candidate in Community Care and Counseling), and I’d like to humbly share them with you now in hopes it might save someone a little (or at least comfort them):

1. Shame is a secondary emotion, and it’s the most dangerous one. It’s the one that turns people inward, gets them completely alone, and is the one that wins the war if it’s not stopped. Silence the shame, and you can save a life: yours and theirs.

   There is NO shame in your suffering. NONE. We are fragile and fantastic creatures made in God’s image, his Imago Dei. We have a stunning capacity to feel and survive. Once we can feel God’s ENDLESS, NO-STRINGS-ATTACHED LOVE, we can drown out the fear (1 John 4:18).

   In the counselor’s office, this is called unconditional positive regard, and when we offer it to ourselves and others, shame begins to evaporate. When shame is dead, healing and acceptance can begin. If you can’t extend unconditional positive regard to yourself, find someone you can trust who will. Sometimes we need it modeled for us and given back to us again and again until we learn it for ourselves. Now, when I am in the pit, shame is no longer a bedmate—and that has made all the difference. I know that I am deeply loved, and that deep belief wills me to keep going. It was the shame on top of the mental illness that made things unbearable. Once I conquered shame, I was able to survive it.

2. Life will go on, and you must let it. When my Blue Octopus strikes, I remind myself that “I am the sky, and my feelings are just the passing clouds” (inspired by Pema Chödrön).

   I have learned to observe my feelings and symptoms as things happening to me, rather than being me. I practice curiosity rather than condemnation. I am not my mental illness. I struggle with mental illness.

   This degree of separation is fundamental in healing, which I have learned through my in-depth studies with Internal Family Systems (IFS). I recommend the book Boundaries for Your Soul, by Dr. Alison Cook and Kimberly Miller, to begin your journey in parts work with the spirit-led self. I have bought this book at least five other times and put it in the hands of people I love. Also, here are other quotes I have held onto that remind me that these bouts are passing and that there will be life after them:

   “Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don’t be afraid.” —Frederick Buechner

   “Let everything happen to you: beauty and terror. Just keep going. No feeling is final.” —Rilke

   “When you go through deep waters, I will be with you; when you go through rivers of difficulty, you will not drown; when you walk through the fire of oppression, you will not be burned up; the flames will not consume you.” —Isaiah 43:2

3. The Cross co-exists with your pain, and that is what makes it bearable. This is called theodicy. For years, I saw my suffering as a place completely devoid of God. It was the place where he had forsaken me. So, wherever the depression and anxiety were, that was No Man’s Land—a dark, war-torn field where no good, love, or grace could flourish. In my mind, there was just the darkness and me—a gnawing maw come to swallow me whole. But now, just as I can imagine my Blue Octopus, I can imagine the Cross, planted firm in the center of No Man’s Land, redeeming it all.

   Christ was our Man of Sorrows. He came to step into that darkness and redeem it. He was put through the Garden of Gethsemane, Golgotha, and the tomb. But we know how the story ends. No Man’s Land only lasts a short while—because on the third day Christ rose again.

   The Cross reaches perpendicularly and horizontally. Followed to its end, the Cross extends to all of eternity, and Christ is at its center. That means the Cross is big enough to cover your Dark Night of the Soul. Now, when the darkness strikes me, I don’t see myself alone in it. I feel the Cross in it; I see it and all it represents.

4. And finally, make your pain a gift—for yourself and others. The most important thing I ever did was extend my suffering as a gift to others through my service and writing. When I say poetry saved my life, I mean it. God gave me a song to sing in my darkest hour, and had I not shared it, TheWayBack2Ourselves.com would not exist, my poetry collections would not exist, my forthcoming book with Baker Books would not exist—and neither would I. I wouldn’t have made it. When we create, the “fear and panic” parts of our brains cease as they toggle in service of the creative task (there’s complex science here). toggle

   God made our brains to literally rewire and heal when we are creating something new—be it a poem, a work of art, a dance, a song, a garden, or a meal… you name it.

   If you have the capacity to love and serve others through your suffering, I beg you to try—even just once. You’ll experience what I mean! And, along these lines, telling yourself new and redeeming stories about your suffering also leads to healing. It’s called “ReStory” or “retelling your story,” and it is something you can do in conjunction with Narrative Therapy. It’s a powerful tool I have used for myself and with my students and clients. We must keep telling ourselves “the greatest story ever told,” so that whatever other story we’ve created or that has been told to us cannot stand a chance in ruining our souls.

Dear reader, I hope you found something here, and if there are typos, that you might forgive me! May you find the light more and more. It’s waiting for you—and for me. God bless you always.

You belong here,

Kimberly

Disclaimer: This is not medical advice. If you are struggling, please reach out to someone you know and trust or find a licensed mental healthcare provider. If you are in distress, please dial 988, the suicide hotline. God bless you.

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