July 18: Great Numbness, Situational Depression, Adrienne Su, "Elegy," New Cartoon

He [Ives] went to church and prayed for guidance, begging God to bring forgiveness into his heart.  He would kneel before the creche, the crucifix, and wonder how and why all these things had happened.  At night he would dream of black threads twisting in the air and slipping into his body from afar.  Though he bowed his head and trembled at the funeral, though he spoke kindly with the priests and repeated to himself a thousand times that God was good and that the manifestations of evil that come to men are ultimately explicable in some divine way.  His wisdom greater than what any of them would ever know, Ives felt a great numbness descending over him.

Yeah, I get what Ives is going through in this passage.  In the face of incredible loss, Ives has to remind himself of God's goodness.  It is the beginning of Ives' decade-long battle with depression, that great numbness that takes over his being.  Ives holds onto his belief in God's wisdom and goodness, despite the ever-present darkness of mental illness.

I have been waging a little battle myself this summer with the great numbness.  It's easier to see God's wisdom and goodness when I'm busy, around other people.  When I'm working or worshiping or cleaning my house, the dark thoughts are held in check.  When I'm by myself, trying to read or pray or write, they come charging back like a pack of feral dogs.

My therapist would probably call this situational depression.  I'm not sure when situational depression transitions into full-blown depression.  It's not like I'm curled up on my couch under a blanket, crying uncontrollably.  Unless I become a completely nonfunctional piece of clay, I won't worry.

I actually think I'm going to try to write a poem for my sister.  Sometimes, when I'm dealing with difficult emotional situations, I find sitting down with my journal and pen cathartic.  When my brother passed away last year, writing his elegy really helped me deal with the loss.  Tonight, after I help my daughter pack for Bible camp, I may sit down on my couch and have a night of poetry.

When I was writing my brother's elegy, I struggled for days.  I couldn't come up with a way to communicate my emotions, which were all over the place.  I'm sort of in the same spot with my sister right now.  Hope mixed with sadness mixed with anger mixed with grief.  I'm not sure what kind of poem is going to come out of me.

Or maybe Saint Marty will just pick up some wine coolers, sit on my couch, watch The Lawrence Welk Show, and drink himself into a different kind of numbness.

Elegy

by:  Adrienne Su

You said the last word with your last
breath and I was not there to bury
it.  You spent your life writing
the note and intended
to go alone; you knew what
to say but poof! you were out

of breath--the night went out,
the chills passed, the last
gesture stopped.  What
took a little longer was to bury
you.  Everyone thought you intended
to stay; you were writing

me letters and though I wasn't writing
back, you said you had risen out
of despair and intended
to forget the last
ten years, in which you had buried
so many skeletons you didn't know what

you were born for.  Anyway.  What
you didn't count on was writing
the note, dying, and no one coming to bury
you.  The police didn't check out
the shed until the last
of the month; they intended

to go home by dark, then opened your untended
grave at dinnertime.  What
gets me is not that I was your last
woman, not that I was off writing
term papers when you walked yourself out
of the world, not even that they'd bury

you and not invite me, but that you buried
your body where you intended
to be found and were sniffed out
belatedly, faceless, unmanly.  What-
ever threw that wrench, I'm writing
you out of my memory as fast

as I can.  That last word's been buried
but it's in your handwriting.  You intended
to get what you got.  Now get out.

Confessions of Saint Marty