Tears (and Fears)

photo by Krista Mangulsone on Unsplash

I’m crying too much at the moment. I’m not sure what the appropriate amount of crying even is, but I definitely reached it and roared right on past to where I am now, fresh off a bout of several hours of absolutely-no-reason-for-it crying. 

The truly galling thing about all of this crying is that there’s even less reason for it than usual. I’m pregnant with the baby I’ve wanted for what feels likes a long time – probably a little over a year, which really isn’t that long, but that’s how long it took me to get over the trauma of the first baby – and that should be enough for me to be smiling non-stop, right? A gorgeous baby! Everything I’ve wanted! But it’s clearly not enough. 

My parents are here and I miss them so much when they’re at home but even that isn’t enough to stem the flow of tears and as I’m swallowing them down and trying to do my crying, as much as I can, in private, I can’t help but think how disappointed they must be that I’m so miserable and self-pitying. 

It’s not even that I am, though – self-pitying, that is. This crying is for no reason I can figure out, because truly nothing is wrong. I think that’s how I know I’m sick, rather than just being miserable: all this crying has nothing to do with what I’m thinking, or doing, or even worrying about. It just is, all of its own frustrating, disruptive volition.

I never feel my privilege more acutely than when I’m actively depressed

When I’m sunk in this kind of mire that makes everyday activities almost impossible – socialising is out of the question, for example – all of this sadness is compounded by the guilt of wondering what, exactly, I have to be this sad about?! 

That’s not how depression works, I know that. But it’s hard not to compare my life (charmed, by any measure) to those of others: people who are dying to have children, but can’t; those who are sick, or have loved ones who are; anyone in Gaza, for crying out loud, who definitely doesn’t have time to sit in bed all day, crying about nothing. But again, that’s not how depression works. 

It’s hard to work, let me tell you, when you’re crying all the time. It’s hard, like I said, to do a lot of things, but when your job is as a freelance writer, depends on your own ability to motivate yourself to work, and your writing is largely focused on your life and opinions… you can see how feeling like the world’s biggest piece of shit 24/7 would really get in the way. 

Instead, like I said, I’m crying in bed whenever I can: when the baby is napping; when someone else is watching the baby; when I’m supposed to be having a shower but just need to stop crying long enough to get undressed; when the baby is in the bath and I’m sitting on the toilet lid and he’s making dinosaur noises and I’m trying to remind myself to treasure these moments but I can’t stop crying and so I feel like I’m an even bigger piece of shit than I was earlier, when I was crying. 

That the baby never notices me crying is worrying, too; I tell myself it’s just because he’s so young, he’s only worried about himself, he can’t really recognise other people’s emotions and, besides which, I function only as a sort of problem-solving food and remote control fetcher… but then I start to worry that, actually, he’s just used to it. This is what he expects to see when he looks at me: blotchy skin, red eyes, tears. (Piece of shit, I know.) 

Today, my mum and I went for a walk – a walk, let me tell you, is not the panacea everyone seems to think it is; I cried before the walk, and on the walk, and after the walk, but I guess I got some fresh air and exercise and today’s step count will be less egregious than it has been for the past few weeks, so it’s probably a net positive – and, towards the end, when I gathered the courage, I told her that I know I’ve been snappy, and grumpy, and upset, and I’m sorry, but I just feel terrible lately and I don’t know why. 

She asked if there’s anything she can do, and there isn’t, that I know of. I wish there was. No one really talks about that aspect of mental illness: the pressure it puts on your loved ones, who feel like they should be doing something more for you than they’re doing, and the pressure that puts on you, to find something they can do to help, to make them feel less like they’re just standing around watching you spiral desperately into the abyss. 

If I knew what to do, I’d be doing it myself, I feel like saying, but of course that’s not true

I know, academically, that there are things that are proven to improve mood, even in those among us who are depressed… but in the lowest moments, I barely believe it. Water? A good night’s sleep? Fresh air? Exercise? Pull the other one. 

“I almost think it would be better if we hadn’t come,” Mum says then. “We disrupt everything, being here… we remind you…” She trails off, but I know what she means. I think of home, more, when I have this part of home here with me, but this sadness has nothing to do with my yearning for home. And, honestly, when I’m crying in my room, there’s a sort of bizarre comfort in knowing that my mum’s downstairs, pottering around the kitchen, making tea and stacking the dishwasher wrong. 

The one thing that’s difficult about having them here is, surprise surprise, an issue entirely of my own making: I can’t help but think that they’re disappointed in this daughter who’s crying all the time, that they look at me and wonder where they went wrong, what they could have done that would have made me a happy, productive member of society instead of this weeping mess, liable to burst into tears at any moment. 

I know, of course, that this is not how they think. No, really: I know. These thoughts that are running riot inside my head are thoughts I do not have when I am well. And yet: when I’m unwell, they feel like the truest thoughts I’ve ever had. My mind is never more convincing than it is in moments like this.

I know, too, that this won’t last forever

…not just because I wouldn’t survive it (I think I could do six months, after which point I’d begin to wither away) but because it doesn’t. I don’t think I’ve been in this exact place before – this feels lower, darker, than previous periods I’ve suffered through – but I’ve been through similar times, and they’ve passed eventually. The sun’ll come out tomorrow, and all that other bullshit. 

It’s just hard, right now, to see how that could possibly be true, how I’ll ever feel differently about myself than I do today. (And then I start to call myself ridiculous: of course you’ll feel better, you’re not the only one ever to have felt like this, sure you’ve nothing to be crying about… ad infinitum.) 

I’m just crying too much at the moment. 

A note to my subscribers

I know my output hasn’t been as consistent as usual, and I apologise for that. Sometimes I think of all of my paid subscribers as the company that employs me (a co-op?), and I think you’ll all understand when I take sick leave, that you know I’m just a person, and that I’m honestly doing my best.

But I also think of you as my supporters, and allies, and friends, in a weird way that perhaps flips the para-social relationship on its head, and I want you to know how much it means to me, that you choose to support me when I’m a moany bitch, and when I’m not. I’m trying not to be one, at least not all the time, but sometimes I fail. I think you probably understand that, too. So thank you. And I’m sorry.