Listening is hard. Watching and absorbing and witnessing a person's experience as they're recalling it to you is taxing, especially if their experience creates an automatic emotional response in you. To remain objectively non-judgmental and yet remain involved in the conversation is nearly impossible in close relationships. Listening to a person with depression and anxiety, when they're having a severe episode of either, cannot be done in my family. I keep hoping then relearning this painfully. It's so much easier to listen to someone's problems when you've already judged them for what they're doing wrong to cause said problems, patiently waiting for them to stop talking so you can tell them. This is why I read. This is why I write so very little and am afraid to write. Goddamn judgment and advice and "here's what I or someone I know did when they went through this" is as personal as it gets in my environment. They must think the "shoulds" and "should nots" make you do "good" things which make you feel "good" and then you'll be "good", which is why approval and disapproval are the only form of communication that seems appropriate in times of distress.
I went up to be with my sister as she was due to give birth to her new daughter last week. I wasn't particularly involved, trying to get space and withdraw as much as possible to avoid attention and advice. Since I was actively trying to kill myself two weeks ago, which was both simultaneously encouraged and stopped by my parents, things have been a little tense. (That's not a cry for help, kindly don't treat it like one). I started reading a few books on depression and mental illness in general, which has provided some relief in that it occupies my mind with a sense of familiarity to the pain. I can listen to the stories of others, knowing that nothing they're doing is causing them to feel like absolute shit. I understand the drugs, treatment, substance abuse, revolving door doctors, shit relationships and all of it without judgment. I provide for the words of a book the way I wish my words were provided for, and it's a relief.
However, something happened up there that shocked my family more than me. My sister's daughter was born with Downs Syndrome. We all learned about it one day after the birth. My brother-in-law cried immediately and I shortly followed, but the rest of the eyes in the room were dry. My parents and my sister didn't shed a tear. This is how my family deals with things, we don't admit them, because the first to admit emotions is the one who needs help, is the weak one, and needs to be told what they should do about it, which solves everyone's problems. Later that day my dad talked on the phone with the rest of the family, telling them in a rather optimistic and upbeat voice the diagnosis and that things were going to be fine, but explaining that my brother-in-law was having a harder time with it than the rest of us because "he was crying and pretty upset". Hahaha!! Bull-fucking-shit. That's when I started laughing out loud, which was only just behind the smile that I wanted to have on when I first heard the news about the baby. They looked at me like I was nuts.
Non-depressed people will find this absolutely selfish and abhorrent. That I felt a sense of relief at seeing my family get hit with heartbreaking news. That I wanted to smile and laugh at the idea that their severe sadness was coming appears sadistically sick. It was a victory for me, for emotions, for depression. I wanted to smile from ear to ear and say, "It's coming for you. Welcome to my world." It was a relief that something was causing sadness instead of purposelessness. That an actual real event was sucking the energy from you, slipping motivation from under your feet, gnawing away at your self-esteem that you should be doing something about this but are unable to. How simple to understand! How easily unembarrassing and unshameful! I was quite smug. I wanted to ask them, "I'll bet you wished you knew how I felt and dealt with things now. Don't you wish you would've listened better?"
My sister went into her best mode of compassion with herself, admitting she was in shock and thinking about what she did or did not do "good" to make her not feel "good" and have things not be "good". My parents trying to reassure themselves that nothing was wrong and that we can "work through" this. Grief was felt as a strange companion, as though it's an unwelcome fly to what should be a joyous occasion. Somewhere they know grief is the guest of honor and perfectly fits with the situation, but those who acknowledge it are "having a harder time with it than the rest of us" like my brother-in-law. Their motives are good, they care and are trying to care and that's worth something, but not at the expense of acknowledging the poor effects of it all.
Funny enough, these events resulted in me being treated a bit better. They're not asking constantly me with concerned looks what I'm doing today, nor are they trying as much to not-so-subtly manipulate me into doing what I "should" be doing (Gee, isn't it a beautiful day outside! It's a great day to go shooting/hiking/running/play soccer!! What are you doing today Ben???). I'm left alone instead of having my status ground into me like a bad report card. I'm reading more about depression, sort of waiting for the other shoe to drop, listening, and finally now writing. Quite poorly, but writing.
