Depression brings an important message

For me, depression is always a sign that something is not working in my life. Something needs to change—and it's usually something so big that I can't acknowledge it because that would mean the end of life as I know it. It's unfortunate that so many people take medication to alleviate the symptom of depression. The medication may keep them functional and successful, but it doesn't heal the source of the depression. Luckily for me, I don't believe in taking any drugs. I don't even take an aspirin when I get a headache.

When I was first divorced, I went to a doctor for some mild illness. He pulled out my file and asked if anything had changed since he had last seen me. When I told him that I had recently been divorced, he tried to give me antidepressants. I wasn't even depressed at the time. Of course I didn't take them, but I was amazed at how easily some doctors prescribe antidepressants—even when you don't ask for them.

When I'm depressed, I let myself be depressed. I feel the darkness, the emptiness, the hopelessness. What's the big deal? They're just feelings. When the feelings settle down, I can tell myself the truth about why I'm depressed. There is always a reason. After enjoying several months of freedom, enjoying my life of unemployment, something changed. I was starting to get bored. It was time to work again. Another chapter of my life was beginning.

I put my résumé together, contacted the headhunters, and started interviewing for a job. My résumé was really good and I interview well, so I didn't anticipate any problems, but I had been away from the business world too long. I had tasted sanity and it was impossible to go back to the success paradigm. One of the vice presidents I interviewed with was a workaholic who told me proudly that his last vacation had been seventeen years ago on his honeymoon. Another woman in Human Resources told me that she worked twenty-four/seven. Even if I had the energy to work that hard, I could no longer buy into their belief that working was the only priority in life. I began to question whether I could work in the business world at all.

That wasn't a surprise. What was surprising was that I began to question whether I could still live in New York. You have to understand that I am a born and bred New Yorker. Like most New Yorkers, I used to feel that the entire world revolved around New York City. Whenever I left New York, even if it was to go on a great Caribbean vacation, the sight of the city would bring tears to my eyes when I returned. Before I married my two husbands, I had a talk with each of them. I told them that there were two things that I would never do: I would never have children and I would never leave New York. At least I stuck with one of these.

But here I was, done with New York. I had spent six months totally enjoying the City, but now summer had come—hot and humid summer—and I didn't have a summer house to go to. Not only that, my beautiful apartment only had air conditioning in the bedroom. Michael and I hadn't wanted to ruin the views outside our picture windows by installing it. It hadn't been a big problem when we worked during the day and went away on the weekends, but now I was stuck in the apartment with no air-conditioned office to go to and no beach house. Walking through Central Park in the heat and the humidity had lost its appeal. I was also tired of being alone. My friends were either working or going on vacation and had little time for me. In a city where everyone has so little time, I found that I had too much. With nothing to do and nowhere to go, each second felt like an hour. The heat and eternity really felt like hell.

And so depression came. A depression so dark that I wished I were dead. Death—another state that people avoid thinking about, which also can be a friend. As I sat in my living room one evening feeling death would be a much better alternative than the life I was leading, I pretended that I had died. I began to think of everything I would be leaving behind: my friends and family, my cats, my apartment, my clothes, my body, my experiences...the list went on and on. When I was through, it occurred to me that if I was willing to die and lose all that, then perhaps I could do something less drastic. Perhaps I could leave New York. Sure, I would have to leave my friends and family and the beautiful co-op apartment that I owned. But at least I would get to keep my cats, my body, my clothes, and a whole bunch of other good stuff. If I was willing to die, well, I could move to California instead. The idea of death allowed me to let go and open up to new possibilities. The message depression was sending me was that it was time to leave New York.

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