Wednesday, June 13, 2018

mothering through depression, mindfully or not

“My dog doesn’t worry about the meaning of life.”
― Charlotte Joko Beck, Everyday Zen: Love and Work

Trigger Warning: Suicide/Self-Harm

My nine year old, who is often quite sassy, and often quite rejecting of me as he tests his wings (oh, testing, testing) spent much of the winter with me and his brothers sledding. We would go almost every day after school, as long as there was some powder, or at least a lovely layer of ice. His favorite thing to do was to fly down the hill, deliberately turn his sled over, and then cry for me to come down and help him. "Mommy!" he would call. "Mommy, help! I need your help!" I admit I found this annoying, as I knew he wasn't actually hurt, but nevertheless, I would tramp down the hill, lean over, and help him up. "Are you ok?" I would ask each time. "Yes" he would respond, and smile. Sometimes he would hug me. He did this again and again, but I kept going down. I did it, even though I didn't really want to. I did it, even though I was cold and tired of walking up and down a snowy hill. I did it because I could tell he needed me to. Despite his sass and his pushing me away, he needed to make sure I would really come if he called. That I would be there, with love and hand extended, even though he is a big boy of 9. So I came.

"How can I work with depression?" This was the question I asked teacher after teacher, no matter what their lineage, no matter if they were a Rinpoche or a secular instructor. I asked this question at every teaching I attended during my early years on the path. "What can I do?" The teachers often paused, looking at me thoughtfully, and then answer - all with compassion, some with more skill than others. To be perfectly honest, I do not recall what they said. I suppose that is because I was depressed, and the question was less a query than a supplication. What I was really asking was, "How do I stop this pain? Help me. Can you help?" This pain, this shadow, had been with me for my entire life. It first arrived, almost like a physical entity, in my childhood. Some of it was probably biochemical - depression and anxiety run through my family tree, permeating both my paternal and maternal lineages. Some of it was situational. By the time I was 12, various traumas had occurred, including the suicide of my paternal grandfather, with whom I was very close. I was also parented by a mother who was quite critical, and I internalized her criticism, as children will do. There was no felt sense of being basically good, of the world being a basically whole place. Instead, there was a sense of being bad, of being flawed, of the constant probability that the world would in turn recognize that and respond accordingly, with judgment and rejection. In fact, in the incidences when disappointments, failures or rejections occurred, it was hailed as evidence of just this.

But my parents did the best that they could to help me. I began therapy at a young age. I was prescribed pharmaceuticals. And these things did help to some extent. But the depression never lifted. I was self-destructive. I engaged in self-harming behaviors. I was hospitalized, more than once.

I survived. Not always very prettily. Often quite messily. Depression will do that. Anxiety will do that. I floundered. Pursuing an acting career, one predicated on consistent rejection, didn't help that much. Living in an isolating and anxiety producing city like New York didn't help. But I continued. I found solace in medicine and therapy yes, but also, eventually, in the Buddhist teachings and meditation. They felt like very strong medicine - not substitutions for conventional therapies, but powerful supports. Looking at my thoughts as just that, not reality, but fleeting ideas and responses, was extremely helpful for me, someone constantly drowning in thoughts and feelings.

For me, the strongest medicine was this idea of basic goodness, of Buddha nature. That our essence is essentially good, whole, well. That all the other stuff, the thoughts and actions caused by ignorance, greed, aggression (depression and anxiety would seem to arise from ignorance of our true nature and the true nature of reality), are temporary obfuscations, a forgetting of who we really are. This was a revelatory idea to me. I wondered what I might be like if I had been fed this as a child. Would I be different now?

Of course, even that thought is misunderstanding. Charlotte Joko Beck also says, "There is a foundation for our lives, a place in which our life rests. That place is nothing but the present moment, as we see, hear, experience what is. If we do not return to that place, we live our lives out of our heads. We blame others; we complain; we feel sorry for ourselves. All of these symptoms show that we're stuck in our thoughts. We're out of touch with the open space that is always right here.” Accessing that open space is why I continued to meditate, although it wasn't easy. In my early years of meditation, my anxiety and depression threatened to overwhelm me on the cushion. I spent a 30 day silent retreat crying over old trauma and wounds that I had buried down deep deep deep. My meditation instructor reassured me it was ok. He told me that once I was able to see even those things as just movements of mind, I would know I had progressed past them. At least I think that is what he said. In any case, it bore fruit. I survived. I felt free.

What has this all to do with mothering? In my deepest, darkest depressions of my twenties, I swore I would never have children. I did not want to condemn a future generation to the absolutely unbearable mental pain I suffered. But, after meeting my now husband and progressing on the spiritual path of dharma, I felt differently. I felt I could beat this, and raising children in our community would give them a leg up on any genetic predisposition.

Well, mothering did not change my habitual pattern of depression or anxiety. Parenting has the uncanny ability to bring out both the best and the worst in us. I have written before that we cannot look to our children to make us happy. Our children cannot save us from ourselves. As our most intimate teachers in fact, they will reveal everything about ourselves that we attempt to hide or would like to pretend isn't there. My children have shaken to the core any idea I had of myself in terms of patience, generosity or gentleness. They have expertly revealed all the places I hold back, all the tricks I use to escape, to hide, to reject. How deep my aggression is. So why would I think that my depression could escape the ferocity of parenting? It didn't. It is always there. But I see it, know it. This seeing isn't always pretty. I see how my depression makes me absent with my children, even when I really want to be completely present. I see how my depression makes me impatient with them, even when I really want to be generous and kind. I see how absolutely un-mindful I can be with them. Most terrifying, I see how they have inherited some of my depressive patterns. I worry that even raising them with the fundamental belief in their own goodness will not save them from the brain chemistry they have inherited.

But my practice does allow me to see the ways I succeed with them. It gives me hope that in the end, they will be ok. I have no way of knowing if that is true - I have lived long enough and studied enough dharma to know any sense of control over the future is purely illusory. But I have to keep trying. There are days when my depression and anxiety are so strong, so familiar, that I believe the lies they tell me. I believe how terrible I am. How unlovable. What a failure. Friendless. Doomed. They are expert liars. They are seductive, their darkness magnetizing. My mindfulness practice gives me the insight to see the lies. To say "no." To open to the space always available in the present moment. To continue. To take my boys sledding on a cold and darkening winter afternoon when I would rather just get into bed and not get back out. To laugh with them as they fly down. To recognize the need in my 9 year old's voice, and trudge down down down the hill, lift him up out of the drift, wipe the snow off his hat, and ask, kindly, "are you ok?" And maybe that is the good news about depression, the crazy gift of it. That I really want to know if he is ok, because so often, I have not been. And how I suppose I really wanted at least one of those teachers to respond to me, "Are you ok?" and wait to hear the answer.

Meditation is not a substitute for medicines or for therapy. But it is a support. It can help us recognize our minds and hearts as more resilient and free than what our illness leads us to believe. Through experiencing small moments of open space, we begin to trust that reality a bit more, every time. We can see through the lies depression and anxiety tell us. Seeing through them, we experience that another, more profound reality exists beneath. One that is sustaining, nurturing, and strong. One that allows us to get up another day to help our children experience their own strength and good hearts. One that allows us to admit to them when we have messed up, but to keep going anyway. It isn't perfect. Nothing is. Or everything is. In fact, that was the piece of wisdom I came away with, from all those teachers. The depression and anxiety are perfect in their own ways. Basically good. Not bad. And that if I can bring myself back to the present moment, even just my breath, even just a sound, or the feeling of my feet on the floor, that it begins to break through the heaviness, the feeling of solidity and permanence that depression can give me. So I keep doing that. Imperfectly. Perfectly. "Are you ok?" "Yes, mommy. Yes."

If you are experiencing depression or anxiety, please ask for help. 1-800-273-8255 CHAT for trained professionals at the suicide hotline. Help also available en espanol