Navigating post depression liminality (a gentle reckoning)

On depression, relapse and everything in between

I refrain from writing personal pieces. Maybe deep down i consider vulnerability a weakness. To some extent I give myself the grace to do so because isn't it just self preservation? Through this post however I'll be speaking to my myself and anybody who is going through a period of transition, of in betweenness after a long winter.

Artist - Maria Guimarães

While I have struggled to make sense of suffering that comes not from an external source (atleast theoretically - I'll explain what that means) but from my own mind..I do think I'm at the edge of a new, peaceful (please lord let it be peaceful, touchwood) and self exploratory phase.

We often struggle to make sense of our inner world when there's an impermanence. When our old identity, aa we've known it, is slowly purging but the new self expression hasn't arrived yet either. This is a period of flux. The shift can feel frustrating. Almost like being stuck. There could be an ambient fear of relapse with a new found excitement to meet ourselves after a long separation. It's almost poetic. Because once we heal we literally start embodying our authentic self expression. We start seeing the five year old that was always borderline excited for life, or the thirteen year old that started to finally settled into a new season of life. For me..I started wearing pink again.

I haven't created art in years. Back in school it was an escape but also guaranteed validation to some extent. Now I want to do it solely for fun. Create raw art. Just as is. I've heard creativity cures depression because creating is self expression that is quite literally opposite of repressing our identity for a prolonged period of time which eventually manifests as depression in the long run.

I see myself writing "trying to make sense” a lot. Because that's exactly what prolonged mental illness does to you. It warps our reality. Objectivity, analysis, introspection - we can do all of that. But we cannot make our brain believe it too. This is a season of depersonalisation. Feels like a psychosis. Ego death. Because while we can see patterns and understand our own suffering, we still cannot make it stop. The motivation, hustle advice and “just do it” narrative does not work and feels like a personal failure because yes there are people less privileged and they manage to be happier. So, i could be making this up then? But I'm not willfully helpless either. It's absurd. It doesn't make sense.

And exactly this. For the longest time, even when you find yourself at the threshold of your new life, it will not make any sense. Until months later when you wake up and want to create art again. Or write? Express? Dance maybe? You want to work, make an impact. It's a distant dream because your body is still catching up with prolonged periods of fatigue and you still don't have a routine, but slowly a vision starts to appear. It's not an epiphany mind you, it's in chunks. Like when you're cooking and you feel engrossed in the aroma and visuals of your food , you've forgotten to ruminate on the passage of time while you are still stuck. Or when you find yourself teasing your siblings again, you laugh a laugh that you haven't heard for years. Or when you feel sad, finally you feel sad again..not dreadful..not existentially doomed but just sad. And you know it's a feeling and it'll pass once you've cried to your hearts relief. You're starting to feel the whole spectrum of emotions again. Because depression isn't opposite of joy. It quite literally doesn't let you feel most human emotions. The numbness and anhedonia are the true markers of depression.

Despite a long winter, you never lost your kindness. And that realization brings a quiet pride. You find yourself more empathetic but also unexpectedly angry. There’s a strange reckoning that follows: did anyone ever extend that same empathy to you? And if they didn’t, should you continue offering it so freely? Should you be selfish for once, if only as an act of self-preservation? And if they did care then why didn’t they check in when it mattered most?

You begin to renegotiate your ideals. The empathy you once gave without measure now comes with boundaries.

The shift is particularly unsettling because change is uncomfortable. Good or bad. Our brain sees a threat. Could we relapse? What if we aren't equipped to life life.

We start seeing people. Meeting them and engaging with them because for the longest time we could only put up a facade necessary to survival. As true authentic connection returns, it can feel like a threat sometimes because we're more cautious now. More protective of ourselves and less lenient with our boundaries. We still don't know if we're the avoidant or the anxious one in the relationship? When can I ne secure? How will I know? Self analysis becomes a threat detection mechanism. It's exhausting yes. But then you step back to breath and lean into your little art hobbies again. And everytime this loop repeats you get better at noticing it and eventually at breaking it. Slowly it stops feeling like a habit and becomes a memory. Your pattern detection actually worked, so you're happy but the exhaustion still runs deep. Sleep returns..maybe toouch altogether. But you give yourself permission to rest. You're better at sensing self sabotaging behaviours and over working to the extent of emotional and physical burnout could put you back in the loop. So you rest. You create. You express. You feel more. And slowly it gets better. I promise it gets better.

One day, you're sitting in the winter sun. It's hitting your face and you feel the warmth and you feel comfort. Suddenly there's a deja vu or more like a feeling you had forgotten. Your mind, for a brief second, takes you back to a similar morning.

The winter sun is hitting your face. But there's no warmth or comfort. It's either too hot or too cold. You're exhausted but you don't know why. Your brain is feels the constant need to reason with the discomfort while being ambivalent to it. But mostly it's just heavy and exhausting.

You sense that you haven't felt like that for a while.

For a very long time.

-Anshika Harit