Yesterday I spent a good four hours talking with someone who has recently been diagnosed with clinical depression. This person has returned our lives after shutting us all out for the past few months.
In some ways these months of radio silence have been a relief as I certainly don't have much knowledge and experience of meaningfully coping with more severe forms of depression. However, this person has also been missed this summer and their absence has affected other people in my social circles. For these reasons alone, I am immensely grateful that our communication channel has been reopened.
I entered the discussion merely with some half-assed intention of expressing my support in the battle against this bitch of a mental disorder. To let them know that we will stay there, come what may. What I could not expect was how deeply therapeutic and eye-opening this conversation turned out to be for myself as well.
When someone is so down that life mostly feels banal and meaningless, there is no reason to censor one's thoughts for social atmosphere's sake. Honesty has room to arise. Some of the things being said yesterday were clearly distorted brain chemistry talking (and the general foot-in-mouthness from my side), but all in all I think there were two people who came out of that long conversation feeling lighter.
Being able to so openly address our usual taboos and make fun of them - mistakes in the past, suicidal thoughts, illness in both of our families - was not unlike letting pus out of a wound. For once, we could sit down without pretending it's more gezellig than it actually was. And what do you know, we had more fun than have probably ever had together before.
