“In the midst of hate, I found there was, within me, an invincible love.  In the midst of tears, I found there was, within me, an invincible smile.  In the midst of chaos, I found there was, within me, an invincible calm.
I realized, through it all, that in the midst of winter, I found there was, within me, an invincible summer. ”      Albert Camus, The Stranger

I first published this quote on my blog in 2014, and it was a reminder to me then of the miracle that happened to me in 2011.  Actually, it was a pretty bloody slow-moving miracle, and well overdue, but a miracle nevertheless, and one of which I remain determined to keep myself reminded.

That miracle was finally dragging myself or being dragged up from the bottom of the deepest darkest hole in the history of deep dark holes, with the slipperiest sides imaginable; and finally deciding that yes, I wanted to live.

For a long, long time I did not want to live.  I just did not want to be here.  My doctor asked me do you have a plan?  Yes, I told her, but for 2 reasons I never carried it out. For starters, I was afraid I would stuff it up and end up disabled or a vegetable; and the main reason was that I  did not want my two children to be burdened with this memory, or to be known as the Povey kids whose mad depressed alcoholic mother committed suicide.

Bugger! I had to stay alive then.  So what was that going to look like?  The kids were, thankfully, both off living their lives at Uni, so it was just me and the dog.  I couldn’t really plan anything, it was too soon to look at the future, so I just had to get some structure into my day and invent some simple rules for that day to day existence.

The first piece of structure was a mantra: “Get up, dress up, show up.”  Truly it is this simple when your life has degenerated into a blur of days and months of not getting out of bed or washing, doing chores, paying bills, just trying to sleep as much as possible to avoid the pain and the futility of everything around me.  Oh, and crying.  Endless, merciless, pathetic streams of bitter tears.  Mercifully I must have remembered to feed the dog in all this, as he appears to have survived well and unscathed and still living happily with my daughter in Melbourne.  It was idiot simple: get up, make bed, have shower, dress, have breakfast, wash breakfast dishes, check email, check diary, pay bills, do work….etc. etc.  Doing all the normal everyday stuff was a major achievement.  Like cleaning up and restoring order in the aftermath of a storm.  How the hell did everything get into such a mess?

With the practical issues of life more or less coming into focus – but I have to make a diversion here.  One of most momentous things that came to me when I started to heal, was the realisation of how cognitively impaired I had been by my depression.  Not just through this most recent bout of several years, but throughout my life,  beginning in my early teens.  With the help of both a wonderful GP and psychologist, with drugs and CBT, the fog that obscured me for so long finally began to lift.  It was like my brain had been wading through a thick swamp, but now had finally made it to firm, dry land, and could move with amazing  freedom and versatility.  I could do so much more, mentally.  Fly through sudoku, remember friend’s birthdays, (and to pay bills!), make decisions, make plans, do more work; and finally, feel like I was a grown up who could manage her own life.  And it would be okay.

There was, of course, a down side to this new clarity.  It came some time later, and it was a deeply painful and shameful revelation.  A person who is as ill and damaged as I was, is a deeply selfish individual, not pleasant to be around, and often causing huge pain and damage to those closest to them.  The lifting of the fog revealed all the foul detritus left in its wake, and the most dreadful legacy of this time is the damage done to the relationships between me and my daughter, and most especially, my son.  Even though all of this is resolved now, my eyes still blur with the shame of it, and how it could have so nearly have ended so badly in complete estrangement from the two people I love most in the world.  During the times when I was at my worst, I did have friends who would occasionally pound on my door to make sure I was still alive, but to this day, I do not know who supported my son and daughter, and how they got through it.  I am so grateful for their resilience and their wonderful, compassionate hearts – they both truly are the most precious gifts to me that most assuredly,  I do not deserve!

So, back to the ‘clean-up’.  With the basic mantra in place, and the clean up in progress having made the decision I was going to live, the next step was to work out how I was going to live.  This involved making the most basic of decisions.  What were my values? I had lived my life like a rudderless vessel, happy to be towed along in someone else’s wake, easily pushed off course, fitting into others’ life plans.  Maurie, my psychologist, asked me, who are you, Dianne?  Well, that turned out to be a really useful question.  And, at that age I really should have been able to answer it reasonably quickly, but I could not.  I had always followed someone else’s course, and now it was time to proactively plan my own.  Time left to me was not unlimited, how did I want to spend it.  Most importantly, how was I going to make those decisions?

Because I am by nature, unambitious, a drifter, and somewhat of a procrastinator, I realised that I really needed to embrace some structure otherwise I would never be able to make the most of the gifts that I do have, and which bring me enormous joy and fulfillment.  So the first part of the structure I made for myself was the development of ‘a code’.  This code had to be simple, as people who know me will attest, I am hopeless with remembering rules!  The code addressed the issue of the ‘how’ I was going to live, and it governed the everyday values I would try to observe in the way that I made my everyday choices.

The Code was simple therefore, and it was this: EMC, where ‘e’ stood for ‘ethical’, ‘m’ stood for ‘meaning’, and ‘c’ stood for ‘congruence.’  Ethically was the way I wanted to make choices about my behaviour as a consumer.  This was about the food I bought, the clothes I acquired, the way I occupied the environment, using power, transport etc.  What did I believe was the most ethical way to act as a being on this planet, enjoying it and treating with respect at the same time?  This came down to the simplest choices: did I really need to drive or could I walk? Would I buy the local orange or the Californian orange? The free range eggs or the barn laid eggs?  New clothes or op shop clothes?  Living on a pension made the economic imperative a looming, but interesting one.   How much stuff did I really need after all?  Why does one person need 2 closets full of clothes and more than a few pairs of shoes?  Trivial, maybe, but I actually feel much better having less stuff, and still think that I have too much, so I constantly try to reduce the pile!

The second part of my code formula, is meaning.  This reminds me that I want to live my life in a way that I feel is meaningful, and this is a deeply personal value choice.  It is not about achieving staggering goals like bringing about world peace or finding a cure for cancer, but about taking the skills that I have, applying them to doing the things that I love most and thereby spending the precious time I have in this life in the best way possible, rather than mindlessly squandering it.  Writing is one thing, and probably the only thing I have ever consciously known that I wanted to do, all of my life.  I don’t write novels or plays or poetry – I just love to write, it just makes sense to me and helps me to make sense of things.  And I especially love it when my writing touches and communicates to others.  And I can say in writing what I often can’t find to say in words, at the right time.   As a textile artist, I have other avenues of creativity, and delight in the sensuous joy I find in making interesting and beautiful things, reveling in colours and textures and textile craft techniques of great variety.  But I always come back to the writing, and of course write about textiles too!

Another major facet in the resolve to live a meaningful life is the inclusion of people, especially friends of all types.  Loneliness has shadowed me all my life, is the main flavour of my childhood memories, and was a major feature throughout my last marriage and the depths of my illness.  I envied people who had friends who met for coffee, called on spec to go to a movie or lunch together, couples who went with other couples for dinner.  Not major ambitions, never a ‘career girl’ me!  I am endlessly fascinated and curious about all kinds of people, so now with growing health and confidence I set about nurturing the relationships I had and got the courage to create new ones.  Never a ‘joiner’ I joined a group, volunteered at a migrant English class, went to workshops – even tried on-line dating!  Now I find I have a lovely ‘smorgasbord’ of people in my life, and they are all treasures to me.   I like to listen, to learn about individuals – it is so interesting to get beyond the first impressions that we have of people and learn what depths lie beneath.  We so easily jump to conclusions based on physical appearance, I always prefer to suspend judgement and let curiosity out to play!  (I have however, learned to detect and curtail my contact with narcissists – a health based decision!)  Precious friendships notwithstanding, I treasure my solitude, which is not loneliness.  It is my peace and my calm, a place to write, or think, or just be.

The third part of the code, the ‘c’ refers to congruence.  In its simplest form this means ‘trust your instincts’.   If it feels wrong, then it probably is.  For me this means there must be congruence between who I am, and what I am doing/experiencing.  This is most critical part of the code, and one I must adhere to strictly to preserve my health and life.  It is the principal that keeps me away from toxic relationships, sets the alarm bells ringing when narcissists and takers pop over the horizon; makes me set limits and prune out unnecessary tasks when I have taken on too much; makes me wait 24 hours (most of the time) before sending that reactive text or email.  My congruence is my rudder, sometimes I can still be diverted off course, but mostly my instincts are good, and combined with the wisdom my newish clarity allows me draw upon, I am doing okay!

Now, I have not perfected this, and it is still a struggle sometimes, but not an unpleasant one…things are way better than they used to be, in fact I can honestly say I am happier and more content than I’ve ever been.

So why do I write about this stuff!  My brother was mortified when I started writing about my depression.  You shouldn’t talk about it, he’d say, it’s personal!  I talk about it because I worry about the people who don’t talk about it, those who are alone in their caves with no one to drag them out.  And I talk and write about it because it helps me to figure it out.  Now here’s a funny thing: for a person diagnosed with major depression,  I am the happiest, most optimistic melancholic you are ever likely to meet:  a real Pollyanna!  I am the child, who, when presented with a room full of horse manure for her birthday, lights up with joy and thinks: with all this horse shit, there’s gotta be a pony somewhere!  As opposed to the child facing a room of gorgeously wrapped birthday gifts and thinks: Oh no, this looks too good to be true – what’s the catch?  Truly, on meds my glass is always overflowing with hope and curiosity; without, the glass is a poisoned chalice.  My liver and I have come to accept the situation, and so far, so good!

“In the midst of hate, I found there was, within me, an invincible love.  In the midst of tears, I found there was, within me, an invincible smile.  In the midst of chaos, I found there was, within me, an invincible calm.
I realized, through it all, that in the midst of winter, I found there was, within me, an invincible summer.  And that makes me happy.

For it says that no matter how hard the world pushes against me, within me, there’s something stronger – something better, pushing right back.”
Albert Camus, The Stranger