I WAKE at two in the morning and lie staring up at the ceiling—something I’ve always hated—even though I know I have to get up early to go to work. Instead of coming up with a productive question like “What’s happening to me?” I let my thoughts spiral out of control. For days now—although not that many, thank God—I’ve been wondering if I should go to a psychiatrist and seek help. What stops me isn’t my work or my husband, but my children. They couldn’t understand what I’m feeling at all.
Everything grows more intense. I think about a marriage, my marriage, in which jealousy plays no part. But we women have a sixth sense. Perhaps my husband has already met someone else and I’m unconsciously responding to that. And yet I have absolutely no reason to suspect him.
Isn’t this absurd? Can it be that of all the men in the world, I have married the only one who is absolutely perfect? He doesn’t drink or go out at night, and he never spends a day alone with his friends. The family is his entire life.
It would be a dream if it weren’t a nightmare. Because I have to reciprocate.
Then I realize that words like “optimism” and “hope,” which appear in all those self-help books that claim they’ll make us more confident and better able to cope with life, are just that: words. The wise people who pronounce them are perhaps looking for some meaning in their own life and using us as guinea pigs to see how we’ll react to the stimulus.
The fact is, I’m tired of having such a happy, perfect life. And that can only be a sign of mental illness.
That’s what I fall asleep thinking. Perhaps I really do have a serious problem.
I HAVE lunch with a friend.
She suggests meeting at a Japanese restaurant I’ve never heard of, which is odd, because I adore Japanese food. She assures me that it’s an excellent place, although quite some way from where I work.
It takes ages to get there. I have to take two buses and ask someone the way to the gallery, home to this supposedly “excellent” restaurant. I think the place is hideous—the décor, the paper tablecloths, the lack of any view. She’s right, though. It’s one of the best meals I’ve ever eaten in Geneva.
“I always used to eat in the same restaurant, which was okay, but nothing special,” she says. “Then a friend of mine who works at the Japanese consulate suggested this one. I thought it was pretty ghastly at first, as you probably did, too. But it’s the owners themselves who run the restaurant, and that makes all the difference.”
It occurs to me that I always go to the same restaurants and order the same dishes. I don’t even take any risks in this.
My friend is on antidepressants. That’s the last thing I want to talk about, though, because I’ve come to the conclusion that I’m just a step away from sliding into depression and I don’t want to accept that.
And precisely because it’s the last thing I want to talk about, it’s the very first subject I bring up.
I ask how she’s feeling.
“Much better,” she says, “although the medication can take a while to work. Once it kicks in, though, you regain your interest in life; things get back their color and flavor.”
In other words, suffering has become yet another source of income for the pharmaceutical industry. Feeling sad? Take a pill and problem solved.
I ask, very gingerly, if she would be interested in collaborating on a major article on depression for the newspaper.
“There’s no point. Nowadays people share their feelings on the Internet.”
What do they discuss?
“The side effects of the different medications. No one’s interested in other people’s symptoms, because symptoms are infectious, and you’d suddenly start feeling things you didn’t feel before.”
Is that all?
“No, there are meditation exercises, too, but I don’t think they’re much use. I only started to get better once I accepted that I had a problem.”
But doesn’t it help to know you’re not alone? Isn’t talking about depression’s effects good for other people, too?
“No, not at all. If you’ve just emerged from hell, you don’t want to know what life is like down there right now.”
Why did you put up with it for so many years?
“Because I didn’t believe I could be depressed. And because whenever I talked about it with you or with other friends, everyone said it was nonsense, that people with real problems don’t have time to feel depressed.”
It’s true, that’s exactly what I said.
I insist: Wouldn’t an article or a blog help people to better cope with the illness and seek help? I’m not depressed myself, of course, and don’t know how it feels. Could she tell me a bit about it?
My friend hesitates, perhaps suspicious of my motives.
“It’s like being inside a trap. You know you’re caught, but you can’t escape …”
That’s exactly what I felt a few days ago.
She starts listing a whole series of things that are apparently common to those who have visited what she calls “hell.” Not wanting to get out of bed. Feeling that the simplest of tasks requires a Herculean effort. Being riddled with guilt because you have no reason to feel like this when there are so many people in the world who are really suffering.
I try to concentrate on the excellent food, but it has already started to lose its flavor. My friend goes on:
“Apathy. Pretending to be happy, pretending to be sad, pretending to have an orgasm, pretending to be having fun, pretending that you’ve slept well, pretending that you’re alive. Until there comes a point where you reach an imaginary red line and realize that if you cross it, there will be no turning back. Then you stop complaining, because complaining means that you are at least still battling something. You accept the vegetative state and try to conceal it from everyone. And that’s hard work.”
And what caused your depression?
“Nothing in particular. But why so many questions? Are you feeling depressed, too?”
Of course not!
Best to change the subject.
We talk about the politician I’m going to interview in a couple days’ time. He’s an ex-boyfriend of mine from high school who probably doesn’t even remember that we once exchanged a few kisses and that he touched my breasts.
My friend is thrilled. I, on the other hand, try not to think about anything, keeping my reactions set to automatic.
Apathy. I haven’t yet reached that stage. I’m still at the complaining one, but I imagine that soon—in a matter of months, days, or hours—a complete lack of interest will set in that will be very hard to dispel.
It feels like my soul is slowly leaving my body and heading off to an unknown place, some “safe” place where it doesn’t have to put up with me and my night terrors. It’s as if I weren’t sitting in an ugly Japanese restaurant with delicious food, experiencing everything as though it were just a scene in a film I’m watching, without wanting—or being able—to stop it.
I WAKE up and perform the usual rituals—brushing my teeth, getting dressed for work, going into the children’s bedroom to wake them up, making breakfast for everyone, smiling, and saying how good life is. In every minute and gesture I feel a weight I can’t identify, like an animal who can’t quite understand how it got caught in the trap.
My food has no taste. My smile, on the other hand, grows even wider so that no one will suspect, and I swallow my desire to cry. The light outside seems gray.
Yesterday’s conversation did no good at all; I’m starting to think that I’m headed out of the indignant phase and straight into apathy.
And does no one notice?
Of course not. After all, I’m the last person in the world to admit that I need help.