“Ever thought about how depression is like wearing sunglasses in the dark? You struggle to see any remnant of light around you.”
I was struck dumb when I first read Erinn’s prompt, above, because it seems pretty complete as it is. The answer is yes. Yes, depression is like wearing sunglasses in the dark. Yes.
My earliest memories of Mother’s depression is darkness, but not the black of night kind of all-enveloping thing, but rather, the dim darkness at the edges of her bedroom. One of the first signs of her sinking into a depression from a manic stage was the onset of migraines. Mother’s room was only pitch black when she was not to be disturbed, but the rest of the time, it was the suffused orange glow of low-wattage light bulbs that marked her territory. She kept the light weak to ward off the migraines, and it gave her bedroom the aura of dream-like impermanence.
For her, being in a depressive swing was to be embraced by darkness, wary of light itself and yet struggling to see the world around her.
Did she prefer the dim lighting and the silence, or did her depression demand it? I can’t say for sure.