Your Presence is Requested

In Disney’s version of Beauty and The Beast, there’s a pivotal scene where Belle is “invited” to dine with the Beast. He’s not exactly an easy guy to be around. He’s moody to the point of being morose and he loses his temper without warning. Plus, bad table manners. Belle comes to the dining room and both their lives are changed for the better. Not in a moment or even overnight, but little by little.

It’s a beautiful story with many lessons for real life but the the point I want to make today is about showing up, being present, especially in the face of depression.

As always, I fall back on my own life experience, because it’s what I know best. I have gone through many bouts of deep depression, some of them lasting months. When on the inside looking out, it seems that everyone else is happy and has their stuff together. It’s a lonely place, this knowing that I am the only person who feels the way I do; lonely and isolating. I’ve learned over time that it’s in this place of loneliness I need to do the impossible- I need to reach out, connect, accept an invitation to coffee, make a phone call. I know what’s needed yet I’m not exaggerating when I say it feels impossible.

It’s so difficult, I think, because of shame. I know, I know, but please stick with me. When I am in darkness, ALL the very loud voices in my head tell me that it’s my fault. I have done something wrong, or neglected to do something right, again. I should know better. I should certainly know better by now! Yet here I am, hurting and filled with shame. Not a great combo. It’s no wonder that in this place I feel it’s only right to remain alone because certainly others agree with the voices in my head. Shame builds a wall; it keeps me in and you out. To you it feels like I’m pushing you away; to me it seems I deserve to be alone.

I’ve learned something about this cycle that I’ve found helpful: the pain of depression is like being shot by an arrow. It definitely hurts. But adding judgment and self-criticism to the pain is akin to shooting (stabbing?) myself with a second arrow and adds suffering to the pain. Like icing on the cake, but in a bad way. In other words, Pain + Shame = Suffering.

And culture doesn’t help. At least not the culture I live in. The loud and clear messages are all about finding the solution, helping yourself when you have a problem (thus the millions of “self-help” resources), and, above all, independence. So, to do what must be done, I not only have to defy the voices in my head but the powerful voices of culture as well. On the surface, it seems we have more opportunities for connection than ever, what with technology and all. I’m not so sure. I think much of technology at best, provides a small percentage of the human contact we need. At worst, it’s pseudo-connection and in reality we are more disconnected and lonelier than ever. And loneliness kills, as a precursor to disease and, of course, suicide.

Many, many times, the shame wins. I believe its lies that others are as disappointed in me as I am in myself. I believe that to love them is to protect them from this dark version of who I’ve become. I believe that I am an abject failure because I cannot get this mental illness thing figured out and make it go away.

Now I want to speak from my experience as the outsider looking in. You see, someone I love very much also sometimes lives in darkness. And this someone also hears the loud voice of shame.

What’s an outsider to do? My answer isn’t complicated and it also isn’t easy. Come to dinner with the Beast of depression. Come without an invitation, because there probably won’t be one. Come and stay as long as you can. Come again tomorrow and the next day and the day after that. You don’t need answers (there aren’t any), you don’t even have to talk, you just need to be present. We who sometimes, or often, walk in the darkness of depression, need your presence, even if we can’t actually hear that voice of truth, the one that says we’re loved and accepted and valued, enough to dismantle the wall of shame around us.

You see, your presence helps us begin to see that maybe it’s not our fault after all, maybe we’re not failures who just need to try harder. Your presence is validating and helps turn down the volume on the voice of shame. When Belle came to dinner, the wall of shame the Beast had erected began to come down. This is not just the stuff of fairy tales. Your presence is requested, here, now, In Real Life.

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