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What Awaits At The Bottom Of The Slippery Slope?
Written by Sean on Thursday, July 2, 2009
I drowned once, when I was a teenager. It was quite peaceful for me. Obviously, they managed to get me back real quick-like. Now, I am at the top of a rather slippery slope, hanging on as hard as I can, because if I start slipping, I’ll end up in white water so fierce and cold, I’ll drown again, and it won’t be so peaceful this time.
Yes, I did indeed drown. Literally. I was about 17, and taking scuba diving lessons. At the beginning of the session, as we were warming up, we swam lengths of the pool under water with one breath only. I prided myself on being able to go the longest and farthest on one breath. It is good, you relax your body, concentrate everything inward, slow down your heart, and swim. Being under-water like that is a comfortable feeling of "coming home" in a weird way. Of course, I haven’t grown gills, so I can’t stay all that long. At the time, I could do a bit over two minutes. I later met an ex-Navy diver who could easily do 5+ minutes. But I digress. Here I was, swimming the length of an Olympic size swimming pool, following the bottom of the pool. I was in some sort of meditative state. It was nice and comfortable. The next thing I knew, I was on cold tiles beside the pool, puking water. I was told the instructor had to pull me out from the pool where I was laying motionless at the bottom. I sometimes wish they had let me be. But I digress again.
Things should be going well for me lately. A surgery I underwent was a success and I have reduced pain and improved motion. Work is coming into a quieter phase of the year. Got a couple things going. Depression is somewhat under control. Yet, BIID is there, ever-present. And I can feel it wouldn’t take much for things to go from "bearable with enjoyable moments" to "overwhemingly unbearable".
It is as if I was a third of the way down, on a steep ravine covered in ice. At the top is a safe, flat, dry surface. At the bottom, running water. Running so fast it is but a mass of white foam. The sound of the water rages upwards and invades every part of my body. I am moving paralel to the top surface, trying to edge my way up a little at a time. I cannot go straight up, there is no path that way. I must travel forward, and go up a little at a time. But the track is slippery. In fact, there is no track. I’d need crampons, which I don’t have. Here and there, a twig or a wee bush gives me some handhold to hang on. I can feel a foot starting to slip. It is a not a sudden slip, rather a progressive move downard, and I cannot hold the foot in place.
It feel inexorable that I will end up at the bottom of the ravine, plunged in the deep, cold water. It seems inevitable that I’ll be sucked in, swallowed, battered and thrown like a sock in a washine machine.
Of course, this would be a virtual drowning, an emotional one. But it would be infinitely more violent than the real one I went through. And the thing is, while it would hurt and batter me, it wouldn’t kill me, not unless my emotions got so frayed, not unless my core got so damaged that I impulsively killed myself. This is not a place I want to go to.
And so I thread carefully, I don’t even step, but I slide my feet one after the other along miniature ledges, grabbing where I can. Precarious position. Almost certain to soon plunge to my (virtual) death. Yet, I obstinate myself, I go forward. Onwards and, even perhaps a tiny little bit, upwards.
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2 Comments
2 On 4 July, 2009, Sean said:
@Phil, there are in fact many things I enjoy in my life that are positive. Over the last 15 years, there have been many times where things were going well in my life, everything lining up perfectly. But BIID was never far below. All that “positive things & thinking” are distractions, but it doesn’t stick, and it doesn’t really change the underlying issues either. It’s a bit like putting a lof of perfume on all the time to hide the stink of a body you can’t wash.
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1 On 4 July, 2009, Phil said:
Dear Sean,
it seems you need some positive experiences in your life. Things you can enjoy. A journey to a place where you feel like in a new life (which is Paris for me in a way). A new love. New friends or renewed friendships. A new kind of sports or body work. The right book or film.
You will never fall or drown. Life is not a slippery slope. Haven’t you survived many things, including being near death? You will survive everything which comes, too, and in the end - hopefully in a long, long time - you will survive even your death, in a sense.
Make yourself presents.
At the end of the slippery slope there is maybe no cold water, but a solid surface of mother earth, reliable and a good stand? And a point to start from - anew?
The only thing we have to fear is fear itself. F. D. Roosevelt was right - also for us with BIID.
Fear is often a sign of a state near depression. And this is a signal to change something, to be nicer to oneself, to take a break, to open one’s heart to others, to express sadness and fear.