The Bell-Jar Echo of Numb

I started reading The Bell Jar. And within three pages I was struck by how Sylvia Plath put the feelings, or more precisely the lack thereof, of depression. You’d think I might have expected it, given how her life ended. But if you’re someone who has struggled with depression, you’ve probably struggled to describe it in words, particularly if you’re a writer.

How do you explain something that makes no sense? How do you give words to something that empties you of all that is you, and traps you in the emptiness left behind?

Mental illness can be lonely. You feel like you’re the only one who has ever felt this awful, who has been crippled by your own mind. How could anyone understand? That spark of recognition when you see all that numbness or pain, that disconnection from… everything… expressed in black and white… Well… you know that there are others who walk, and get lost, in the same darkness.

I still have most of the book to read. And, honestly, I may not finish it. I don’t finish most of the books I start any more, but that’s a topic for a different blog post. I’m probably in a place I can look at her descent from a distance, can just hear an echo of my experience in the protagonist’s… knowing the author wrote from her own experience… and… lost herself in the darkness.

In the end, it took her.

Truth is, dark thoughts feed dark thoughts, in the sense that they validate the belief that they’re more rational than hope. Falling into someone else’s story can be the last thing someone walking on the edge needs.

I’m not on the edge. But that early-warning numbness creeps in from time to time. Well… at least every week… every few days… okay, maybe at least a few moments each day. That and the realization of the pointlessness of life – I mean, really, some of these things we just have to do over and over and over and over; for what?!? And nobody’s really any better for any of it any way… I may not be getting enough sleep, either… But, I’m okay. For the most part.

I’ve been pretty stable this year. In part because in some ways I’ve been selfish. So, sooner or later…

The holidays… can be rough. Not just for me.

They gift many with unpleasant or unhelpful thoughts and feelings. Their expectations… of enjoyment, peace, togetherness. And reminders of what’s missing, or has been lost.

The new-year imperatives to look back and look forward can both be fraught.

Here’s where I am. I’m not sorry to see the old year go, nor was I anxious for it to end. I’m not particularly looking forward to 2019, but not dreading it. It’s just another year. New Years Day, today, is just another day. Like tomorrow, and the day after. And yesterday, and the day before.

We can’t know what a year will hold. Maybe this will be a year of much-needed and -longed-for change. Given the evidence of the last decade, probably not. There will be pain; pain is a given. But the pain of years varies in depth and type. We all dread the possibility of tragedy. And long for joy.

Our job is to take things as they come, and look for the blessing. The real blessing, the actual grace, not the parts that feel good. Gotta say, that’s not where my mind and heart are. Well, I guess I didn’t have to say that, but it’s my reality, Friends. I don’t have many words, too many stories I can’t tell, as they’re all twisted up with others’ stories. I lack time. And the motivation to find it. Besides, words are just… words.

But, as Sylvia Plath just reminded me, they can resonate. They have their place. But there are SO MANY bouncing around out there. It’s like whispering into a tornado.

But when that whisper reaches an ear that needs to hear it…

One foot in front of the other, Friend.

No matter how alone you feel, you’re not.