I graduated from a well-regarded law school in the flush 1980s. Top-tier law school graduates were courted and wined and dined. At age 25, I was making almost six figures (adjusted for inflation, which was a great deal for someone my age).
I met my husband while in law school. His WASP-y grandmother, upon seeing my photo, asked if I could speak English. His family was anti-Catholic also. We married anyway. He is a good, ethical, smart man.
My husband and I each got high-paying jobs at large law firms in Washington, D.C. We bought a house downtown, and entertained and went out frequently. I scored a job as a political appointee in the Clinton administration and enjoyed the headiness of spending time at the White House and working on matters that constituted breaking news.
Five years after marrying, we had a baby and moved to a tony suburb. We joined a country club and a yacht club (though we owned no boat). I played a lot of tennis and hosted coffees and fund-raisers. We summered in Nantucket. I learned that some used “summer” as a verb.
In our all-white neighborhood, I was frequently mistaken for the nanny of my lighter-skinned children. People at the country club mistook me for a waitress there on several occasions. It was annoying, and I wrote a couple of books about those experiences.1
I hid behind designer items to try to make me feel better about myself. Perhaps if I wore expensive clothing and jewelry, people would like me better or respect me more, I thought. Maybe my BMW or Mercedes would confer extra status upon me. I have learned, unfortunately not earlier than at age 50, that anyone who would hold me in higher esteem because of my material things are not the people with whom I want to spend time. With age comes wisdom.
I cared too much about appearances—of my house, my kids, my husband, the food I served. . . . I relentlessly organized events in my neighborhood, at my children’s schools, for charities and at my home. I had thousands of “friends,” but failed to nurture the friendships that meant the most to me. My 40th birthday party began with an invitation list of 1,000 people, which I whittled down to 200, per my husband’s reasonable request. My life at that time was exhausting.
Other than the unconditional love I had for my children, I felt fraudulent and empty.
Post-50, I no longer lust after material objects. I much prefer experiences over things. I learned that the thrill of obtaining a material item is fleeting and that, as Theodore Roosevelt once said, “Comparison is the thief of joy.”2 What I have is enough. I am enough.
I so often confused pleasure and excitement with happiness. Happiness, for me now, is more about contentment and serenity. They last much longer.
The trap of perfectionism was likely a contributing factor to the snap that took place the year my father died. His death forced me, in a way, to stop and look within and behind me. Not places I was comfortable visiting. Like a rubber band that was stretched beyond its strength allowed, I plummeted and then joined the sisterhood of the selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI) takers.
The faithful say everything happens for a reason. Depression, in some quarters, is a closely held secret. I have learned that hidden depression can be fatal and that working through depression can sometimes serve as a gateway to clarity on many levels.
When my father died, I snapped. My social and other obligations came to a screeching halt. I felt as if I were floating above my life. My closest friend said I was a ghost of myself.
I am normally chatty and gregarious. I can talk for 20 miles of a marathon, and have done so three times. Something was seriously wrong with me. I went silent for months, and spent hours staring at the wall.
A therapist informed me that my depression was likely caused, at least in part, by unexpressed rage. I had assumed the depression stemmed from the sorrow of losing my father to cancer and the ugliness my stepmother caused while he was dying and as we planned his memorial service.
While on his cancer-stricken deathbed, my father shared information with me about my mother—things I had long suppressed and had no need to know on a conscious level, like her infidelity. It probably was an attempt to exonerate himself for how broken, drunk, and harsh he had been when I was a child. He died very shortly after telling me. I had no idea how to process the information.
Was the divorce my mother’s fault? Or had she sought solace in the arms of another because my father was a violent alcoholic? Maybe it was a chicken/egg situation. I doubt I will ever know the truth.
I mourned for the innocent child I was, caught in the crosshairs of my parents’ misery and actions. Children are fine observers but poor interpreters. What had I thought? How did my parents’ issues affect me? How did they affect my now middle-aged brother, who I did my best to parent, though it was not my responsibility to do so?
According to the Anxiety and Depression Association of America (ADAA),3 depression is one of the most common mental disorders in the United States. Approximately 15.7 million, or 6.7 percent, of American adults have experienced at least one major depressive episode. It is treatable, yet only about one-third of those who need it in our country seek treatment. Stigma regarding mental issues remains in our society. This is especially so for the older demographic that was raised with the mentality that one must pick themselves up and persevere at all times, and that a family’s dirty laundry was not to be aired outside the home. But nontreatment can lead to suicide. I now know 10 people who have taken their own lives. I definitely thought about it and was convinced not to do it, at least for my children’s sake.
I love my children fiercely and would do anything in my power to save them from harm. But my mind was so skewed that I thought my children would be better off without me. After I shared that sentiment at a 12-step meeting, a kindly stranger looked me in the eye and said, “Every child is worse off if their parent kills herself!” That was enough to stop me. In that moment, at least.
The taboo regarding depression and other mental illnesses needs to be eradicated. If you think you have depression, please get help from a medical professional. There are various levels of depression and many ways of treating it. Do not suffer alone. You are not alone.4
It surprises me how many people have no familiarity with clinical depression. Some of my friends and family members implored me to snap out of my depression and anxiety. I wish I could have. It was like being in a hole and not being able to extricate myself from the murky molasses-like muck holding me down. It feels otherworldly. My viewpoint was all out of whack, which is not surprising in retrospect, given that depression is a chemical imbalance in the brain.
On the other hand, there is a huge percentage of the population that takes medication for depression. According to National Public Radio, one in 10 Americans takes antidepressants.5 The highest demographic of those getting antidepressant medication prescriptions is women in their 40s and 50s.6 After I began speaking openly about my antidepressant medication use, women seemed to come out of the woodwork, sharing about their use of these sometimes lifesaving drugs.
Why middle-aged women? Perhaps men suffer in silence. Maybe they are socialized not to show emotion or weakness. In any event, it is my firm belief that by continuing to cultivate passions in life, midlife angst and even depression can be mitigated. Once my clinical depression was treated with medication, my horizons expanded exponentially.
The most commonly prescribed medications for depression are SSRIs, such as Zoloft, Prozac, and Lexapro. They ease depression by increasing levels of serotonin in the brain.
It was intensely frustrating to me, however, that those who wish to take medication to treat anxiety and depression often must try several medications before finding the one that is right for them. And most medications take several weeks before their efficacy can be experienced. It seems to me that modern medicine would have found a way to test our blood or brain waves to save us from this human test tube-like experimentation. But they have not.7 I ended up trying five different medications before I felt relief from a medication with tolerable side effects.
I did not rely on finding a magic pill, however. I tried to exercise, engaged in talk therapy, and forced myself to get out of the house each day (though I spent a great deal of time staring at the walls). Forays to the grocery store took hours. It felt very difficult to choose items there. Too many choices stymied me.
I felt ridiculously anxious. My then-husband and best friend tried to help me calm my exaggerated fearfulness. There was a period when I implored my husband every morning not to leave for work. I simultaneously worried that my problems were too big for him to handle and that if he really knew what was going on inside my head, he would leave me. A few times, I even thought I heard voices. Inside the refrigerator. When alone, I would stay so still that I once saw a field mouse peek out from under the oven and look at me.
There is a generational resistance to mental health treatment. My parents’ generation was mostly of the stiff upper lip sort. The potential for shame outweighed the potential for feeling better. Thank God this was not a factor for me, though I admit that I lost a few friends during the time I was severely depressed. Those who did not understand depression’s effects kept their distance from me. I understand that people are resistant to things they do not understand, and that they would prefer to keep company with upbeat friends. But when I got well, I remembered who stood by my side during the dark days and naturally gravitated toward them.
One of the medications I took made me zombielike. Another made me manic. The mania-inducing one was much preferred. Filled with long-lost energy, I sprang into action, starting numerous projects.
I also upped my alcohol intake. A lot. And the medication magnified the intoxicating effect of the alcohol. It was not a good mix.
I started buying cheap wine by the case and hiding the bottles around the house. My husband started noticing the empties, first in our recycling bin, then in our neighbor’s. “Yes, such a coincidence that they drink the same wine. Big sale at the local store,” I’d reply. He was skeptical, and started finding my alcohol stashes in various places in the house. Maybe I wanted to get caught. Maybe this was a cry for help.
I drank out of opaque plastic cups or other glasses that did not resemble wineglasses. Sometimes, I would bring roadies when I drove carpool from my children’s schools. Bad mother. Lucky I didn’t kill them. Or me. Or anyone else.
I knew I had a drinking problem in high school and college because I had so many blackouts. During one of these blackouts in high school, I was raped. I found out 20 years later that someone watched while this occurred. The observer told me himself.
I drunkenly lit my hair on fire once, by mistake, at a football game. I woke up in strange places, unsure of how I had gotten there. I favored Long Island Iced Teas because they got me obliterated the most quickly. Luckily, I mostly had friends who watched out for me, going to the effort of rescuing me from a bikers’ place at the beach one summer when I had passed out there during my teenage years. I got myself into very dangerous situations while drunk, and could have died on several occasions.
My drinking subsided during pregnancy and early motherhood. My desire to be the kind of mother I had yearned for somehow overrode my compulsion to drink during those years.
It raged back with a vengeance when I came out of my depression. It fueled my mania. And then it didn’t. It got me into loads of trouble. My husband gave me several chances to get sober. He really tried. He sent me to rehab. He came to family weekends there, and was understanding, to a point. Eventually, justifiably tired of my drunken escapades and disgusted by my terrible relapses between rehab stays, he told me not to return home.