Field Notes #47: Being there for a friend with depression
Plus, in-patient-level care at home, the love of the winter night, and rethinking what wellness means with a chronic illness
Hello, friends! Welcome to Field Notes, a weekly-ish collection of 1 health insight, 2 quotes, and 3 links. I hope you find something helpful. Tomorrow (Feb. 23) is the last day to sign up for the first-ever Winter Camp and get a Winter Camp mug with your name on it! So if you were wavering on joining this magical four-week online gathering, here’s a little extra nudge of encouragement. 💙
Winter Camp has four cabins (aka cohorts, so we can all get to know a small group of people): Cooking Cabin, Writer Cabin, Artist Cabin, and Wild Card Cabin — which one would you pick? Use the code ODYSSEYREADER for $80 off when you register or use the pay-what-you-can link. And now, on to Field Notes …
1 health insight
Earlier this month, New York Times columnist David Brooks wrote about his childhood friend, Pete Marks – a gentle, wise, silly, with “exuberant goofballism.” Pete grew up to become an eye surgeon, married with kids. And then, he entered into the terrible world of depression.
David’s column is titled: How Do You Serve a Friend in Despair? — it is wrenching and heart-breaking. It is so hard to read, and yet informative, importantly so. He writes:
“Over the next months, severe depression was revealed to me as an unimagined abyss. I learned that those of us lucky enough never to have experienced serious depression cannot understand what it is like just by extrapolating from our own periods of sadness. As the philosophers Cecily Whiteley and Jonathan Birch have written, it is not just sorrow; it is a state of consciousness that distorts perceptions of time, space and self.”
Pete had a loving family, his own training as a healthcare professional, and a team of experts. But his depression was severe and unyielding.
David fell into the common confusion of figuring out how to help as a friend, when you so desperately want to help, to do anything. He writes:
“During the Covid pandemic, Pete and I spoke by phone. In the beginning, I made the mistake of trying to advise him about how he could lift his depression. He had earlier gone to Vietnam to perform eye surgeries for those who were too poor to afford them. I told him he should do that again, since he found it so tremendously rewarding. I did not realize it was energy and desire that he lacked, not ideas about things to do. It’s only later that I read that when you give a depressed person advice on how to get better, there’s a good chance all you are doing is telling the person that you just don’t get it.”
“I tried to remind Pete of all the wonderful blessings he enjoyed, what psychologists call ‘positive reframing.’ I’ve since read that this might make sufferers feel even worse about themselves for not being able to enjoy all the things that are palpably enjoyable.”
“I learned, very gradually, that a friend’s job in these circumstances is not to cheer the person up. It’s to acknowledge the reality of the situation; it’s to hear, respect and love the person; it’s to show that you haven’t given up on him or her, that you haven’t walked away.”
This last part, I feel, is so important. It may not seem like much, or enough, or adequate to the horror and worries and fears at hand. But the other options — the positive framing or encouragement or relentless proding — is not the right language for this barren planet where the gravity is lost and the rules are warped.
“If I’m ever in a similar situation again, I’ll know that you don’t have to try to coax somebody out of depression. It’s enough to show that you are trying to understand what this troubled soul is enduring. It’s enough to create an atmosphere in which the sufferer can share her experience. It’s enough to offer him or her the comfort of being seen.”
Read the column (open gift link).
If you are having thoughts of suicide, call or text 988 to reach the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline or go to SpeakingOfSuicide.com/resources for more resources. You are loved and you are needed.
2 quotes
“You see patients in their place of power, it’s a totally different thing. That magical difference.” — Dr. Elizabeth De Pirro, medical director of Presbyterian Healthcare Services’ Hospital at Home program, on visiting patients at home, rather than in a hospital bed
“I have noticed that when all the lights are on, people tend to talk about what they are doing – their outer lives. Sitting round in candlelight or firelight, people start to talk about how they are feeling – their inner lives. They speak subjectively, they argue less, there are longer pauses.” — Jeanette Winterson, in a lovely essay in the Guardian, Why I Adore the Night
3 links
Your Next Hospital Bed Might Be at Home: This well-researched story is filled with real, beautiful, tangible stories of doctors and patients living the future now, detailed both the benefits and challenges of inpatient-level care in the comfort of home. (Dr. Helen Ouyang, The New York Times Magazine, open gift link)
What Does Wellness Mean When You're Living With an Incurable Disease? “I've written about health and nutrition for years. But when I was diagnosed with muscular dystrophy, staying healthy took on a new meaning.” (Andrew Zalesk, GQ)
Study: Commuting has an upside and remote workers may be missing out (NPR) An interesting study considers commutes as “liminal space” — “a time free of both home and work roles that provides an opportunity to recover from work and mentally switch gears to home.”
Dear friends, I hope you have a wonderful weekend ahead. Thank you for being in this space together.
To our journeys,
Brianne