swimming - a metaphor

[booksandblankets]

I hate swimming.

I know how to swim. I'm not great, but I can cross a pool and tread water and float and all the other basics.

And still, I hate swimming--because when you're swimming, you need to be actively keeping yourself afloat and alive the whole time. If you stop doing all of the swimming tasks, you'll sink.

Depression feels like swimming. Like always having to do the work to stay safe and afloat and alive. I can't stop monitoring my safety and stability. I can't take a break from finding resources or from setting up supports and safety nets. Every aspect of life needs to be weighed against depression, and if there's a risk, then I just have to avoid it.

Sometimes, depression is the part of the pool where I can stand on my tiptoes and keep my head out of the water. Sometimes it's deep enough that I can only reach the bottom if I bounce on my tippy-tippy-toes and I'm craning my neck to keep my mouth and nose above water. Sometimes it's so deep that I need to be treading water all the time, otherwise my safety is at risk.

Right now, some parts of my life are the deep end, and some parts are the tippy-toes. When I'm in bed, covered up with my blanket and hugging a stuffed animal, it's tiptoes. Tiptoes aren't comfy, or easy, or restful, but at least they're something. When I'm trying to go out in public, or go to work, or have meetings for school, then I am always treading water.

What I want and need is a pool noodle. I'm not asking for a lifeguard, or a boat, or a lifejacket, or a shallower pool. I just want something that I can hold on to and rest on a bit. Sometimes that pool noodle is someone sitting next to me in bed and just keeping me company. Sometimes it's bringing me pizza rolls and an apple so that I'm eating something besides cheese crackers. Sometimes it's coaxing me out of my room and just having me sit in the kitchen while you cook dinner. Pool noodles are small, and simple. They're not groundbreaking, or life-changing, or revolutionary. But they're something, and that's enough.

♥️

[booksandblankets]

I explained this (again) to my husband last night, and he said "Oh. That makes my heart really sad. I thought that you were going to say that being snuggled up in bed is like the shallow end of the pool, but it's actually so much worse." I've tried many many ways to get him to understand, and it never completely clicks. Maybe now he gets it a little bit more.

[Sunrisetabby]

Your post made me think of David Foster Wallace's 2005 Kenyon commencement speech that begins: "There are these two young fish swimming along and they happen to meet an older fish swimming the other way, who nods at them and says “Morning, boys. How’s the water?” And the two young fish swim on for a bit, and then eventually one of them looks over at the other and goes “What the hell is water?”

Fish don't even think of swimming, and certainly they can't like or dislike swimming. What do you think a fish would do with a pool noodle?

The ocean and the deeps are magical places. Scary, yes. At times life threatingly so, but also sources of magic and inspiration and indeed likely the source of all life.

I respectfully don't think you need a pool noodle, although they are comforting, I think you might just need to recognize that you are a swimmer, and that is what you do. No hate. No love. It is just what it is.

Although, as the Gaelic Storm song goes, it is certainly ok to be "happy to be swimmin' in the sea." Anyways, that is what I keep trying to tell myself.

[booksandblankets in reply to Sunrisetabby]

♥️

[Hidden]

Unfortunately that is a very good description of life with depression for so many. To actually explain how depression feels is oh so difficult for me. To explain how it affects me is easier but if you don’t have it it us oh so difficult to grasp for so many.

Praying for you for relief BSB

[booksandblankets in reply to Hidden]

Until you've gone through it, there's no way to truly understand it♥️

[gajh]

What a great analogy. I am very grateful for pool noodles. I hope you get more. I don't think there is anything wrong with asking for a lifeguard, or a boat, or a lifejacket, or a shallower pool either. It sure would be nice to sit in a boat sometimes and get right out of the water.

[booksandblankets in reply to gajh]

amen amen amen ♥️