My Depression Doesn’t Define Me

My depression doesn’t define me. My anxiety doesn’t define me. These things have shaped me. They’ve shaped my life. They shape who I am today and how I view life. But I refuse to let them define me.

My dad died young, at age 57. Too young. And his life, especially his last 5-10 years, was tough. A devastating divorce. A career he’d grown to dislike. Unfulfilled dreams. Failed desperate attempts to mend scars in his family. His own depression. His own anxiety. Health issues.

There’s a narrative that gets spoken of the tragic nature of my dad’s life. It’s a narrative that focuses on the unfulfilled dreams, the sadness, and the early passing. My dad’s life was difficult, and the fact that he died young is certainly devastating and terrible. Yes, there’s something objectively painful and “wrong” about a man, in this day and age, dying in his 50s. But my dad’s life was not a tragedy. I’ve always struggled with this telling. His life was, like most lives, filled with challenges and grief, loss and sorrow. And it was one filled with laughter and joy and richness and deep connection. It was a life well-lived. A life of big swings and big love and big sadness. A life of the sort we should all hope to live.

His life was, like most lives, filled with challenges and grief, loss and sorrow. And it was one filled with laughter and joy and richness and deep connection.

Like my dad, and like all of us, my life has had its challenges. The chronic depression and anxiety I’ve dealt with most of my adult life, the mental health struggles I often write about here, those things are part of me, a very big part of me, but I’m determined to not let them define who I am.

Just a few minutes ago I took a cup of coffee and walked down to the lakeshore of our family cabin. It’s been a still morning. Very little wind. The lake surface like glass.

I carried a book with me and took a seat on the bench of our dock that juts about 30 feet into the water. Frogs croaked across the bay. A small water bird called out from the lily pads 100 yards to my left. A pair of large, all-white trumpeter swans swam slowly together near the lake inlet, an unseen mama loon nesting just feet from them. A small painted turtle floated in front of me, its pointy nose the only part of its body poking above the water. I sipped my coffee. I opened my book. I absorbed the lake noises. Gentle. Soothing. Meditative.

After a few pages, I heard something break the water’s surface behind me. A fish, I assumed, coming up to feed on an insect. Nothing unusual about that. I didn’t bother to look. But then I heard it again, louder this time. “A duck?” I wondered. Or a goose. A family of Canada Geese had been stopping by our land recently. This time I turned. There, looking straight at me, was a river otter, its head, whiskers and all, poking high above the water. She looked me in the eye, gave a sort of snort, then disappeared into the water.

I’ve seen river otters in our lake, but not often. They’re a rarity here. To see one this close was something I’d experienced only once before in my life.

There, looking straight at me, was a river otter, its head, whiskers and all, poking high above the water.

After her dive, I waited. She’d have to come up for air again, and with the lake as smooth as it was, even the slightest movement would cause a ripple. I’d be able to see her. But, I waited, and nothing. No ripple. No head bobbing up for air. I waited and waited, but I never saw her again. She vanished. Like magic. Knowing that otters like these seldom travel solo, I assumed there were others with her. But, nothing. No more evidence she had even existed. Did I imagine her?

When I was about 16 I took a camping trip to the Boundary Waters Canoe Area wilderness in northern Minnesota with my dad and a small group of other fathers and sons. This was a kickoff-to-summer-vacation fishing tradition for my dad and his teaching buddies. I did this with this group a half dozen times until I grew older and busier.

On this particular trip one of our days turned into a complete rain-out. Not a drizzle. Not a passing storm. This was a steady downpour that lasted the entire day. I spent it killing time in the tent. Mostly reading. Probably a Stephen King novel, but the actual book is one I don’t remember. After hours of this, I became restless. I needed to leave the confines of the tiny two-man tent, the ultra physical closeness to my dad. I put on every article of rain gear I had and ventured outside.

I eventually found my way to the lakeshore, and it was there I spotted a river otter. Sitting on the shoreline munching feverishly on the carcass of a walleye we’d tossed to the lake after cleaning it and freeing the bones from the valuable meat we’d had for dinner the night before. The rain was coming down hard, which meant the sound of my movements was drowned out by the noise of the large drops hitting the water. The river otter had no idea I was there. This allowed me to creep closer and it allowed me to linger, to watch this beautiful creature in her element, enjoying a lunch set out just for her. It was magical. A moment that’s stuck vividly in my memory to this day.

If you’ve ever seen a river otter in real life, you know that they’re amazing, tragically cute little creatures. And playful in a way not seen in the habits of most other animal species. To have had a visit from one this morning was pure joy. Hot coffee. A good book. And a visit from a river otter. Not a bad way to start the day.

It’s been about six weeks since I ended my 28-day bike ride through Italy. Since that time I’ve hiked in the German Alps, I visited friends in Munich, I attended the Roland Garros tennis tournament in Paris with Sammie, I came back to Minnesota, and… I’ve struggled. One thing I haven’t done is written. I don’t like to write when I’m struggling with mental health challenges. I don’t mind writing about them after the fact, but I don’t really like to write when I’m in the midst of them. It’s too hard.

After my bike ride, and after coming back to Minnesota, times have been tough. I became extremely anxious and worried about the future, and I succumbed to a heavy, prolonged bout of deep depression. It’s not until now, after several weeks of consistency and having proactively done things to pull myself back to a place of peace and contentment, that I’m choosing to write.

While here I am, again writing about my mental health struggles, I am feeling extremely joyful. Extremely grateful and at peace, feeling so terribly lucky to be where I am and feeling increasingly hopeful about a future that will see me settling down in my own place in the Twin Cities for the first time since my separation and divorce three years ago. It’s a scary time for me, in many ways. Returning to a job I left for a reason. Dealing with the financial realities of being on my own. Transitioning to a life far different from the madcap, unstructured one I’ve lived these past few years. But it’s also a hopeful time. A time of unknowns, and a time facing a future unlike any other I’ve experienced before.

I recently saw a movie called The Life of Chuck. The refrain of the story is a line from a Walt Whitman poem. It reads, “I contain multitudes.” The full line from Whitman’s Song of Myself is, “I am large. I contain multitudes.” Chuck, in the movie, is a complex man, one who chooses a life as an accountant rather than a life as a dancer, the passion he’s had since childhood. But for Chuck, his life is not defined by his career. His life is not defined by one aspect of himself. He chose a safer path, yes, but his life is full and rich and beautiful even though dance took a backseat to comfort and predictability.

Like Chuck, and like Whitman, I contain multitudes. You contain multitudes. My dad contained multitudes. I write about my depression. I write about my anxiety. But just as Chuck refused to let his life as an accountant define him, just as my dad would want to be remembered for a life of sorrows and joys, I refuse to allow depression and anxiety to define me. The joy of a hot cup of coffee. The peace felt from croaking frogs. The awe of a visit from a magical river otter. These, along with my multitudes of emotions, moods, challenges and beauty, are what I choose to define me.

The joy of a hot cup of coffee. The peace felt from croaking frogs. The awe of a visit from a magical river otter.