I feel like I’ve been working tirelessly to battle my depression this round, but nothing has working to snap me out of The Pits effectively enough to motivate me to work through it to begin with and I’ve been struggling with how to get a little instant happiness to push me to work for eventual happiness. Chocolates and cigarettes don’t work, really, and watching sitcom reruns requires too much spare time and other counterparts. And then this week, my friend Hayley and I developed something revolutionary that has proven effective on a number of levels. In fact, it’s so effective we’re thinking about applying for a patent and opening a counseling center together.

My friend Hayley and I met when we were mutually bored out of consciousness in a particularly atrocious Shakespeare class, taught by one of the country’s oldest professors who, in his tenure, believes that education consists of asking young adults to read great literary works aloud and then comparing them to his various fishing adventures. (True story.) Like the female Statler and Waldorf of the English Department, Hayley and I quickly became fuel for each other’s comic relief, laughing at the social ineptitude of our varied peers, seeing how long we could flash the aforementioned professor without being caught (the answer: for ever, apparently,) and annoying the everliving crap out of everyone who was “there to learn.” Over time, I began to look forward to our interactions and would drag myself to this otherwise mundane class just to treat myself to like-minded sarcasm and an outlet for my running commentary.
In the months during these classes, we had no conversation outside school, but when we ran into each other at next semester’s Scandinavian Film and Literature course, we immediately chose seats next to each other to begin our usual routine. Somehow, that semester turned out a little differently. Maybe it was the expository nature of the film and literature discussed in class, maybe it was our comfort levels in our close contact, maybe it was in the cards, maybe it was just who we were, but whatever the case, she and I became quick friends. Actually, she was among the first I told when I learned I was unexpectedly pregnant at the very end of that semester.

Since graduation, Hayley and I have stayed in touch, making time to get together for lunch, driving the hundred-some miles between each other’s homes to see her new house or attend my bachelorette party. In our monthly phone-calls and bimonthly visits, she has become one of my dearest friends, partially because we have the same sarcastic holier-than-thou-but-not-really-but-maybe-a-little humor and have similar struggles as mothers/students/women, but mostly because I look up to her so very much and am always inspired by her ongoing courage and self-actualization. Plainly stated, she rocks.

In the whirlwind of running off to get married (me) and starting a job as a schoolteacher in a new town (her), we sort of fell out of touch for a couple of months and set a phone date for last Sunday. During this phone conversation we covered the usual “How-are-you-who-are-you-seeing-these-days?” bases and then I started rambling about my depression and what’s been going on in my head for the last couple months. Hayley listened and responded accordingly, offering support and stating that there were a lot of things about my thoughts and struggles that mirrored hers at my age (although she’s only 7 years older than me). These, of course, were all naturally comforting things to hear from her as a friend…

… And then she started talking about herself in how pathetically hilarious her thoughts during depression has been in retrospect…

…And making fun of herself…

… And, for some reason, I started laughing harder than I have in months. I jumped on the bandwagon, too, “Mreughhh.. I’m so saaaad. Look at meeee, I’m feeling so bad, I’m just going to lay in bed and cry about how much I suck.”

Hayley cackled and passed one back: “Muuhhhh, I’m not a size six so I must reeeally suck. Maybe I’ll sit on my front steps and cry like someone kicked my puppy.”

Soon, tears were streaming through my mascara as I chuckled and then really started delving into the various mantras I utilize during my deepest bouts of depression, putting on my best 3rd Grade Bully Voice during each of them:

“Uhhhhn, I’m Liiiiz. I’m twenty pounds overweight, so maybe I should eat this whole can of icing; that’ll fix eeeeverything. I eat my feeeelings.”

“Waaaaahhhh, I had a full college education paid for by my daddy but I feel inferior because it’s not the school I waaanted to go to.”

“I’m Liiiiz, I sit around in my nice house with my pretty baby and my sweet husband and cry because I don’t think I’m pretty or smart.”

Even now as I’m writing, I’m smiling giddily and remembering how ruthless we were on ourselves, mocking ourselves the same way we mock stupid people we happen to pass in public or celebrities who whine publicly. But somehow, mocking ourselves was so so much funnier than any time we’d ever made fun of any other poor soul who’d ever crossed our paths. This time, it was personal… and effing hilarious.

Soon, we were thinking of ways to incorporate this into a new method of recovery, experimenting with our method in fake scenarios and cackling at how controversial and hysterical our new psychological movement would be. We imagined ourselves summing up our self-loathing clients and dismissing them in disgust:

“‘Waaahhh. I’m a white, middle-class guy living in America and I eat too much and drop out of college because my dad never hugged me enough.’ GAH! You know what?! Here’s your check back, you whiner. Get the hell out of my office.”

It’s completely irrational and will never work on a grand scheme, but, after I hung up the phone with her, I realized how amazing I felt. And I wondered how effective this method would be as a quick-fix. What if I took all the things that I usually repeat relentlessly in my head during my bouts of self-loathing misery and stated them bluntly and mockingly? Sure, that sounds really self-destructive from the onset, but, in the last two days, I’ve started dubbing Hayley’s prepubescently-antagonizing tone over my usual self-depreciative thoughts and immediately blocking myself from starting that whole cycle of guilt, remorse, sadness, etc. It seems rather unorthodox and potentially dangerous if I let it get out of control, but for now it’s providing me with a diversion and a smile and that’s a change I’m very welcome of right now. It’s actually saving me a bunch of time and energy mentally and, Christ, that’s a relief.

And who would have thought that being a relentlessly mocking, sarcastic bitch would help me feel better about myself? Hunh!