It starts small, masquerading as tiredness or temporary irritation. Maybe you hit the snooze button too many times. Maybe you trail out of conversations, shrinking into yourself and losing eye contact. I do all that stuff and then pull up the best of me, rising from the ground like a Macy’s Thanksgiving day balloon, to spend time with my daughter. When this takes real effort, connecting with the child who is my heart, I know my damn black scarf depression is out of the closet again. 

Some people’s depression is like an abusive ex, crashing down the door and into your head something ferocious. Mine is more like a Karen. She slips in insidiously poking around the edges of my brain, and makes such REASONABLE excuses for the quiet little ways she’s cutting me down every day that for the longest time I don’t even realize what’s happening. Except I don’t think it’s fair to call my depression Karen, cause she’s been blamed for a lot lately, and to be perfectly sexist and honest I think men a) cause more problems than women and b) clean up after their problems less well than women. 

It’s possible I am biased on this matter because I am from one of those families where my mom did more than her share of cleaning up while my dad ranted and raged. Or it’s simply possible that I am clear-eyed and kind of a visionary on this whole men-cause-the-ills-of-the-world situation. But I digress! Back to depression!

I call this kind of depression black scarf depression because having it is kind of like owning an ugly black scarf. It’s heavy and hideous and I hate it, but most of the time, I barely have to think about it because it stays in the closet. Taking my medicine in the morning is like seeing it in the closet every day- yep, okay, you’re there, swallow pill, moving on. Many days that is the only blessed time I think about having depression.

Those days are wonderful. 

Other days, Karen or Karo or whatever we’re calling my gender-non-specific depression has snuck in and sliced me with a zillion paper cuts and it’s like the damn black scarf has flown out of the closet or off Karen-Karo’s neck and wrapped itself around my foot or my leg or my whole body, and I feel heavy and tired, dragging through the world like I’m waterlogged. On the worst days, the thankfully very few worst days, that horrible scarf is tied over my head and covering my eyes and shadowing everything I see. 

So that’s what it’s like to have black scarf depression. Now let’s talk about what it’s like to tackle kicking its ass back to the closet. I’m writing this to “you”, as in inclusive you, as in me and you and whoever is struggling out there. There’s more than a few of us. 

First off, you must know – you are right. The black scarf is wrong. You are right. The black scarf is wrong. Or, if the scarf is clouding your judgment and you’re starting to be like oh, wow, maybe I really AM a pathetic terrible – stop it. Stop it stopit no really just STAHP IT. The healthy, beautiful version of you and the people who love you are right, not the scarf and your temporarily scarf-addled brain. Knowing this, even when you can’t fully believe it, matters. 

I find my homegrown spin on the chutes and ladders game is a good way to break the doing down into bearable little pieces and reward yourself with some well-deserved being time as well. And YES, it is well deserved, because no matter what else you did or didn’t do today, you lived through a pandemic. And it seems to me, you’ve done a lot of that lately. Which is really pretty amazing, when you think about it. 

But please don’t just make this about a game board that you play all by your lonesome. Reach out to your people. Text. Call. Meet somebody for freezing outdoor coffee. Join a support group. Call in the professionals if you need ‘em. If you’re struggling and have been for a more than a few weeks, or if you’ve got even an inkling of harming yourself, please give therapy a try, traditional or online. Leave your shame about doing such a thing back in the 1950’s where it belongs. Good number to have in your phone just in case is 741741, the Crisis Text Line.

And speaking of brave – deep breath, everyone – there is a holiday coming up that celebrates love, upon which I will lobby till my dying day that we need to be celebrating ALL love for EVERYONE in our lives. Everyone who doesn’t have a fairy-tale perfect romantic relationship in your life – which is probably just about everyone – could use some extra love on V-Day. Which is also a great way to stuff the black depression scarf back where it belongs….celebrate an inclusive Valentine’s Day. Which you can do by sending old-fashioned Valentines or making treats for your beloveds or just spending V-Week texting and calling all the people you love to let them know you care about them. 

You could also do something hilarious and fun and borderline obnoxious for Valentine’s Day. Like give someone a really strange gift – pantomime lessons? Taxidermied animal? Copy of the Vagina Monologues for your conservative uncle? IN FACT, you could even form a weird gifts club and see who can get each other the strangest Valentine’s present!!! I don’t know about anybody else, but I think I just found my favorite new coping mechanism. 

Happy Valentine’s Day, friends. I hope this weird little ramble makes you chuckle and helps put your black scarves back in the closet. And if you wind up playing the strange gifts game, or otherwise celebrating your beloveds inclusive-Valentine’s style, you are marvelous. Let me know in the comments! 

P.S. See the lines in this painting below? They’re fur. Because it was MADE BY A CAT.

You’re welcome.