A Depressive’s Ode to Bed

Depression or mono?

I took a nap every afternoon for the first 30-plus days of lockdown. There were a few Mondays in a row where I couldn’t physically be awake from 4:00 to 8:00 p.m., even when I wanted to be. I don’t know what it was about Mondays, especially because time warped so quickly in those early days of quarantine. How did my body even know what day it was? All the indicators of what made a Sunday a Sunday and a Friday a Friday were suddenly gone. No matter how, curiously like clockwork, a full-body wave of exhaustion would latch on and force me under the covers. 

I convinced myself I was catching up on decades’ worth of sleep deprivation, which I still don’t not believe. There’s some truth to that. Avoidance, anxiety and the novelty of sleeping in the middle of the day in my mid-30s must have contributed too. It felt like playing hooky on my own life. It didn’t feel like other long stretches I’ve had in bed though.

Those indulgent naps unearthed long-standing love/hate feelings I’ve had with being in bed. Bed can mean the best, sleeping and sex, and bed can mean the worst, sickness and sadness. Bed can be a comfort, a luxury, a reprieve, a friend, an enemy and an enabler. Which was it this time? 

My friend Ben and I joke, “depression or mono?” when we’re in bed at unreasonable hours. At one point pre-quarantine, which feels like at least a decade ago, there was an actual question of which one of those I had. Mono, probably not. Depression, definitely. 

When I was 10 years old, I spent three weeks straight in bed, the darkest April of all. Bed became home base for baby’s first bout of depression. Nothing in particular happened to put me in bed, but lots of things happened to put me in bed. So my little 10-year-old body, still with baby teeth, adopted a power down mode. 

Instead of learning long division or playground politics, I studied the art of fake deaths and babies switched at birth. All My Children was on at 11:00, the Days of Our Lives hourglass will always be synonymous with noon, the 1:00 hour flipping between One Life to Live and As The World Turns was the most boring, but General Hospital at 2:00 was worth the wait.

Lucky had just died. (So everyone thought. Characters are rarely dead dead on soaps.) Luke and Laura were devastated. Sonny and Carly were on-and-off, which I wouldn’t be surprised to learn if they still are. Then I only had to wait one more hour until Oprah. During commercial breaks I’d suffocate myself under the covers, hoping to overheat my body and ignite a fever. Maybe that’d explain to my mother why I couldn’t get out of bed. 

I left bed only to shuffle to the fridge or get dragged to a doctor’s office, where they poked me with so many needles my inner elbow turned purple. As a kid, did you ever give yourself a hickey on your arm? That’s what mine looked like from the blood draws. I remember thinking the adults around me were clueless, and if they only looked and listened they would know I was sick in a different way. All I needed was for someone to ask, “Do you feel sad?” No one did.

Much of the next two years were spent in bed. I passed fifth and sixth grade anyway. 

After all those blood tests, someone – maybe a doctor, maybe my parents – told me I probably had mono. The “depression or mono?” joke, but sadder and 20-some years earlier. 

That power down mode is trapped in my nervous system and still shows up for duty a couple times a year. I consume fewer calories, I take slower breaths, I use fewer resources to stay somewhat alive. It’s both the most and the least I can do in those moments.  

In March, when the excessive napping began, I told my therapist I was nervous about spending so much time in bed. I wasn’t feeling depressed, but I couldn’t understand why my body insisted on being in bed so much if I wasn’t. I was scared I could summon a depressive state with muscle memory. 

“It’s my sad place,” I said. 

“What else can your bed be?” she suggested.

A bed rebrand, if you will. Instead of seeing it as a vortex of despair, which is only true some days of the many days of a year, maybe I could retrain my brain to think of bed differently. I’m supported. My feet are warm. I feel rested. I’m safe here. I’m trying. It’s helping. 

My daily naps have stopped. Maybe I finally made up for my sleep deficit. Maybe it’s the Wellbutrin.  

Reading materials:

Something I wrote: What I’d give to have a bucket of Sweet Martha’s cookies in my lap right now. A sweet consolation prize: I wrote the copy for Sweet Martha’s brand new website. Cute, huh? 

Something I did not write: If you or anyone within arm’s reach of you suffers from depression (all of us?), bookmark Tips for the Depressed. It’s rational, brass tacks advice on how to get out of bed, pass the time, pay bills and stay alive when the darkness washes over. 

Something I wish I wrote: from My God, Crispin Best (2019)

you have no idea
of the distances i would travel
just to disappoint you

i will even wear a fashionable shoe
my god
just watch me

another? you ask
go ahead you say

and another?

no that’s too many shoes

Pretty sure the next installment of Night Vision won’t be so sad, but no promises.

See you back here soon,
Megan

Images: Étretat Interior, 1920, Henri Matisse // The Pierre Jeanneret daybed, 1960, via Quiet Studios // Antalya, Turkey,⁠ photographed by Alice Grigoriadi⁠