LOVE AS MY STRENGTH
A Journal Entry

Andrew Moore

Three years ago I was diagnosed with clinical depression—but I had been suffering from depression long before then. I was a junior in college when I was diagnosed, and my life finally started to make some sense; just knowing what was wrong instead of not understanding why I felt the way I did was such a relief.

Looking back, I think my symptoms started when I was a sophomore in high school, when I couldn’t handle the guilt of not being perfect or being everything for everyone. I wanted to be Superman for them and thought I could be. Trying to do this put me in a tremendously drained physical and emotional state. I didn’t realize that then; I thought it was good to focus on other people’s problems and be there for them—but to hide myself so I wouldn’t be a burden to others.

This summer I took a trip to Ecuador, to study some Spanish and travel around getting to know the world and myself. Along the way I continued to e-mail back and forth with my counselor (who has pretty much saved my life). I kept coming back to the fact that I didn’t know how to connect to this world and how to understand spirituality. She encouraged and forced me to keep looking at myself and question what I knew and what was constant.

Through working at this, I discovered that love has been the one constant in my life. With her questions in mind, I wrote what has become this article in my journal. While writing I realized I could not do my living on my own. I need my family, community, and spirituality to survive and thrive. I need my story to be part of my life with them and the larger world, not hidden. So here goes.

I don’t want to stop the pain and feelings; I’m tired of shutting down. I do it so often. How do I keep myself from doing it? I know how to turn myself off and make myself dead to the world, feeling neither pain nor happiness; now I need to figure out how to stop it. I’m hoping that takes me one step closer to understanding how I work and who I would be if I could keep from shutting down. But how does one discipline oneself to allow hurt to run its course, when that is perceived to be the necessary and good step to take?

For the first time in a long time I find myself wanting to fight the deadness. I remember trying to find the nothingness, wanting it, needing it. Anything to escape the way I felt—I wanted to feel dead so I wouldn’t have to go any farther than just feeling dead.

But now I want to fight. To fight to feel. To live. Does this mean I am generally happy or have finally seen the light at the end of the tunnel? That I can handle, even enjoy, the sadness of being alone, missing my family, girlfriend, friends? Does this mean I can manage not understanding myself?

I remember not being able to handle the pain anymore and wanting an out, any kind of out. Although I could never bring myself to committing suicide, it was not so long ago that death was a real option for me. But the love of others for me has always been too strong to let me go all the way. The love of my parents, family, friends, and even my dog Simon. Love is the answer for me. Relationships are what have kept me alive.

If love is my greatness strength, what is my greatness weakness? Since love is such an emotional, physical, and mental bond, is being dead and feeling nothing my weakness? To not be able to feel has been my biggest problem. Trying to handle the suffering of anyone or anything is so hard for me that sometimes it seems the only way answer is to turn all emotions off. But I can’t—if I’m ever going to understand, I need to feel.

So how do I keep feeling? How do I hang on to my emotions? Do I allow or force myself to indulge in my sadness and cry or ache in my heart? My heart aches for people so much and so often that it is so hard not to turn off the pain. But the pain is good and necessary. You need to feel the pain so you can come back from it and appreciate your happiness when it comes.

But just feeling pain isn’t enough. Where do I go with it? It means too little if I keep it to myself or am not active with it in some way. I need to do something with it: be it researching poverty in Ecuador, doing what I can to help get kids off the street corners where they sell gum all day and into schools; donating money; helping with a brilliant "one laptop per child" program; or even showing this article to people so that someone who may feel as I have might find in this a bit of hope.

Back to love. The only thing I come close to understanding is love . . . all kinds of love:

• my girlfriend—a happy present and future love;

• my dog—a playful childhood-and-fun love;

• my parents and grandparents—an appreciative, grateful, and respectful love;

• traveling—an excitement love;

• siblings—an is-and-always-will-be-type of love;

• friends—an equal-enjoyment-in-every way love;

• myself—the most difficult love, but a love marked by respect and understanding;

• God—an all-these-things-and-more Love.

I am sharing this journal writing with people out of curiosity; what reactions will it bring about? In me? In others? I hope it will provoke different thoughts and emotions in me. I also hope it may comfort those who feel alone or like I do. There is so much I don’t know or understand. But I hope this journal will take me in new directions and toward fresh understandings.

With love, Andrew Moore.

—Andrew Moore, Harrisonburg, Virginia, works at Rosetta Stone’s Institutional Technical Support, which is sending him to India to learn how to train other tech workers.