Yon Rickles read the advertisement twice.
Crystal Enterprises seeks adventurous people to take guided treks into their traumatized inner self and return with details that will be shaped into a ceremonial dance for community use.
Yon thought about the traumatized inner self, not sure what the phrase meant. Did his depression qualify as an inner traumatized self? He didn’t like thinking about his depression, it was like putting on a wet, heavy coat. He stood up, moved around. Moving helped, sometimes, to keep the creeping depression at a manageable distance. He liked the idea of his experience being ceremonial, somehow. He wondered how that would look. He decided to inquire further.
The following Saturday he showed up at the local community college where he was supposed to meet the people from Crystal Enterprises. Somewhere during the night, the heavy, wet coat found a way around his body. He woke drowning in the wetness. He immediately got up and went through his morning warm-up, His therapist had helped him design it. Visualizing the depression as one big boulder threatening to crush him, he ran through a movement sequence of getting the boulder out of the way. As long as he focused on seeing the depression as a boulder, he was able to keep it from coming any closer and get breakfast.
Finding Room 205, Yon paused before entering to smooth his hair with sweaty palms. Inside the room, there was a simple, wooden desk and a man seated behind it in a chair. He stood with a warm smile and extended his hand. “You must be Yon. Have a seat,” he added, gesturing at a comfortable chair with sturdy armrests. “Here are a few questions to answer.” He handed Yon a piece of paper on a clipboard. “If you don’t know the answer, don’t sweat it.”
Yon sat and answered the first three questions easily.
What is your name?
What are your email address and cell number?
What is your gender pronoun preference?
The next question gave him pause.
What is an emotional challenge you deal with on an average day?
His depression reshaped from a boulder into the heavy, wet coat. He felt it touch his shoulders and flexed both arms to shrug it off. He wrote down, “Depression.”
Do you feel there is value in the time you spend in your inner dark places?
Yon didn’t. He didn’t want to be there, felt miserable when he descended into the toxic vat of depression, and many times he feared he would never make it back. “No,” he wrote. The final question surprised him.
Would you like your story to be helpful to others going through a similar experience?
Yon couldn’t see how this would come about. He felt defeated. There was no value in depression. He wanted to be a happy person, one of the many people he envied who led upstanding lives, who were well-liked, loved, people who brought value to the community. He left the question blank and handed the clipboard to the man behind the desk who read Yon’s answers without comment. He looked at Yon, his expression warm and caring, welcoming. “You have four to five thoughts per second.” He smiled in a way that shaped the words as an invitation to be curious. “When we guide you into your depression, you will want to be in shape to catch and empty your thoughts. Visualize your thoughts as something physical. Like raindrops, small blocks of wood, something tangible. What do your thoughts resemble?”
Caught off guard, Yon considered the question. “I guess little blocks of wood is good for now.”
Picking up a mug from the table, the man said, “At home, this week, practice visualizing your thoughts coming down.” He held up the mug and caught four distinct thoughts before smoothly emptying the mug of thoughts over his shoulder, holding it out again to catch more. “It’s important,” he emphasized without raising alarm, “to spend time adding details to your visualized thoughts and to feel their accumulated weight filling your cup. When it’s full, empty and fill again. Explore getting buried. Dig yourself out and start all over again.” The man smiled and gave him a piece of paper with a Emptying Thoughts checklist on it. “Next week will be a brief guided depression tour, after which we will identify some details from your trek and start designing your Depression Story Dance that you will be leading at a community gather.”
Startled, Yon spoke aloud. “What do you mean, I’ll be leading? What is a story dance, anyway?”
“What is one of the significant characteristics of your depression?”
Yon reddened slightly, felt sullenness creep over him. He shrugged, but the way the man looked at him, welcoming him to share his experience, he said, “When it’s really bad, it’s like a wet, heavy cloak. I become incapable of moving. It’s all I can do to just suck in air and let it out.”
“Your Depression Story Dance will start with emptying thoughts, progress to shrugging off the cloak, to be weighed down by it, to being trapped and overwhelmed, to shedding the cloak and stepping free.” The man demonstrated the simple movements again, this time without narrative. “What do you think? That could be the ceremonial story dance that you lead others in. Everyone gets out from underneath depression together, even if it is just for a moment.”
Yon felt overfull as if he had eaten way too much. He left the room and walked home, considering what he had learned. It did make sense on some level. Instead of talking about being depressed, intentionally doing the depression dance with others could be a healing experience. He felt a spike of hope, a glimpsed vision of the wet, heavy cloak slipping away, feeling the joy of daring to stand free of the persecution.
At home, he selected his favorite mug, a dark blue glaze with his name written in his nephew’s handwriting. He visualized his thoughts, small wood blocks that plinked lightly into his mug. He filled and emptied his mug, filled and emptied. The checklist recommended doing the exercise to music, something lively. He selected Bob Marley Get Up Stand Up. He had fun embellishing on his methods of filling the mug. He didn’t muster the courage to allow the thoughts to bury him, but at least he kept on top of getting them emptied!
The next Saturday, eager to show off his newly acquired skills, Yon showed up at Room 25 fifteen minutes early. The desk and chairs had been pushed to the side, leaving the room open, an expanse of polished wood and abundant light. Just the opposite of depression, Yon thought. . The man and a woman welcomed Yon, explained they would be guiding him for the next hour. Yon told them the song he had worked with, and the man brought it up on the computer. They formed a triangle, ceremoniously raised their air mugs in salute, then each of them followed the song in their own way, filling and emptying their mugs. It wasn’t quite what Yon had expected. He had imagined he would be doing the movement alone. Now he realized he had envisioned having an audience, that he would be performing. Instead, he, the man and the woman, joined together in a common experience.
“I think I understand how doing a Depression Story Dance with others could be powerful,” he said when the song ended. “I think the worst part about depression is feeling so alone when I’m there.” His breath went shallow and guarded as he spoke the truth of the experience.
The woman nodded eagerly. “And, when you are leading the community in your Depression Story Dance, you won’t be teaching them. You will be joining them and they will be joining you. We forget that we are not alone.”
The three of them broke the wet, heavy blanket experience down into significant steps; from it first settling around his shoulders to completely enveloping him to him shedding it all together. With yet another checklist in hand, he went home. That week he dared to allow the thoughts to pile all around him until he had to resort to digging himself out. It felt kind of good, he admitted to himself. At least better than being crushed, incapable of breathing. He spent time with his air cloak. He visualized it dry, lighter and more manageable. He visualized it slowly soaking up, getting heavier. He observed his anxiety increase. The cloak got heavier, it pushed him to the floor. Lying there, Yon closed his eyes and felt a deep longing to just let go. To let death have him so he would not have to struggle anymore. He fell asleep, and when he woke several hours later he felt confused. Remembering the cloak, he visualized it was dry once more and he carefully took it off, folded it and put it at the bottom of his closet.
The following Saturday the three of them warmed up together. This time the man selected the music. Sam Cooke A Change Is Gonna Come. Yon felt the soulful voice somewhere in his chest, and the promise of better times, beyond hardship, brought tears to his eyes. Then he showed them the cloak story dance he had put together that week. The woman selected Frank Sinatra and Count Basie Pennies From Heaven, and Yon found the strength, once he was overwhelmed, to make tiny movements like a baby bird working up the coordination to fly. And, for a moment, standing and throwing the cloak off, aware of the man and the women in their own cloak throes, he did feel close to flying.
