I recently survived a long period of depression. By a long period, I mean about eight months cause I am betting anyone that has ever experienced depression would agree that even a day-long of dealing with depression symptoms feels like forever.
After having met depression and spent this long period fighting it, observing it, learning from and about it, I can look back and identify some important things that happened in the evolution of my perception and awareness of what was and not helpful in the different stages.
I want to talk about smiling.
In the beginning, not only smiling became the most challenging muscle endeavor but felt completely unnecessary, painful, almost stupid. I tried to fake it for a while until it was well just too painful to bear. Then I hated happiness for a long while, as I hated creativity and innovation, and even argued that being happy was not an obligation, not a duty to fulfill for the sake of the rest of humanity; because it was so damn painful to find a smile where there were only tears, and fear, and loneliness and darkness… so sometimes it’s better to fight against than to surrender.
Slowly I stopped fighting and then accepted that I had the right (and this should be a legal right) to be sad; to have no intention at all to smile even if the external world demanded this specific society’s imposed attitude for “healthy” interaction between their individuals. At least this is the way I was raised in the culture I grew up in.
But then a certain feeling of envy started growing on me; I wish I were free from this pain as other humans walking on the street laughing out loud; I had been. But at the moment it just felt too long ago, like in a forgotten time where everything is rusty and dirty.
When the evolution out of this depression kept moving, I started to feel how some sparks of happiness began flowing to my face muscles, and they voluntarily were moving again. But the situation was very far from the glow that I once had, the fantastic ability to keep smiling no matter what. It seemed like I had lost it, and at this very moment, I kind of missed being able to experiment joy. At least I was now sure that there was no muscle atrophy.
I recognized out of my own experience that smiling is genuinely needed, not only for others but for yourself. After a long period of avoiding mirrors, when I came back to the reflection surface, I began to notice how my expression made me think about my depression, and how it did not help to see my frown face every day. I recalled how my son, when he was a baby, will be willing to copy all and every face movement that his dad or I would do close to his tiny eyes. Smiling was his favorite. And laughing was the winner.
I had no spontaneous intention to look in the mirror and smile to myself. Nor had the internal strength needed. So I decided to crack my system, using the simple tools I have known for so long: Post-it notes. I placed a post-it on the side of my bathroom mirror, which I had to see every day for at least two times a day: right after waking up and before bedtime. The post-it read: “I like you better when you smile.”
It helped, a lot, and I did begin faking it, but then my inner child slowly began copying my repeated smile in the mirror. Until one day came when I just read the paper and was already smiling. It worked because it was the right time for me to push myself to smile again. Please do not force anyone to smile when you need them to; it hurts. Everything in life has its own time and rhythm; smiling does too.
Today I was getting out of the shower and saw my Post-it again. I keep it there, with its fading color, because I want this little piece of paper to remind me of what I went through and the internal war I won with the loving help of my husband, the innocent patience of my son, and God’s governance in my heart.
But today it spoke differently to me; it said: “I like you better when you smile… but if you don’t, then what?”.
So I went to my desk, found another post-it note, and wrote… “but I love you either way.”
Alejandra Ruíz Gómez
Bogotá, Colombia
Noviembre 21, 2019