The Deepest Black

It’s not like one minute you’re fine and the next you’re depressed. You feel it coming. You can see it, smell it, even taste it. Like a black fog slowly enveloping you until it’s the only thing you can see. You can be all alone, a little drunk and in your feelings at 2:30am. You can be surrounded by friends at a birthday party at 2:30pm. Depression really doesn’t give a shit about you or how you were expecting your day to play out.

I remember the last time my world went dark. The lights were dim, the music was pounding, and the beer in my hand was the only thing cold in the place. 11:30pm in a country bar. Couples gliding past in perfect sync to the beat. Smiling, laughing, in love. Suddenly, I remembered just how alone I had been feeling the last few weeks… I gripped the beer even tighter and took a long pull.

Not today. No, no, no. That black fog rolled toward me across the bar. I’m here with my friends, they’re having a great time, *we’re* having a great time. This can’t happen right now. The fog snaked around the flurry of dancers circling their way around the dance floor. I broke away from my friends and found a spot to blend in to the crowd.

The cliche is true. About how the background noise fades into a dull buzz that permeates your consciousness. The fog was getting closer. I decided to fight back. With logic and a few thought redirections from my therapy sessions, surely I could outwit depression tonight. I needed to shake this off and go back to my friends.

I began my counterattack. Reason and objectivity and all the logic in the world were my weapons. It was working, the black fog was slowly retreating across the bar and the music began coming back in. But depression is an illusive enemy. It holds power over you that you don’t understand until it’s too late.

“You can be the best damn pilot who ever lived, but you’ll Never have the love, affection, and intimacy shared by Anyone in this bar”

Fuck.

With one thought, the fog rushed in and my world went dark. Tears welling up in my eyes, I was paralyzed. I wanted to leave, wanted to run. But my body wouldn’t respond. I was locked in this nightmare and no one was going to save me.

That thought raced through my mind again and again and again and again. You’ll never be enough, no matter how hard you try. My chest tightened. It hurt to breathe. That dark inner voice was unchained. Game over.

I hadn’t crashed that hard in a while. My last breakup was months before and I had been doing as well as I could expect. Weekly therapy sessions had been keeping me on the right track. That’s the frightening part about depression. You think you can identify all the primary triggers and as long as you can avoid them, you should be alright. But some days the planets align and you’re powerless to stop it.

I’m scared that… one day it’s going to happen on the road. That I’ll have an airplane and a customer that needs to be somewhere and I’m a blubbering mess. How do you tell the company and the customer that one crew member is essentially Incapacitated due to mental / emotional stress? Good luck hiding that episode from an AME.

I guess all I can do is continuously monitor my mental state, create positive outcomes, and develop better “break the glass” emergency procedures for my own psyche. I cannot allow my life to be dictated by the black fog of depression. Because no matter how high we fly and how fast we go, I’m never going to be able to outrun myself.