Birdsnests

When hopelessness and sadness get all tangled up

Every.damn.time. I mean every damn time I attempted a cast I wound up with a massive birdsnest - a tangle of fishing line unspooled into a chaotic Gordian knot that defied the laws of physics. Birdnests bring your reel to an immovable stop. You can’t reel in or strip line out. How could something get so out of sorts so gotdamned quickly? It wasn’t that I didn’t know how to fish, I’d been doing that since I was too young to bait my own hook. It’s just that the rod and reel combos my dad had brought for this particular trip were new to me. These open faced Ambassador casting reels were possessed as far as I could figure, a demonic assemblage designed to destroy any hope of catching fish. They functioned to crush ego, aspiration and ruin the relationship of those fishing together. What I couldn’t figure out was what kind of deal my dad had cut with Satan that allowed him to throw them flawlessly, never once even sniffing a tangle. Adding to the pressure was the fact that we were fishing a pristine lake in the remote mountains of Western Mexico and the fish were biting like they’d never seen a lure before. It was beautiful and very, very far from anywhere I might get my hands on another type of fishing setup. I was stuck. 

So my dad is in the front of the boat, seeming to catch a fish on every cast and I’m in the back sweating and cussing and trying to untangle my latest misadventure in casting. It takes a split second to get a birdnest and can take a half hour to untangle one. At first my dad would offer instruction and encouragement, then moved to frustrated sighs and finally he took to casting and then handing me his rod and while I was reeling it in, working to untangle my mess. There in the boat that day we worked through all five stages of fishing frustration: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance (yeah, I know those are technically the stages of grief, but they work well in other situations too). We even added an additional stage at the end - obstinate bleak humor - the kind that comes when the situation gets so bad the only thing to do is laugh. 

That trip came to mind, along with the image of those godforsaken birdsnests, when I read the following from Brene Brown’s book Atlas of the Heart about despair. Despair, she writes, “is a sense of hopelessness about a person’s entire life and future. When extreme hopelessness seeps into all the corners of our lives and combines with extreme sadness, we feel despair.” 

The words resonated intellectually with what I was trying to understand about my current state of being, but the image of that impossibly tangled up Ambassador reel was at the emotional heart of how I felt. 

About a year ago I was diagnosed with depression. The diagnosis was a relief (ah, there’s a name for this), a wake up call (this is not normal) and scary as shit.  But it was a life line to a sinking man. The cumulative grief I’d experienced in my life, exacerbated by significant hits in recent years from a traumatic Church fallout, COVID, my dad’s death and the collective weight of caring for so many people who were facing similar pain finally reached a tipping point. 

I’ve been plenty sad in my life before, and with good reason, but even in the darkest time I’d been able to hold onto, or let others effectively hold onto, hope. 

This was different. Starting in the fall of 2022, as the world was finally turning the tide of COVID with the vaccine and people yearning for a return to some kind of “normal” I was losing the ability to find a hopeful foothold. Now every blow landed with no defense. That hopelessness did indeed slowly seep into every part of my life. In all those places it got tangled up with sadness creating the mother of all emotional birdsnests and I had no one to hand my rod to so they could untangle it for me. Outwardly this wasn’t obvious, the biggest sign was the dramatic drop off in miles I was biking. That might have been the biggest sign, I couldn’t muster the energy to do one the the things I enjoy most in life. But because of the ability to still outwardly function at a reasonable level, I wasn’t able to really understand what was happening. Obviously, neither was anyone else. 

Until, that is, my primary care Doctor compared my numbers with those of the previous year. They told a different story and after some really good questions, the diagnosis was obvious. He prescribed meds. 

I have a unique favor to ask. Tomorrow, April 4 is the annual NWA Day of Giving. This is an important day for the Abide Collective, Olivia’s Basket and a whole bunch of nonprofits in the area. I’d love it if you would consider helping us reach our goal for this event. Click on the button below for info. Thanks y’all

I balked. As much as I have supported every measure to address mental health issues for others, and have myself regularly seen a counselor, this seemed like a defeat. Fortunately I was quickly able to overcome such thoughts and filled the script. For about 2 months, nothing, couldn’t tell a thing. Then one day something gave way, a thread, if you will, that led to some untangling. I caught myself feeling strange and as I considered what the feeling was, I realized I was happy. I hadn’t really felt that in a very long time. I told people at the time it was like after months of being pulled just beneath the surface of the water and struggling to come up for air before being pulled down again, I could finally hold my chin above the water line. 

It’s not that everything was suddenly easy or that I was happy all the time, but I began to find those hopeful footholds again and could feel the momentum changing. 

The meds alone didn’t do it, but they played a critical role along with physical, spiritual and relational habits that slowly got back on track. I also realize that my diagnosis was “mild” and for so many I know and love, the meds have nominal, if any, affect. I want to be clear that the current mental health crisis we are facing as a society can’t be fixed with such relative speed. 

But what I do want to encourage everyone here who may be suffering, recognized or not, from depression is get help. There are just some birdnests that can’t be untangled alone.

I have one of those Ambassador reels on a shelf now, the one in the image at the top. I can actually cast with one fairly decently these days, though nothing close to the way dad did. It’s stripped of all its line now,(having it sit there with a giant birdsnest would be a bit masochistic) but still serves as a good reminder of how hopelessness can get all knotted up with sadness and how we all need help getting untangled. 

Grace and peace y’all