Sydney leaves me depressed and lonely – and in summer it is worse
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Version 0 of 1. Broadsheet recently published an article, brilliantly written by Jonathan Seidler, about depression in the summer months. The article could not have hit me at a better time. I was struggling to be productive and often getting caught up in insignificant moments of error. Playing them in my mind over and over again, I was stuck. My partner had read the article and shared it with me. When I opened it, I was lying in bed in my underwear much like the stock photo that came with the article. I know this feeling too well, if you close your eyes and pretend to sleep, somehow it feels better, and eventually you do fall asleep. When you wake up, you can only hope your head is clearer. I had spent the day in and out of bed, replying to non-urgent emails and avoiding the urgent ones. I had recently finished up a full-time job and was working for myself. I had enough money to not work for a whole year, yet I felt this urge to keep working, because the moment I stopped, everything would come undone. As Seidler says, there is a non urgency to summer, everyone slows down, everyone is having a good time. Everyone it seems but me. So I have to keep productive, or I would realise, there is little point to my life. For someone who grew up in the tropics, you’d think I’d have a great appreciation for the sun and the sand. Winter can be miserable, rain, wind, cold and bathroom mould. To me however, winter is the perfect representation of my mind, to have what is inside so vividly manifested outside is cathartic. In summer, I am so not in sync. Bambalapitiya, a suburb in Colombo, where I grew up till 11, never got a winter, or any of the other three seasons for that matter. It was simply wet or dry, and late 20s to early 30s all year around. I don’t think I was ever got depressed in Bamba. I am very much depressed here. People have researched, written about and commonly accepted the term Sad (aka seasonally affected depression). Sad is something more commonly experienced in winter, and often in European countries where the sun may only stay out a few hours, and you are plunged into darkness for the rest. Sad is not something anyone would talk about in Sri Lanka. They would never talk about depression to begin with. I’m sure when my mother reads this article, she’ll roll her eyes and say, “If only he knew what a real problem is”. She had after all escaped a brutal civil war to bring her children here, and for all the stories she’s recounted, she’d never seen a counsellor. I am not her, nor am I a Sri Lankan any longer. I may be an asylum seeker but I was also a child with little understanding of the politics of borders. I am an Australian, and in the openness and self-exploration of my western mind, Sad can hit anytime. As with Seidler, it hits me in summer but I know my Sad needs a few more acronyms to describe its true self. I wonder if there is a term for a displaced child migrant, whose parents told him he was going on a holiday to visit a relative, only to find himself enrolled in a Sydney school a month later. There has to be a word for someone who finds themselves permanently planted in a new field, where the weather and conditions are so different. Like a tree uprooted in its prime, the adjustment can take a while, and new roots do eventually develop. My parents like the best of gardeners, with the best of intentions, took all the care in the transplantation. As adults they would have experienced much greater trauma, but as adults they also knew themselves. There’s something about an adolescent, an openness, a willingness for change, a space where it could all go wrong. I should have established my roots much to be healthier and stronger but, like the mango tree my father has been nursing for years, I was easily susceptible to my environment, and boy was it harsh. You see, this theory of establishing strong roots works under the assumption that there is an acceptance from the field that you are transplanted in. For me, there never has been, and it’s never more acute than in a place like Potts Point, where, I, a person of colour, or better termed “brown” person, walk the crowded but emotionally void streets of Sydney’s most dense and overwhelmingly white suburb. This density is impossible to penetrate. For all the numbers packed tightly in here, in wealth and bodies, accessibility to the human heart is as difficult as thick muddy soil, dried up from a severe drought. Feelings of guilt rise up as I am writing this, especially as my partner will be reading it. He will take on the burden of my loneliness, but it is neither his fault, nor my friends. When I was better, I went on regular runs around the neighbourhood. I remember ecstatically sharing with my mother, how wonderful it was to go for a jog and end up with a view of the Opera House, next to Mrs Macquarie’s Chair. The view will probably always remain breathless, and I am often breathless by the time I get to this point. I am also incredibly lonely. Maybe this is the condition of every Sydneysider, and this is the plague of a big city? This isn’t exclusive to my suburb, and really is Newtown any better? Maybe I was spoilt in Colombo. A city of over half a million, so small in comparison. I would feel like a fool on these runs, as I attempted to make eye contact with every passerby. Needless to say, no one would look at me. Ever. Well that would not be true. At the risk of racialising this account, it is often the occasional “brown” person who looks, and nods. A sense of acknowledgment, “you are not alone here brother, I am alone too.” There is the occasional old lady, the occasional child. The adult in his or her prime rarely connects. There is also the occasional, homeless person, junkie, a mentally ill person, who unable to control their social skills will utter words, noises and actions of reach. Sometimes they are daft, like “hey, where do you get an air mattress in your country?” and other times it’s gentle and soul saving. There is a man who I run past every time, he sits alone on his balcony in the shade. He lives in a block of apartments in Woolloomooloo. Every morning, he feeds pigeons by the droves. He places the food all over the balcony and on himself. The hungry birds flock to the convenience of crumbed bread. When I run past most mornings, he is covered in pigeons, his entire body dressed in a moving outfit of feathered friends. On some occasions, he sees me running past, a moment of distraction from his avian obsession. On these occasions, he always smiles at me, and out of these occasions, sometimes he even finds the capacity to lift his arm and wave at me. In that exact moment I find happiness. My heart surges like a engine revving. He is the bolt of lightning, followed closely by the thunder in my heart, then the emotional outpouring. I would be so ecstatic, I would always smile and wave back. I think he sees me when I do, sometimes though, there is this tree that shields my face briefly as I run past. If I don’t time my wave and smile right, it happens behind this tree and I’m convinced he cannot see it. In these moments, I am overcome with anxiety. So much so, that I think about running back and waving. I never do though, I am too embarrassed. I control my behaviour, to fit in with everyone else in my surroundings. My depression is an isolation, it’s a loneliness that comes with feeling my skin, my dress, my wants and needs are out of step with everyone near. A feeling that, no matter what you do to belong, you’ll never find your true self. That somehow this self, fell through the vast gap between Colombo and Sydney, or Sri Lanka and Australia. So I suppress myself into model behaviour, I seduce myself into fitting in and feeling better. A mango tree can never bear apples, but I am trying, and one day I just might produce the most amazing fruit. • For support and information about depression, contact Beyond Blue on 1300 22 4636 in Australia |