As preparation for tonight, I re-binge watched the first five seasons of HBO’s Game of Thrones. Have you ever noticed how many candles they use? I mean, my God, the candle budget alone! But seriously, I am wondering why, when I barely have enough time to return a text message, why did I make room for 50 hours of tv viewing? There is no doubt something for everyone in this series, which is part of its genius. So what does it do for me? Watching all of these people waging gruesome civil war, revealing their pathologies along the way. What are they fighting for any way? Well, to reign on the Iron Throne of course. And in case you didn’t know, the Iron Throne was forged from the surrendered swords of 1000 soldiers way back before the Mad King was ever slain by the King Slayer. It’s ironic (ha!), the most revered, desired and seemingly indomitable throne was created from the act of acquiescence.

Surely there is a lesson somewhere in there for me- my version of a 1000 sword throne. I think you have to be a strong person to surrender. It takes courage to relinquish the ideal you were originally striving for. The scene that flashes across the screen is the moment I was nearing the end of labor with my first son. My plan of course had been to ace labor and delivery. I had watched a 24 hour marathon of TLC’s A Baby Story in preparation. I was genetically set up to excel at birth. My mother had delivered nine full-term babies with not an ounce of pain relief or complication. I was the almost exception to her perfect stats. She likes to tell me that I was the one that was vacuumed and forcepped, who refused to come. The doctor was ready with the knife, but I finally yielded. At the last moment, this 9lb sputtering and screaming baby girl called me made her way into the world. Now here I was 28 years later and over 24 hours into my own hellish baby story. My blood sugar levels had plummeted, I was vomiting every few minutes (the epidural relieved the pain and gave me intense nausea), and I had been pushing for what felt like days. My doctor came close to my face, her hand stroked my wet hair and she whispered in my ear without judgment or urgency, “Do you want to keep pushing or do you want me to go get him?” I literally had no strength left. My son was in no hurry. I gave myself permission to surrender. As it turns out, the minute I said, “Yes, please go get him,” tears running down my face, I felt an incredible wave of peace, my strength had come back to me. And he was delivered, all 9.8 lbs of him, by c-section, 15min later. How often does this happen in life, how often do we allow a stronger self to emerge as a result of letting go of our original plan?

 My near thirty year saga with depression has the same core theme, will I fight or surrender? I don’t like pitting these against each other. There are many things I have done and continue to do to fight this illness, to keep depression’s ugly head chopped off and on a spike. Surrendering is the one that makes the least sense. Doesn’t that mean giving up? My fight with depression feels like a Game of Therapies. Ask anyone who has struggled with major depressive disorder or chronic depression, “What have you done to beat it?” First that person should punch you in the face for asking such an asinine question. But I promise you the list will be long. Likely there are numerous medications that have been tried, hopefully at least one or two have worked, body therapies, major life changes, relationship adjustments, dietary shifts, spiritual explorations, multiple counseling attempts to uncover all the dark layers, light therapy, exercise and supplements to name a few! My exhaustive efforts have given me an impressive accumulation of wins, wins that have offered an extensive measure of valuable change. I have much more cognitive fluidity god dammit! But before I knew I had depression, when I felt my worst, when exercise and dissociation wasn’t doing the trick, I would open up my journal and write. It worked pretty well. I could feel completely collapsed on the inside and when I picked up a pen, and put a few words on paper something shifted.

Depression is like those bloody White Walkers, springing back to life with menacing blue eyes when you think you’ve killed it. It’s crazy-making and scary! This is why surrendering feels like a death sentence. But I’m starting to think of surrendering in a different light, a comrade instead of an enemy. What if it means time to give something new a try? There is no one answer to depression. In my life, depression kind of looks like the hideous side of Game of Thrones, a multi-waged, almost can’t look, battle of failures and triumphs, with hundreds of characters in play. Writing feels like the great surrender, stop fighting so hard and write my psyche urges! I’m semi-in-touch with the strength that I feel from the writing process, but it doesn’t necessarily usher me into the Red Keep and onto the Iron Throne. Maybe I haven’t relinquished enough swords. But with each effort I make to express my inner world, I allow a different me to emerge. Depression is more insidious than my first association to labor and delivery. It doesn’t end with a cute baby! But damn, it can break a person down in the same helpless way, crush the perception we have of ourselves, the way we want others to think about our strength.

When I choose to write as a way out, I sort of feel like Daenerys Targaryen on her wounded dragon flying out of the pit of death at the end of last season. You see it in her face when she realizes the dragon is her only option. But she must approach him, command him to fly, and risk not knowing where she will end up when she gets on his back. And so here I am. It’s the opening of a new season, and I’m setting out to see what happens when I surrender to the part of me that says speak your voice and write. I’m trusting when I lay my sword down and pick up a pen, new strengths will emerge, readying me for the darkness that lurks in the distance.