The Smell of Depression

I decided last week that if I could find my signature scent I could stave off death. By death, I don't mean the big one, but little daily deaths: the meaninglessness, nothingness, and feelings of disintegration that are symptoms of my depression. Sometimes I am able to forget that I have depression. Unfortunately, depression doesn't usually forget me.

After a day spent scouring the perfume shops of New York City for a scent that would make me a whole person, purse laden with samples of Mojave Ghost, Thé Noir, Black Orchid, Sensual Orchid, Lipstick On, Beach Walk, Tobacco Vanilla, Champaca, Portrait of a Lady, Carnal Flower, Santal Carmin, Dior Addict, Love In White, Gypsy Water, Eau Duelles and What We Do In Paris Is Secret, I suddenly felt the urge to throw all of them in the trash.

I engage in these obsessive hunts in order to avoid feeling my feelings. But in the end it's the hunt that distracts me from the void and not the hunted thing itself. Once I acquire the objects that promise to be a panacea, they just sort of rattle around in the abyss.

Also, the notion of a "signature" anything is an illusion, as though the multitudes a person contains could ever really be branded. As though branding isn't just the narcissism of small differences in a species that hurts one another over religious, cultural, and philosophical differences, but in the end is pretty much just one big annoying person.

Perfume samples aside, I'll engage in practically any compulsive behavior to escape the depression I forget that I have: sexting, internet attention-seeking, dating apps, food restriction, food rituals, and in the old days, drugs and alcohol. It would be great if any of these things ever worked in the long term. But the reality is that the moment I secure a hit from any of them, a flash of dopamine or serotonin, I only need more of them to feel OK.

Years ago, when I was getting sober off of drugs and alcohol, I learned the old adage "feelings aren't facts." I came to say it to myself, and discovered that it was true. A bad feeling didn't mean that an entire day had to be ruined. I could restart my day at any time by making a conscious choice to do so. This didn't necessarily mean eradicating the feeling itself. But it meant knowing that what I was experiencing was just that—a feeling—and is, by nature, fleeting.

I also came to discover that just because I didn't feel high, ecstatic, entertained, excited, or profound bliss, that didn't mean that a day sucked. A day could sometimes just be a day, an hour just an hour. I became more able to cope with and tolerate things that felt boring, neutral, or even unpleasant, like going to the dentist or getting the mail. There was a certain excitement, even, in my growing ability to just let life be life, without having to chemically alter myself to make it more special and/or tolerable.

But it's not always possible to recognize that a feeling is just a feeling. The depression that underlies my desire to escape continues to shapeshift, and it's clever. The depression speaks to me in declaratives that appear to be facts. It says, "everything is shit," "you're fucked," "you're shit," and "it's going to be like this forever." And the anxiety, from which I have sought refuge in everything from Sephora to sexting to street drugs, declares that feelings are indeed facts and that every bad feeling is going to kill me.

It seems like I've divided my feelings into categories, the way that one might do with fragrance types: floral, citrus, earthy, smoky, gourmand, spicy. Like my taste in fragrances, I perceive my feeling-groups as delicious or disgusting. There are the good feelings: joy, anticipation, peace, bliss. There are the bad feelings: sadness, anger, boredom, fear.

But are these "bad" feelings truly bad? Is it the "bad" feelings themselves that I find so torturous or is it the narrative I construct around them.

Aquilaria trees secrete a resin called oud when they are attacked by a parasitic mold. Oud has an overpowering scent, designed to protect the tree from the invasive bacteria. What if these feelings of mine are like a pure, stinky oud? Necessary, powerful, deep and interesting in their own rights? Over the past few years, synthetic ouds have become trendy notes in commercial perfumes, as synthetic sadness can also be commodified.

The narrative around my feelings that frightens me the most is the idea of permanence. Sometimes I'm afraid that if I allow myself to just feel a "bad" feeling, rather than trying to escape it, I'm going to get stuck in there forever. A common mantra for me, whether it's the drudgery of daily tasks or a swell of sadness, is Oh my god I'm going to be like this forever.

In thinking about this, I realize that nothing is forever. Good feelings, unfortunately, are not forever and bad feelings are not forever either. Like fragrances, they eventually dissipate. They may come back multiple times within a day—within an hour even—but they ebb, flow and shapeshift. Like complex perfumes, the longer we sit with them the more we can see their facets.

I always complain about feelings. I feel like I have too many and I say that I want to be numb. But the truth is that a world without a range of feelings is a world without depth. The oud that smells so bitter on its own lends a rose fragrance more dimension. I am inclined to want to always be high, and for everything to always be sweet. I wish my signature scent was vanilla, or some shit. But vanilla can be so cloying on its own. I'm really a range of fragrances: some warm, some melancholic, some flowering in the abyss like night-blooming jasmine.

I didn't end up throwing out the fragrance samples. Like any good addict, I've even hoarded twenty more vials since then. But rather than trying to confine myself to that one, elusive signature scent, I'm wearing a different one every day.

Buy So Sad Today: Personal Essays on Amazon, and follow her on Twitter.