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Excerpted: Living Disability
In the new anthology Living Disability: Building Accessible Futures for Everybody (Coach House Books), 35 disabled writers lend their perspectives on how cities could be made more accessible and equitable for all to live in. Today, we share an excerpt from Corey Bialek’s “Minding the City”; read on.
An excerpt from “Minding the City” by Corey Bialek,
from Living Disability, edited by Emily Macrae
In September 2022, I was clinically diagnosed with double depression. Double depression refers to the coexistence of two forms of depression: persistent depressive disorder (PDD), also known as dysthymia, and major depressive disorder (MDD). It is a sum-is-greater-than-its-parts phenomenon that amplifies each disorder’s respective symptoms.
PDD feels like an unnamed darkness flickering in the corners of my mind. Not catastrophic, but not immaterial. Some call it a veil of sadness, a poetic turn of phrase used to describe a steady undercurrent of sadness, lethargy, and disinterest in daily activities. It is a psychological baseline of unbreaking melancholy characterized by an inescapable sense of merely existing – surviving rather than thriving.
At unpredictable intervals, this baseline is punctuated by major depressive episodes. These are catastrophic. The kind of flare-ups that render ‘normal’ obsolete: despair deepens, sadness swells, and energy evaporates. If PDD is a flicker, MDD is a supernova.
The combination of PDD’s veil of sadness with the acute episodes of MDD creates a challenging cycle of ups and downs, often leaving me feeling trapped and overwhelmed. The consequences of this cycle on my daily life are manifold. My relationships begin to decay as my ability to engage emotionally and maintain connections becomes strained. Social withdrawal becomes a tempting refuge, leading to a sense of isolation and loneliness. The capitalist markers of a ‘good citizen’ are also apt to wane, as my productivity and performance at work decline. I’ve often described this phenomenon as limited bandwidth, whereby my energy and focus slowly drain away. Altogether, the constant struggle against overwhelming sadness and exhaustion erodes my self-confidence and undermines personal goals and aspirations.
All these mental cogs – turning on and off, speeding up and slowing down – introduce acute challenges to navigating the city and its public spaces. Daily journeys, whether to the grocery store or the office, by foot or by transit, are laden with shifting emotional triggers. Public space has the capacity to compound existing mental health struggles, creating new pathways of suffering. Given that the experience of suffering-through is often overlooked in the design of public space, struggling folks across the mental health spectrum are forced to develop their own personal and bespoke coping mechanisms.
It is here that an interesting tension emerges: while public spaces have the capacity to exacerbate the symptoms of double depression, so too can they ameliorate them. It is in this tension that a rich possibility exists to rethink how cities can tend to mental health via therapeutic spaces that promise refuge and respite to those looking for them.
What’s in a Park?
In 2013, following the dissolution of my first relationship, I moved back into my parents’ basement. The breakup was preceded by a month-long major depressive disorder, one of the darker stretches of time that I’ve experienced.
My parents live in a highway-adjacent suburb in southern Winnipeg – the sort of placeless geography that could have driven me to depression had I not already gotten there on my own. Following a multi-month withdrawal from the outside world, I summoned the willpower to cycle to the nearby Kings Park. Tucked within an oxbow loop of the Red River, the park sprawls across 92 acres with a perimeter all-purpose path. The path offers connection points to the park’s various amenities, including a protected prairie landscape, sports fields, a lake with waterfall, and a labyrinth.
Too unsure and anxious, I needed a couple of weeks before I felt brave enough to dismount and experience the park. This was when I first learned about the meditative and restorative properties of labyrinths.
In the context of biophilic design, labyrinths are considered spaces of refuge. These spaces provide opportunities for relaxation, stress reduction, and rejuvenation. When integrated into the built environment, refuge spaces create the conditions for respite from the demands and pressures of everyday life.
This mirrors my experience.
Walking the Rows
My first trip to the Carol Shields Memorial Labyrinth took place on one of those fecund prairie mornings in the Winnipeg spring. For those not familiar, something special happens in Winnipeg as the white-and-grey winter landscape transforms into a mélange of greens amplified by the din of life awakening en masse. The air becomes more inviting as crisp winter winds change to sporadic soft breezes. Puddles underfoot signal that the great melt has started. Squirrels squirrel, butterflies fly, and grasshoppers hop.
As my mind gorged on the seasonal delights, my anxiety dissipated enough to allow curiosity in. It was as if nature was beckoning me to join it.
As I approached the entrance to the Carol Shields Memorial Labyrinth, I encountered a stone plaque inscribed with detailed instructions. First, consider a contemplative thought or question. This came easily: What would it mean to not be depressed? Then, attempt to walk the pebbly rows of the labyrinth with a clear mind. Once you have arrived at the centre, remain still and identify the emotions you are feeling: sadness, hopelessness, loneliness. Then, while walking back to the entrance, ruminate on the original question.
I took a visual inventory of the labyrinth. The air was perfumed by the native species of flowering plants tucked between the gravel rows. Bumblebees flitted from stem to petal. The commemorative bricks constituting the outer edge of the path featured etched names and messages, memorializing death, achievement, and love. Up close, what might otherwise look like static imagery was a living landscape imbued with meaning. I started to understand Dorothy’s wonderment as she stepped into Technicolor – the world was not drab by default. With a deep breath and wavering conviction, I took my first step.
My first go was not a roaring success – I wasn’t less depressed. But the experience did trigger a sense of possibility. By way of contemplation, I noted nascent feelings of mindfulness, relaxation, and self-awareness. They were amorphous, like eye floaters: there, but gone with a blink.
Over the next four weeks, I returned to the labyrinth daily. With each visit, the process of introspection opened new spaces in my mind. Within these mental expanses, I could explore my emotions and thoughts, and through this achieve some level of clarity and perspective on my personal struggles. I found poetry in my mental awakening that coincided with the spring bloom, as each bud raced to open first. Ironically, I grew closer to my depression, learning to regard it as something I live with, not something that defines me. In this realization, I discovered the possibility of hope.
To be clear, the labyrinth was not curative, but it was therapeutic. The act of contemplation, set within a naturalized landscape, helped steel me for a difficult journey toward self-healing. Proof positive that nature can be more than a backdrop.
Importantly, labyrinths are only one of many manifestations of refuge space. To be sure, it is not my contention that all parks and streets be retrofitted to include unidirectional pathways (although, selfishly, I would not mind it). However, I am suggesting that we could, and should, incorporate opportunities for escape for those who need them – as simple as a street arcade or as complex as a grotto.
Even more broadly, in service of promoting healthy outcomes, biophilic design’s core belief that stronger connections to nature are universally beneficial should reverberate throughout the design of public space.
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Born and raised in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Corey Bialek currently resides in Toronto, Ontario. He holds a master of science in planning degree from the University of Toronto and a bachelor’s degree in geography from the University of Manitoba. Currently working as a sustainability analyst, Corey has a keen interest in city-building projects that work through an adaptation and resilience lens to manage the inexorable impacts of climate change, particularly as it relates to vulnerable groups.
