There’s the story of the selkie who shared her life with a human.
No matter how deep the love between them, no matter a deeply she loves and cares for their children and their home, the call of the ocean beats loud upon her heart.
A depression sets in to her body because her human form is like a prison – she misses dancing among the waves in stormy seas. She misses the salt upon her skin. She misses the freedom of not being bound to the earth.
The gravity presses hard against her flesh, pounding against the physical pain of depression.
Her body aches for the feel of salt water upon her skin, but she must never enter the waters again, for her body would immedately abandon her human form and with that, her human life and all of the people and all of the things she loves about that life.
And she will abandon herself, willingly and joyfully, to the eternal freedom of the seas.
I once knew a man who was the descendant of a selkie; his great great grandfather created a spray made of magnesium oil and lavender to soothe her aching body on her darkest days. The recipe was passed down through the generations, because many of the descendants of this couple lived with deep depression and unexplained body pain, and the magical spray soothed them all.
I told my friend that I, too, suffer from a depression that manifests itself in debilitating body pain, and he shared with me the recipe. I call it Mermaid Tears Seawater Spray. I make it because not everyone has a bathtub in which to soak the pain away in Epsom salts.
If you would like to try some, contact me and ask about it. I can teach you how to make it or I could make it for you. A bottle costs $25.