Depression

I am one of millions of people who struggle with depression. I am taking medication for it. Some days, even with the medication, it is really hard to get out of bed and get on with living. Sometimes I feel very much separated from people; Friends, family, coworkers feel like they are outside of an invisible wall and I am on the inside, alone. Some days I wish I could cry, other days I am weepy for no reason.

Sometimes I feel like an abandoned house, broken down and empty

Depression comes if your life is good or if your life totally sucks. Depression is not just a feeling. It can be a symptom as well as the disease. It is hard to act normal when you have depression.

We do a lot of things to ourselves that tend to make us open to depression. Alcohol is a depressant. Constant stimuli, such as being on the computer for hours on end, sleeping with the TV on, never taking any mental rests, can fatigue a person until they have no energy left and are depressed.

Robin Williams was such a hero? Advocate? Model? For people who suffered from depression. He was aware of his demons. He experienced, vicariously, the lives of others who were depressed in his acting career, whose stories both turned out with happy endings and tragic endings. As a result, some people are judging him harshly for his death, calling him a coward. As a result, some people may think that if he didn’t find any reason to keep going, then why should I try? 

As a result, depression is in the spot light and mental health is being evaluated. The price was too high, but this could be a good thing. Maybe the powers that be will recognize that something must be done, help is needed. This is not a fake or imagined problem.

Robin Williams is not the first, nor the only person to be overwhelmed by depression. He is not the only famous person, not the only man, not the only person who seems to have it all. Sadly, he will not be the last person overwhelmed by depression, 

So we survivors grieve.

Grief is not the same as depression. Grief is a healing process; even anger can be a part of the healing.  But depression is like a black hole, an opposite of feelings. It is beyond numbness. It isn’t death, but it isn’t living either.

In my life, there have been situations that have caused me to have a bleak outlook for myself. Situations that convinced me that I was a ruined individual, that I deserved bad treatment, that I was fat, useless, ugly, an abomination. I was convinced that I could not do even simple things like drive a nail into a board, drive to work, or do anything right. I tolerated humiliating experiences because I truly believed I deserved it. Toleration does not mean that I walked through these things without it affecting me.

It has taken years to see what had really happened and to change my opinion of myself. The depression continues, though, because life keeps happening and keeps not being easy. I am continually healing.

There was a time when I didn’t want to heal. I wanted to die. I hated who I was. I was full of shame and humiliation. I drank. I did acid. I was stupid. I drove around for hours, trying to work up courage to drive into a tree or into a lake and just die. Why I didn’t just leave the situation on my own strength, I do not know. I felt like a prisoner. I felt worthless.

But I didn’t have enough courage or weakness to actually kill myself. And I survived.

Before that time of my life, other things happened to me that made me think I was ruined or stupid. After that time, things happened to make me think I was incapable or crazy. Living sometimes just beats on a person.

And then, hormones stepped in and screwed things up even more.

In spite of everything, I am still alive. I have gone back to college and earned a bachelor’s of applied science degree. I took the exam and am a certified medical assistant. I can use a computer and learn new things. I am remarried, to a childhood friend, and we lend each other strength and courage. Sometimes, we just allow ourselves to be weak, but only in front of each other because we trust each other and we can.

I have a faith in God, which gives me reason to have hope. Without hope, people perish.

The battle is not over, not until I die. Life is in constant flux. Hormones are regularly throwing me for a loop. I have a long way to go to improve my self-image and my health.

They are now saying that Robin was recently diagnosed with a terminal disease. We have amazing breakthrough in health care, but we also keep people alive beyond quality of life.

I believe that live is precious and not a thing to be carelessly disposed of.

But I also believe, for myself, that I would want to die before being unable to live keeps me in bed, with strangers wiping my butt and bathing my helpless body, with no more mind left to think with. I am terrified of Alzheimer’s or similar dementias. I fear having a stroke.

I used to harshly judge those who committed suicide. Then I started learning that I don’t know everything, including what that person’s last thoughts or prayers were. I am not God to judge people. I am a human being. I have wanted to die, too. 

It does seem selfish that they have died that way and left the rest of us to face life afterwards. More depression comes into the world because of this. Survivors live in shadows, asking was it something I did? Why didn’t they love me enough to stay?

I, and many others who suffer with depression, currently choose to stay. But I will not curse at the ones who choose not to. I will pray for those they left behind.

Faith is the evidence of things hoped for.. and it is what keeps me going forward.