Thursday, October 1, 2015

Depression Needs to be Talked About


My last post was a real downer I know, and I’m sorry for that.  As an update, I did start therapy with a Christian therapist last week to hopefully rid myself of my PTSD problems, which I nicknamed The Wall.  Things started off very well, with real breakthroughs achieved in even the first session that I had not covered the first time around two years ago.  I am confident that since I have been through this before, that with God’s help, and with a deeper faith now two years later, I can crack this faster this time around.  I went through a lot of stuff in those 25 years and The Wall has to do with putting the past behind me, which is easier said than done.  God has forgiven me, but I can’t forgive myself.

As long as I am talking about uplifting subjects, I would like to talk about one more before I get back to humor next time (I promise).  This week I want to talk about the wonderful subject of depression.  Doesn’t that just want to make you jump up and down?  I know last time’s subject brought out a ton of responses...not.  The silence was deafening.  The same will probably happen here.

I want to talk about depression for a couple of reasons.  First off, because no one wants to talk about it.  The subject, just like PTSD from last week, is taboo.  There are a lot of people who have suffered from depression or continue to suffer from it from time to time.  There is no cure for it, only treatment.  I suffered from it from 1994 until 2013.  The reason I had it was strictly related to my pain and losing a job I loved.  The second I lost the pain on January 23, 2013, the depression ceased and never returned.

I was lucky in that regard.  My darkness was related to something else, something medical, and once that medical situation was fixed, the darkness vanished.  Most people who suffer from depression, suffer through the darkness unrelated to anything else that they know of.  They go through their life as I did each day, maybe starting the day, in the morning fine, but as the morning wears on, the feeling of dread creeps into their bodies.  Melancholy overtakes them, indifference fills their day.  Thoughts of suicide flood their minds.  Different methods play out like actors in a play.

After months, the mind becomes stale, used to thinking that life is over as it used to be in the old days.  Loved ones around you suggest doctors that could help you feel better, but your own mind tells you that you feel just fine.  You just feel a little tired.  You look at your friends, who are telling you that you aren’t the same anymore, and tell them that they don’t know what they are talking about, that they should mind their own business.  These are the same people you told them you loved them months before.

Depression.  Depression is a dirty word.  It is a word that will, if spoken to people, will drive them away from you.  Even after you come out of depression, some people will give you the evil eye and look at you as though you belong in a straight jacket.  I’ve seen it.  More needs to said about this illness OUT LOUD.

My comic hero was Robin Williams.  He suffered from depression for years off and on.  It ended up killing him.  It didn’t need to.  He was a comic genius.  We all agree to that, but he was a fool in life when it came to what he could have done with his celebrity and his ailment.  He had a platform to tell the world about depression and how it affected him, thereby casting a light and creating more research on this horrible problem.  He didn’t take drugs for depression.  Why not?  Simple.  Because drugs would have changed who he was and therefore Robin would not have been Robin any longer.  He was scared of that.  What a shame.  He chose the illness over himself.

I was lucky.  I lived through 18 years of Hell.  I wanted to die EVERY SINGLE DAY.  I didn’t do it.  I lived in a darkness that I don’t wish for anyone.  This illness should be shouted about, not covered up.  The only reasons I am alive is my wife Lana and the good Lord above.  Thanks for your patience the last couple of posts. 

1 comment:

  1. Depression is a dirty word. Yet, to those of us who have had to deal with it, we know it's all too tangible to everything we do and think.

    Depression is a filter that allows us to see where everyone is and know what we are doing in the physical world, but won't allow us to rejoice in the good, feel the touch of loved ones, or contemplate our purpose here on Earth. Depression feels like a safe-house to us, because it becomes too familiar. We know where it has set all the furniture, where it hangs our failures, where the curtains are drawn, where it wants us to rest our tired heads. Yet, depression is no pillow, because it never wants us to wake. Those of us who do wake, with the help of a therapist or medicine or both...or by the hand of God, by full realization, or wishing to break the cycle and feel life once again; we never forget power that Depression can have over us and the pain it will inflict.

    I remember it well. I woke. I never want to go back.

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