Depression Part I

Disclaimer:  What you’re about to read is my story.  Not anyone else’s.  This piece is not intended to put anyone down or minimize the personal struggle associated with depression.  I respect everyone’s opinions fully.  I expect points I make to be disagreed with.  The intention of this blog is to share my thoughts on how I believe we can take control of emotions.  I’ve decided to break it up into parts because I have so much I want to address.  This first piece is just the start.

I’m going to go ahead and jump on the bandwagon of the latest conversation.  Depression.  It started with the word “suicide.”  But, it ultimately has lead social media to further discuss what leads to such a decision.  I want to be very clear.  I am not a doctor.  I’m not a psychologist.  Everything I’m about to write about has come from first-hand experience.  I am currently working on a degree in psychology and have always had a passion for the inner workings of our minds.  With curiosity and passion, I’ve come to profound conclusions that have shaped the way I cope with nearly everything that crosses my path.

It has become increasingly apparent that we are all in varying stages of depression.  Gladly, most of the people that I know are on the upswing.  They are in good places.  But, the human experience tosses hard situations at us constantly.  In defeats, we find some depression.  That depression may not last but a short while.  Depending on the coping skills of the individual, the length and severity of the depression varies.  

These days it seems that being diagnosed with depression is as easy as buying a loaf of bread at your local grocer.  It is an over-medicated condition and sadly, society has accepted the treatment of symptoms.  My opinion, and I stress opinion, is that we are very capable creatures.  We can overcome more than pharmaceutical companies are telling us.  It is that power that I remind myself of, daily.

I have openly addressed my struggle with depression.  It has been a constant battle for the last 6 years.  It began with the grief of losing an infant son.  There isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t struggle with that loss.  A year after he died, I discovered just what level of disaster I was.  I was sitting in my bathtub and held a razor blade to my wrist.  A few days later, I sat with a revolver in my hand.  I found myself fantasizing about crashing my car into on-coming traffic.  That went on for weeks.  A series of isolated thoughts that all ended with me dead.

I thought to myself, “No one knows what to do with me.”  “This would be easier on everyone if I weren’t someone anyone had to ‘deal’ with.”  “I could stop hurting right now, with the pull of the trigger.”  It was bad.  I didn’t tell anyone about this.  After struggling with being heard for so long, I didn’t think there was anyone who would take me seriously.  I had secluded myself from my loved ones.  I had spent time screaming and shouting about how miserable I was.  I was patted on the head and told, “You’re stronger than this,” or “You are making this bigger than it is.”  My emotions were minimalized and further perpetuated my feelings of isolation.  I felt so far removed from reality that I was willing to live out the fantasy of absence.

There’s nothing quite as sobering as realizing just how disconnected you are from who you know you used to be.  I am grateful, all the time, for the ability I had to recognize how out of control I had become.  The last straw came, when I felt that sting against my skin from a rusty razor blade that had been rust stuck to the edge of the tub.  “What in the hell is my problem?”  I called a therapist the very next morning.

Here’s what’s funny about my experience with therapy.  I went to only two sessions.  Two.  What I learned about myself in two hours was so significant, that I realized I didn’t need anyone to fix my issues.  No one.  As beautiful as it sounds to believe that others can pull your out of the pits of despair, it simply isn’t the case.  I will explain.

I have lacked strong support.  Over the last decade, my list of truly reliable people has been less than three people.  If you really dissect those people, you’d find that the truest support came from one person.  Wow.  One person I could 100% rely on to listen to me cry.  One person to let me know they had my back.  One person to (over the phone) allow me to rest my head on her shoulder and regain my composure.  I tell her all the time just how lucky I am to have her friendship.

Sitting on the sofa during that last session with a therapist, I looked her right in the eye and said, “Thank you.”  I drove home with an attitude that I had forgotten I possessed.  I had given control to the depression.  I had relinquished my very being to the despair my grief had created.  This wasn’t a finger snap recovery from depression.  But, I had finally seen just how much say I had in how the depression impacted things.  As silly as it seemed, it was an epiphany of sorts.  Suddenly I remembered how well I had handled previous bouts with depression.

I had my ups and downs before Connor died.  I certainly had pity parties and invited the whole damn town to witness.  But I got over it.  I got back to life and let things go.  It wasn’t until I was faced with a deeper, more ferocious depression, that my strength was tested.  I reviewed journal entries and looked at myself long and hard.  I was letting this ruin me.  It was annihilating my relationships with everyone.  It nearly ended my life.  Depression is a vicious monster that doesn’t give a rat’s ass who it kills.

I decided in that moment that I was going to take back my life.  I was going to make every effort I could muster to push through this.  I decided my will to live and experience the rest of my life to the fullest would be my shovel that would dig me out of my pretty little hole.  I felt reborn and renewed.  No one else was going to have to get dirty but me.  I had to change myself.  No one could do it for me.

It was not easy.  I had to force myself out of bed each and every day reminding myself that the fatigue and lack of damn was the depression fighting to keep its hold.  I had to make myself eat.  No longer was my diet going to consist of coffee and nicotine and the occasional candy bar.  I shoved food down my throat as my stomach refused to accept.  The nausea I felt was hunger.  But, trying to eat also made my stomach wretch.  Hard to eat when you feel like you’re about to vomit.  The more consistent I became with eating, the less sick I felt and color came back to my skin.  My hair stopped falling out so badly.  I was hydrated.  Over the course of a month, I was feeling much better, physically. 

Then, came the most hysterical news I could have heard.  I was pregnant.  How’s that for a kick in the depression.  Fear.  How could I possibly get excited about having another pregnancy when the last two had ended in either a miscarriage or an urn.  Yep.  I laughed like a crazy person for a week.  I didn’t become attached to the pregnancy until I reached 7 months.  I held back so much emotional vulnerability during my pregnancy with Alex.  It wasn’t until he was screaming and healthy that I was able to breathe correctly again.  He became my focal point that deflected all of my depression.  Two months later, my mother died.

Connor was born June 9, 2008.  He died on June 20, 2008.  Alex was born April 2010.  My mother died, June 3, 2010.  My father died March 11, 2014.  Ben was born May 2014.  My divorce will finalize sometime in the next few weeks.  Since my mother died, I have not once lost control of my depression.  Have I been depressed through all of that?  You bet your sweet ass I have.  I even went so far as to taking Prozac (which I am adamantly against) after I had Ben so you wouldn’t read about me in the paper.  “Mother of three, suffering from postpartum depression, kills herself.”

I am not ever going to judge another person’s battle with depression.  We all have to do what works for us.  Our depression is so personal and intimate, that no other person can really know what it feels like.  You could sit a dozen people in a room together to discuss their depression and the only things that anyone can relate to are the symptoms.  The cause of the depression is as unique as a fingerprint.  So too, is the way to treat it.

I have read several blogs over the past few days that impress people to talk.  If you’re sad, call someone.  Anyone.  Tell someone you’re feeling so bad you’re afraid of yourself.  Be BRAVE!  It is NOT weakness to tell someone you’re not ok.  It is not weakness to ask someone for help.  But NEVER succumb to the lies depression tells you.  Fight like hell against the thoughts.  Find something that will distract you from that path.  The second you find you’re thinking yourself into a state of chronic woe change the subject.  Don’t let depression keep the upper hand.