TheBanyanTree: Depression Thoughts

[Monique Colver]

You know you're coming out of a major depressive episode (instead of a
minor one) when you get up in the morning and instead of wanting to be dead
you instead get up, start the laundry, do the dishes, then sit down to do
some work.

And by you, of course I mean me, because I'm not sure how anyone else feels
about it.

If you haven't experienced major depression, you don't get it, how life can
be such an uphill battle. I have friends who have never experienced this,
and I have friends who have, and all of them together help me get better,
because they don't need to experience utter despair to know that utter
despair sucks.

And meds. Every few years my meds will stop working, kablooey, complete and
total shut down. I may not notice it at first, the darkness may not show up
suddenly. It might creep up on me, bit by bit, so sneakily that I don't
even notice that I felt better last week. That happened this time. Could
have been coming up with the months of pain I had before surgery, could
have been exacerbated by anesthesia, by surgery, by anything at all. No one
knows. But it stopped. I thought it was post-surgery effects, maybe
painkillers, I didn't know, and then I did, because I didn't want to be
alive anymore, and when that happens I'm pretty sure my meds aren't
working. I may not be the smartest person I know, but I can figure that
much out.

Every so often I visit a FB page for people with depression. I look at the
posts, and I comment, and I try to be supportive. Many of them are
unequipped for the lives they lead, many of them are searching for a way
out, and many of them aren't asking themselves the right questions. It's
heartbreaking, the young girls who post that their boyfriends abuse them
verbally, or physically, and tell them they're worthless, and they hate
themselves, and why doesn't anyone love them? Why doesn't anyone care? "I'm
ugly," one will say, "No one will ever love me," and the picture is of a
perfectly fine looking girl, and so everyone tells them that's not true,
that the depression is telling them that. The older man who posts that his
wife left him, that everyone leaves him, and so everyone tells him that he
just hasn't met the right person yet. The younger people who think they'll
never find love because they're not good enough, the people who say no one
cares, that their family doesn't care and treats them badly.

What I want to tell them is that 1) it's not all about them, 2) if people
are abusive, you need to leave, 3) if your family is not supportive, you
need to leave, 4) if you have no one who cares about you, try to care about
someone else first. I want to tell them that of course it's hard, few
things come to us by magic. But I can't say those things because that's not
being supportive, is it? I don't know anyone there well enough to be
brutally honest with them, which is that yes, sometimes life sucks, and
yes, it's hard, and, yes, sometimes family won't care, and friends that
treat you badly aren't friends at all (it surprises me how many people do
not know this), but that they have to be the one to make changes.

Last week someone posted that they needed inpatient care. I asked if they'd
been to a doctor yet, and she said no. I said she needed to see a doctor
and get a diagnosis first of all. Someone else told her that inpatient
would be very helpful because it helped them. After several rounds of this
it turned out the original poster didn't have insurance, didn't know what
was really wrong with her, but thought she could just commit herself to
inpatient care and all her problems would be solved.

Like I said, a lot of them are unequipped to deal with life. They lack the
knowledge, the education, the means, to move themselves out of their
situations. They lack the ability to see past their illness. They lack the
ability to see others as perhaps in even more need than they are.

Not that a change in situation will make everything all better, but it
helps. I'm in the best possible situation, with a family and friends that
are there for me, a vast support network of loved ones, a great husband, a
cuddly dog, a good place to live, and plenty of work to keep me out of
trouble and for which people will happily pay me. No one is ever even mean
to me, except the occasional unknown person who comes and goes so quickly
it's as if they were never there. Sometimes I find that hard to believe
myself: no one is ever mean to me - how awesome is that? There couldn't be
any better situation. When I'm well, I know that I have everything. When
I'm not well, I still know I have much to be thankful for, but I can't see
it clearly, and the pain overwhelms me.

I'm getting better now. It's one day at a time, one step at a time. That's
how most worthwhile things are accomplished.

M