TheBanyanTree: Depression Thoughts

[Kitty Park]

Thanks, Monique. Your post is helpful in educating me (and probably many
others) about the effect and identification of depression in your life.

I am very fortunate because I have never experienced depression. And
outside of you (perhaps because you have discussed it openly), I know of no
one who can get as low as you have described.

I appreciate your candidness. I hope you are out of that hole soon.





Kitty
 <mzzkitty at gmail.com>kcp-parkplace.blogspot.com
<http://parkplaceohio.com>



On Sat, Feb 15, 2014 at 11:02 AM, Monique Colver
<monique.colver at gmail.com>wrote:

> 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
>