Blog Information 

As I've noted before, I'm not a mental health specialist.  I'm just a client.  However, I have tried to learn about depression, I have posted a few blogs I'm following for the pertinent information they hand out.  It is not my desire to sell anyone anything, but it is to help people find useful information.  The blogs listed seemed to be able to do just that, and if I'm incorrect I apologize.   I'll add more as I find them.  Hope this helps.  You can find websites that strictly offer advice.  Those that let you read replies are interesting.  There do, however, seem to be a number of them that are about specific medications for sale or that are offering online therapy that you pay for.  If that is what you want that's great, but note l that both kinds can rely on you spending money. Just pick and choose what is relevant to you. 

Darkness

Life before relief was difficult.  

Three years ago.

I had to breathe, but I didn't want to.  Each breath was an experiment in living that went beyond the desire to do so.   I only remember darkness and the feeling of being covered with several wet and heavy blankets, so breath was hard to get. There was no yesterday and no tomorrow, but the worst was there was no today either.  There was just this one bleak moment.  Life was without texture, color or meaning.  It was pointless.  I didn't understand why I continued to live in this dark place. It was abysmal. I considered suicide, but I am a chicken so I'm still here.  I fervently wished I would go into a coma-like state and wake up a year or two later.  Facing every moment of every day was a new experience in pain each time.

  I was depressed or more depressed, but crying was and is something that I could not do.  I eventually had to come out of the bedroom where I had sequestered myself because of another kind of pain.  Not depression kind of pain, but physical pain in my back.  I could barely walk it was so bad.  I somehow had the wherewithal to go to the doctor because the pain in my back was horrendous.  The doctor didn't do a damn thing for my back, but she did send me to the hospital psych unit.  I was so angry the depression moved into a secondary position in my mind, and I began to think a little.  Then, a young psychiatrist with the hospital put me on a new medication and from there it was one painful slow step up at a time.  The medication began to creep in and help me clear the dark fog from my head.  It wasn't fast, but it was there.  When I went home, I spent more time outside the bedroom and talking to my daughter and a friend on the phone.  I'm sure from their perspective our conversations were dismal, but they didn't quit on me.

Things didn't really start to clear up until I got rid of the idiot who sent me to the psych unit for back pain.  The new young primary care giver recognized that there was still a long way to go.  She gently increased my meds and would eventually help me find an add on medication that really helped get rid of the fog.  My new caregiver found a competent therapist for me to work with, and I was on the way to a new existence.  

That dark time is now a solid memory, but only a memory.  I have a competent doctor to thank for that.  I may never be rid of depression completely, but if it ever gets really bad again I have the memory of walking out of it the first time to spur me forward.

It took years to get me to this point.  I'm not completely free of the depression.  I probably never will be, but I can think and act and do things.  I don't have the money to do a lot, but still I am moving forward.  I get terrified every time someone suggests changing up my medication as the combination and doses I'm on now have taken me from complete darkness to the occasional sunshine of everyday life.  I don't want to mess with that.  I still have many of the problems depression carts along with it, but I can breathe and move and actually smile on occasion.  Life is hope now.

Do WHAT?

 By a client not a professional.

The way people react to a diagnosis of mental illness is absurd.  What is even worse is the way they react to a person who is depressed.  Some avoid those with depression.  I'm not sure if they are afraid it is contagious, they lack the patience (although why it would take patience is beyond me), or they simply find someone who has some sort of disorder to be beneath notice. Yet, to even things out between those with depression and those without, those without it love to say stupid things.

When finding someone sad and dejected some revert to saying rather idiotically "Pull yourself up by the bootstraps."  Now, I'm sure a century or so ago people did have straps on their boots.  What purpose they served is beyond my ken, but someone decided they could be used to pull a body out of sadness.  This makes no sense as depression is not a physical state.  Thinking about this makes me laugh.  If someone told me to pull myself up by my bootstraps and I tried to comply I would certainly land on my derrière. The only mood elevator that would produce would be to humiliate me, and I think that would be a step down instead of up.

Someone else might tell one to buck up.  That is fairly simple and utterly without definition.  Buck up could mean going out, catching a male dear, and wandering around with it.  Why this would make someone feel less sad is hard to say.  Maybe the advice giver thinks the person will be totally amused by the animal and will laugh themselves free of dejection.  I don't believe that, but who am I to say.  Maybe our mysterious advisor thinks getting a lot of money will help.  It might.  I'm always happier to have a few bucks in my pocket than I am to be broke.  I don't see it as curing depression though.

How about the simple "feel better."  Don't people think that if you could simply make yourself feel better you would?  One cannot be ordered to feel better.  One could be so ordered and then act like they felt better, but that wouldn't be true.  Or perhaps it is meant in the context of literally reaching out and touching with more efficiency the things around you.  That could be dicey though.  If what is close by you is another person. . .Well enough said.

I think the worst one of all these things people say is "get over it."  If nothing else, it sounds a bit cruel. How would you propose one go about this.  Thinking out the mechanics of what you want someone to do before you say this just might bring this saying to a halt.  Can you imagine that cranky and cantankerous person who utters these words while trying to give step-by-step instructions to the depressed?  I seriously doubt that would ever happen. If it does, somebody call me I'd like to see it.

Depression does not have a cure that can be uttered in a few words.  It is a complicated state that is informed by genetics as well as by the environment.  Take time to say a few kind words, and not make out like this would be easy.

What "Difference" Does it Make?

 By one who attends therapy.

I really dislike Sundays.  Why? Because I tend to get depressed more easily and more deeply on Sundays.  I don't understand this, but I know it is true.  There are a lot of things I and others do not understand about me, and I think that fact leads to depression.

    I just ate a bowl of ham and bean soup for breakfast.  Why not?  It is food just as eggs and toast are food, and it is a food I like.  I also love to have a good chili dog for breakfast.  I don't understand having to do things a certain way just because someone says so.  I've never been good a complying with the "traditional" way of doing things.  I'm not way out there.  I don't wander around in my undergarments, and I don't do things that might hurt others.  I am just different.  This difference has at times, deepened my descent into depression. I think it is because it has made those around me question me or make snide comments. My mom always wondered why I wasn't more like my sister, or my cousins.  I have come to really appreciate my differences and accept the ones I don't appreciate.

I've come closer to complying with the "norm" as I've gotten older.  When I was in my early 40s and my daughter was starting college, I hung out with people her age.  I also dated people her age. Others found that scandalous, but I just wanted to be with those who let me be myself.  That has never been true of people my own age.  Frankly, it has never been true of people in general.  We wonder why depression is so prevalent these days.  I think we have a hard time allowing those we know and/or love to be different without criticizing them or laughing at them.  I know because those things happen to me all the time.

I have a neighbor who dislikes me intensely because my house is not neat and tidy like hers.  I'm basically a slob, but I work at it, so it isn't too terribly bad.  However, I really don't care whether everything is in its place, or that the dishes are all done.  I get things done as I see fit.  My neighbor's idea of "right" is making sure everything is very clean, organized, and well-placed.  She spends a great deal of what little free time she has cleaning.  That leads to sour pussness.  I get depressed on occasion because it is difficult to be disliked by someone who doesn't know me.  So I have a paper on the floor, or a jacket hanging over the arm of the sofa.  I am generally kind and intelligent.  Find someone else to scorn for their habits. I will never want to be just like anyone else.  

I have an excellent education all the way through graduate school.  However, I am disabled now as well as retired so I wear the funkiest t-shirts I can find. The criterion for a funky t-shirt is that it is cheap.  I don't want to stand out, but more than that I don't want to stand down.  

Battling depression is difficult.  It would be easier, though, if we allowed one another to express ourselves without fear of the barbs and criticisms that tend to get thrown around.  Don't decide someone is wrong because they don't live by your concept of what "should" be. I love to wear hats, odd though they are, and I love cats.  I think I need to spend more time with those things.   I guess maybe now I'll start going off on those that think it fine to laugh at or criticize me.  At least it will let some steam off.  Let the guy next to you be himself.  You'll be contributing to a better world.