Depression stinks. It is horrid, awful, insideous and soul breaking. And I've dealt with the effects of depression for many years. I've never really come out and said publicly that I have ongoing depression - except to a few close friends. But more and more my heart has been telling me to sit down and write a blog post about depression - the life stealer.
First of all, I would like for you who are reading this, to imagine the following scenerio. The alarm clock rings. You whomp snooze and go back to sleep. It rings again, you snooze it again. Then it rings and you KNOW you have to get up, but your body will not obey you. All of a sudden, it feels like someone is sitting on your chest that weighs 500 pounds. You can't breathe, you feel tears forming in your eyes, and this feeling of total helplessness settles over you like a cloud. Sometimes, it feels like your heart will stop beating. At this point - you have two choices. Get your butt out of bed, and MAKE yourself function, or stay in bed all day. I've had more mornings than I can count where this exact same scene happens in my bedroom. With the help of medication, and will power, I make myself get up. I might cry all the way through morning preparations - while I'm showering, while I'm brushing my teeth, while I'm fixing my hair. I DRAG myself to the car - lecturing myself the entire way - and make my way to school. I've cried all the way to school, I have sort of daze driven myself to school, and I have had all sorts of bad things run through my mind as I drive to work. But the alternative is staying in bed - which will make my depression much much worse.
This is just a TINY part of depression. I was diagnosed with depression 17 years ago after our car accident. It stemmed from the horrible realization that I now had a paralyzed husband to take care of, I was still injured and in pain for months, and I was lost in a sea of wheelchairs, rehab, equipment, complete and total bewilderment about where I found myself. The depression hit me like a mack truck. I was blessed with friends I worked with that saw me around school, looked at my face, and just grabbed me and gave me a hug. I finally realized that I was not going to get better without help. So I got medicine. I cannot adequately tell you what that medicine did for me. It was like coming out of a black, dark, horrible pit into the sunshine of life. The emotional pain healed along with my body, and my depression healed little by little. It gave me my life back - which truly is an understatement! I remember telling my doctor how wonderful it was to smile again - and he replied that it was wonderful to SEE me smile again.
Somehow, my family has been "blessed" with inherited depression. It comes from my mom's side of the family. I am not sure if it was from my Grandma's side or my grandpa's side. Without giving names which would invade the privacy of my family members, I can tell you that in my immediate family, there are 5 of us with depression. My mom was one of them but she has passed away. I have a feeling, and I've heard from relatives, that some of my cousins, and my aunts have also had their share of the "inherited" depression. I've read a little about their struggle on Facebook, and feel their hurt and pain.
Depression affects people differently. Take food for instance. Some people who are in a depression will eat anything and everything that is edible and in the house. Some people quit eating because they can't stomach food - and they lose lots of weight. I've had both kinds. The sad thing is that years and years ago - doctors had no idea how to treat depression. They called it "anxiety" or "nerves" and wound up giving people pills like valium - which is the very last thing a person with depression should take. It depresses the body systems even more. I've been there also. I lost 20 pounds. Sometimes I didn't eat for days. My husband would tell me to eat - that I hadn't eaten in days. I'd look at him blankly, eat a little and fall back into the pit of hell. My depression now causes me to eat, and eat, and eat and eat some more. I even eat things that I normally wouldn't eat for a snack - because it is there! Probably because my heart and my head feel so bad that I want comfort - and I grab comfort in food. So I have been on the opposite ends of the spectrum. I expect that I will be fighting weight gain from depression eating for the rest of my life.
Another nasty thing about depression is that it is so freaking sneaky. You can be just bopping along just fine, and BAM - the depressions slaps you down and down and down. Most of the time now, I feel it starting and know that in order to survive, I have to busy myself with anything and everything or I will be at the bottom of the pit. Reading is one escape, mindless puttering is another. Sometimes hubby almost drags me into the van and we drive to another city to shop.
The other sneaky nasty thing about depression is that winter and long dark days make it 10 times worse. Lots of people get this during the winter months. If you live in the far northern part of the US or Canada, you may only have daylight until 4:00. That makes it extremely hard to get the sun that your body needs to fight off depression. Summer is great for me because I get the sunshine I need to additionally fight depression. I feel wonderful!!! BUT during the winter, I am rarely outside at all before it is pitch black. Then that sneaky seasonal depression sneaks in and smacks me again. I have to make myself do stuff - and my husband knows when he needs to get me out of the house for a meal, or a drive. The odd thing is that I function just fine at school where I teach. I am busy, I have 22 kids needing my attention - isn't time to dwell on anything but them! But then I go home. Things slow down. It is dark and cold during fall and winter. And that is when the depression makes a sneak attack again and again. And all of this is while I am taking anti-depressants!
I've heard every joke I think there is about Prozac. Luckily, there are all kinds of depression meds on the market today - including Prozac! :) I've changed my meds twice when one doesn't seem to work anymore. Someone who laughs about depression hasn't been there or they would shut up! You can't just WISH it away or I would have already. You can get help from a therapist if that is your thing, but to truly get better, most of us have to have medicine. Depression is really a chemical imbalance in your body. The depression medicine helps to sort all those chemicals out so you are semi-balanced again.
How does depression affect your family? I should have my husband answer that because he's been through two chunks of my life where I've had depression. Sometimes he will hold me, sometimes he argues with me because he knows if I get mad, I usually snap out of it. Sometimes he plans stuff. Sometimes he knows that he better just leave me alone if he wants to live another day. That's another nasty thing about depression - it can send you into the most God awful rages you have ever seen. Over any tiny little thing - a wrong word, something not done right, etc. etc.
I can tell you also, that having family member with this awful disease - it hurts and it hurts bad. My mom had depression so severely, that for months she would sit like a zombie in her chair. My dad was beside himself not knowing how to help her. It almost killed me - watching my mom just sit there like a zombie - no conversation or anything. It was awful, awful, awful!!! We finally did get the right medicine for her so she could function again and be my mom. She continued to take anti-depressants for the last 30 years of her life.
I've got other people I love with all my heart that struggle on a daily basis with depression. There is nothing worse than the helplessness you feel when you can't fix it for someone you love. And in my case, that adds to my depression and makes it worse. But you still hang in there. You love them, you accept what they can give you, you poke and prod them to get help, you cry with them, you yell at them to get better, and then you all cry some more. I honestly do not know how my husband put up with me when I had depression so badly in the early 70's. There was no depression medicine on the market - and the meds that most doctors gave just made the depression worse. I've lost huge chunks of time out of my life that I don't remember at all. But he loved me, he stayed there with me, reminded me to eat, or shower or get dressed UNTIL my doctor finally chewed me up one side and down the other - which finally was like a slap in the face - that I needed to get on with my life. That I couldn't keep pouring more and more medicine down my throat! (ironically again, the medicine I kept taking made it worse and worse.) I did, I made it without depression medicine - but I certainly didn't ever take Valium again!!! If they had depression medicine back then, I would have been first in line.
Depression won't go away. You can't talk it away. You can't push it away. You can't fool it. You can't run from it and you cannot hide from it. What you can do is make the choices that will help you get better. Surround yourself with people who love you and support you. Get medicine that will help your body balance again. Talk to a therapist if you need to. Keep yourself as busy as you can. Above all else - believe in yourself. Trust me - it can be a LONG dark and scary road out of the pits of depression - but you can do it. I did it twice. Will I always take anti-depressant meds? Yep - for the rest of my life! But if that is what it takes so I can function normally, enjoy my life, have fun, travel and spoil my grandkids - then that is exactly what I will do. Life is way too precious to do otherwise!
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