I really wanted to write about depression, because the death of Robin Williams affected me so much. It makes me so incredibly sad to see such an amazing person succumb to this disease. I’ve been there and it kills me to know that he felt there was no other way of getting rid of the pain.
Depression runs in my family and I can remember back to feeling the effects of it in 2nd grade already. Like everyone I know who suffers from depression, the pain can be overwhelming – physically, emotionally and mentally. The feeling of hopelessness and exhaustion from fighting can bring even the strongest to their knees. Not all of us win the fight.
Almost eight years ago it got the better of me, too. I crashed so severely that my doctor hospitalized me. Many factors lead to this boiling point. In addition, I just had shoulder surgery in my left shoulder. Having a weak physical body gave it the rest. It was one of the worst times I can remember, and yet, it felt strangely liberating to simply not give a shit anymore. I was taught that being weak was punishable when I was a kid – by a mother who would hit me when I started crying and tell me to stop my over-sensitive crap. I didn’t show weakness after that. I still have a hard time with it. This was unlike anything I had ever done.
So I sat in my garage, chain smoking, not eating, on Percocet, unable to move the left side of my body and crying. I woke up in the morning crying, I’d cry throughout the day and I would go to bed crying. I couldn’t stop. I felt so hopeless and I was so tired and exhausted. The physical and emotional pain was unbearable. I also had horrible panic attacks. I had locked myself away in my house and talked to no one. I finally went to my doctor; initially to ask for Xanax, so I could stop the panic attacks. I walked into the office, barely keeping up my composure and by the time I was in his office, I was sobbing again. He had been my doctor for years and it was his decision to admit me to the psych ward at the Huntington Memorial hospital in Pasadena. I had literally lost my will to live.
I was in the hospital for 2 weeks. Only a handful of people knew. My family didn’t know and neither did most other people. I was ashamed; I didn’t want to be labeled “crazy.” But, looking back at this time, I can honestly say that these were the “best” two weeks of my life. While I do not suffer from bipolar disorder or schizophrenia, I made friends with two bipolar women. I was on Paxil, Ativan and Ambien. For the first time in many years I slept and I was comfortably numb. No one could get to me. I was shielded from the world. My doctors would come to look after me, and my appointed psychiatrist would meet with me for therapy sessions. There were group sessions, which I often didn’t want to attend. I stayed in my room and read books. I slept a lot. I officially checked out of the world and for once didn’t give a damn what others needed from me. By the time I was released it was quiet in my head; for the first time ever. And, also for the first time, I didn’t have a whole lot to say to anyone. I felt that the people in the psych ward were more “normal” than the ones outside of it. I didn’t want to leave and finally understood why people get addicted to drugs. I saw to it that things never got that bad for me again, which is why I manage my fibromyalgia and life events very different now. I seek help when it gets bad.
Sadly, over the years I have been around many people who suffer from severe depression and do not have the ability to ask for help. I think it’s due to the stigma surrounding depression; especially for men. To watch someone you care about suffer so much is difficult. It is also very difficult to not take their moods, anger and outbursts personal. As they descent further into depression and keep shutting you out more and more, it becomes harder and harder to not trigger your own depression and/or feeling completely helpless. You want to help and be supportive, but there is nothing you can do or say that accomplishes that. Trapped in a world of darkness, they cannot see their way out or seek help from a professional. Their self-loathing often spills over to other parts of their life. The “healthy” people start leaving and the toxic ones keep fueling the fire. This is when most of them start self-medicating, which perpetuates their cycle of despair.
The funniest and most artistic people I have known almost always suffered from depression. An overwhelmingly high number of them never sought therapy or rehab. They bought into the bullshit myth that it was brought on by some life event/chapter of their life, and that they can snap out of it whenever they choose. No matter how many relationships, jobs and friends they’ve lost, they had learned to cope, which meant clinging to the “if only” belief. You know the “if I only had a better job/friends/boyfriend/girlfriend, etc., everything would change” belief? I know from my own experience that you can’t run from depression. I managed to continue my cycles on a new continent for quite some time. Geography was just that – geography.
I think the best way to describe depression is like cancer, because it literally is cancer of the mind. Leave it untreated and it will slowly but surely kill you. Depression causes a whole slew of diseases – cancer being one of them! I feel lucky that I was desperate enough to seek help after my mother died when she was 48 years old. While she officially died from pancreatitis, I know that it was depression that literally ate her up on the inside. I had watched her self-destruct all my life and saw what it did to her health. I was too afraid that I would end up like her. Hence, I didn’t’ have kids. The fear of passing my issues on to a child was too big. I often wonder how many illnesses we could cure, if we could figure out how to repair the mind. Alas, we live in a country where public healthcare is being fought and no one wants to pay or invest into mental illness. I hope this changes one day.
