In the past several months, I repeatedly have come across these words in the articles and blogs I read, the conversations I have, and the constant inner-monologue that runs like the ticker tape at the bottom of a news station. First, a bit of back story.
I am undeservedly blessed. I have an amazing family who supports me; I have some fantastic friends who rock at being there in the struggles and sharing the silliness; I am fortunate to have a job that may drive me bananas at times but is my true passion; I have a lovely home that keeps me warm and dry; I have a crazy pup who makes me laugh even in the midst of me scolding her for chewing the edge of a windowsill or some other bizarre thing; I am so well-fed I can afford to lose quite a few pounds; I am able to walk without pain, sleep without disruption, and am generally pretty healthy.
I know these things in my head and heart.
Approximately two years ago, however, I began to feel blue, for lack of a better description. At first, it was just there, rather like a nagging mosquito buzz in the soundtrack of my life. Gradually, it grew, so gradually that I was not cognizant of it even happening. I stopped working out. I stopped reading for pleasure. I stopped listening to music. I stopped praying. I stopped going to church. Then, for three months last summer, I rarely got off the couch much less left the house. I watched eight seasons of a television series. I cried. A lot. Sometimes because of the television series, sometimes just because. If people called to make plans, I often found excuses not to go. The mosquito had sucked just about all the blood; I basically stopped living.
Again, I knew I was blessed. In my head and in my heart. It didn’t matter, though, because I could not get up off the couch. I could not talk about how sad I felt. In fact, I actually began to berate myself for being so ungrateful and weak and pathetic. There is nothing like a heap of self-loathing to top off other tumultuous emotions.
To say depression is misunderstood and, consequently, dismissed is an understatement. As many others have written, most people hear the word and think, “She’s just sad” or “You can pull yourself out of it!” I confess to thinking those very things despite actually having a degree in psychology. I don’t think it anymore.
When I played volleyball in college, I sprained my ankle fairly badly. Determined not to miss a day of practice, I bit my tongue and cheeks to keep from crying out in pain when the trainer tested my strength. I succeeded in fooling her only to go down in the first drill. It didn’t matter that my hands were just fine, or that my lungs were fit, or that my other leg was functioning just dandy. It didn’t matter that I wanted so badly to be in the drill, my desire could not heal the sprain. It took time and treatment beyond sheer will.
This is how I see my depression. Sometimes, I want more than anything to be happy about all of the blessings, about a silly joke, about the sunrise, but I just cannot. It’s as though I stood up without thinking and put my full body weight on a sprained ankle: it just doesn’t hold. Sometimes, I hobble along, feeling the joy and the pain simultaneously, but it’s still there.
After a routine blood test at the end of the summer, time spent tweaking dosages, and a frank conversation with a compassionate, patient, and pretty awesome doctor, the self-loathing is starting to abate. The reason I say starting is because those awful, awful words keep coming up.
At the mention of being depressed, or taking medication for that depression, I have received the gamut of responses. Fortunately, most have been positive and supportive, but there have been misunderstanding and derision. From “How long do you have to be on the meds?” to “Why on earth do you need to be on Prozac? You’re stronger than that.” I think most of the people with whom I have shared accept it while not necessarily understanding it, which is one of the greatest things about unconditional love.
Imagine being paralyzed, unable to speak or move, but fully alert mentally. As much as you want to tell everyone how you feel, show everyone what you can do, your body is limiting the ways in which you can. Or, imagine being locked in a room alone with a constant, unending soundtrack of the most negative things about life and yourself playing ceaselessly. You cannot get out of the room; you cannot turn it off. And it goes on for hours, days, weeks, months, and/or years... Both of these are beyond your control and both are incapacitating. You cannot do it alone.
My medication unlocks the door. It turns off the sad and self-deprecating monologue. It transcends the crutch so I can walk strong. It destroys the life-sucking mosquito. It does not make me weak or mean I am crazy. My medication gives me a voice that had been trapped in the labyrinthine maze of depression.
An amazing friend of mine recently shared a blog with me, and that blog had links to several others that are all worth reading. There has been an article trending on yahoo about moms on Xanax. While I am not a mom, I am a woman struggling with depression. For those of you who think someone can simply snap out of it, I wonder if you have ever “snapped out of” a kidney stone. For those of you who think medication is a crutch, I would ask if you believe insulin a crutch for the diabetic or nitroglycerin a crutch for the cardiac patient. For those of you who think depression is sinful or means a lack of faith, I would encourage you to revisit Job or Psalms.
For those of you who do not understand depression, I am thankful because you have obviously never felt it. It is my hope that you never do. Perhaps, though, with a little compassion and empathy, you can try to heed Harper Lee’s advice: You never really know someone “until you climb into his skin and walk around in it.”
