Depression and Shame

Depression can kill people.  Depression does kill people.  In far too many numbers each year.

And every time you think of someone dying from depression, you think to yourself, “why?”  It seems so pointless.  Such a waste.  Such a shame.

But sometimes I wonder if we have a right to ask that question.  We know that cancer kills people, and AIDS kills people, and no fault accidents kill people.  People find all sorts of ways to end up dying each day, each hour in fact, and yet we view deaths from depression a bit differently I think.

The only people close to me who I have ever lost were my grandparents, and they were both in their nineties.  Those have been the two greatest losses of my life, but there’s a certain acceptance of death that is easier to come to when the deceased are quite elderly because as sad and bereaved as we are, we understand that if we are to be born, we must one day die.  It’s the other side of the coin.

I’ve never personally known anyone who died from depression.  I’ve known of people who have.  I’ve loved people who have loved people who have died from it.  But personally, I’m lucky not to have experienced that.

But I guess the whole issue is one that is close to my heart because of the depression I have suffered over the last ten years or so.  I’ve never been suicidal.  I’ve never wanted to die.  But I remember those scary days in the first months of Magoo’s life when I was so lost and so confused and as much as I didn’t want to die, I also didn’t quite know how to live anymore.  The only thought that would run through my head all day every day was, “what if this doesn’t go away?”  I wouldn’t let myself answer that question.  I didn’t like the answer, and I didn’t want to even consider it.  But all I knew was that it felt like I was holding my breath under water for as long as I could and at some point I was going to have to breathe.  The pressure was mounting, and I felt as if I were going to burst.

And the weird thing about depression is that it makes you so unbelievably self centered.  I was spending all of my time taking care of this little girl that I loved and adored more than life itself, and yet somehow I didn’t understand that she would be hurt if I weren’t here.  I didn’t understand that my husband would be hurt.  People often think that it’s selfish when a person dies from depression.  They believe that the sufferer eased her own pain at the expense of the pain of all of her loved ones.  And of course that is true, but  whatever it is inside a person’s brain that gets them to that point also makes it absolutely impossible for them to understand the devastation they will leave in their wake.

But I was lucky.  I learned that part of the problem was that I was on a type of antidepressant that was making it much, much worse.  SNRIs were not for me I learned.  And I got on a more effective medication quickly.  And I had a great support system.

But for me, what finally turned it around was believing that there was someone there who was not going to let me fall.

I remember the day the depression turned around for me.  It was a horrible day.  My husband came home from work early for me to go see my therapist I had been seeing for years because I couldn’t get off the couch.  I was able to take care of Magoo’s needs, and that was it.  I wouldn’t have been able to get off the couch to grab a glass of water if I had wanted to.

I walked into the office in a fog.  All I remember is the sun shining and the brisk autumn air biting my cheeks.  I sat on the chairs waiting my turn, and all I prayed was that this would help.  This was my last hope.  If I wasn’t going to find relief here, then I wouldn’t be able to find my relief.

And something in there turned it around.  I didn’t leave feeling any better.  I didn’t leave feeling any less depressed.  But something within that appointment made me understand that there was someone else invested in my healing.  Someone wasn’t going to let me fall.  I had a safety net.

And I write about this years later.  I’m so far away from that day, both in terms of days and in terms of perspective.  I’m not that same person.  I guess maybe because things got so dark, now I can see the light even when the darkness threatens.  I know my warning signs.  I know when I’m falling.  And as much as I sometimes struggle with believing it, I know there is a way out.

But not everyone is that lucky.  Some people don’t find the right combination of treatments at the right time.  Some people struggle and struggle, and eventually they need to get out of that water and take a breath, and unfortunately all too often that breath is the last one they take.

Depression kills people.  Just like cancer kills people.  It’s a shame on so many levels, but I just pray that we find the strength not to associate it with shame.