Depression: coping with it.

When periods of depression hit, I was usually among the last to realize it. You go along doing whatever it is that you do and then one day it just seems too damned difficult to keep doing it. The change is slow and sneaks up on you. Now, just because some regular tasks might now appear to you to be more difficult than they used to be doesn’t mean that you give up. Most people, myself included, just keep plugging away as things continue to slowly fall apart.

Sleep usually becomes an issue. You are either unable to sleep and tired all the time or just plain tired. You just want to get things, like brushing teeth, out of the way—either doing a cursory job or not doing it all. And, the dreams and thoughts can start to frighten you. People around you seem to be nagging at you all the time. “It’s time to get up for work.” Leave me alone. “When are you going to empty the dishwasher?” When I get to it. “When is the last time you had a shower?” You’re not my mother. And so on. At work the boss takes you aside and asks you if everything is alright, he’s gotten some complaints about you.

There is no start point and end point in depression. Unlike a case of stomach flu where you can say, “I was not sick yesterday, but I am today,” when depressed you cannot say, “I was not depressed yesterday, but I am today.” It is just the state that you are in now. The changes are incremental whether the depression is developing or it is starting to fade through treatment.

Some people seem to regard depression as some sort of weakness. But, it can come from many different sources and usually has more than one cause. Stress, whether through dealing with an injury or with a divorce or with moving to a new home, is usually the main trigger. Problems can build up at work, at home, in health until you are carrying a load that just seems too heavy to bear. And, one of the earmarks of depression is that you find it very difficult to confide in anyone or seek help. It’s usually a quiet personal battle. What’s wrong with me? you might ask yourself and come up with very simple answers (I didn’t get enough sleep last night) or very complicated ones (I was always picked on in school and that caused me to have problems maintaining relationships which is why I am now living alone and feeling blue.)

One thing I learned in group therapy was that though the causes vary from person to person the symptoms are remarkably similar. Maybe someone in the group has just been diagnosed with type two diabetes so you can understand why they are feeling down, whereas someone else might be brooding about the death of a friend many years before and you feel, why don’t they just get over it and move on? The reason is simple: they can’t any more than the diabetic can make that condition go away—not without help.

Let me state as clearly as I can: there is no cure for depression. You can take fistfuls of anti-depressants, take personal, group, and couples therapy, have a religious conversion, take a long vacation, get a new boyfriend, but the best you can hope for is to alleviate the symptoms and learn to live with them. I am in no position to argue with any physician or psychiatrist who says otherwise—I don’t have the specialized training and knowledge that they do—but I have been living with this for at least the past 50 years—if not longer—and have met hundreds of people suffering from the same debilitating condition.

That does not mean that there is not hope. For the past several months I have been living in a state of calm peacefulness. It took an awful lot of personal work to get here, but I know that there are no guarantees that this will last. Stress will return, build up, and start to tear away at my wellbeing.  But, I now know an awful lot of ways to cope and how to minimize the effects.