In the past few days since I made my previous post, I've had the biggest outpouring of love and support from so many people, many who I didn't expect or haven't talked to in years and some people who I've only ever met in passing who wanted to tell me how much they appreciated my words. I've been thanked for my honesty and my fearlessness in talking about something many people avoid discussing or don't know how to discuss. I've also had a lot of people confess their own feelings of depression and inadequacy to me, and the shame of feeling the things they're feeling. I've had even more people thank me for writing this because they have someone in their life who they know is drowning in their own depression currently and they don't know how to help or how to even relate.
The ugly truth about depression is that the evil demon in your head makes you feel 100% alone 100% of the time and makes you believe that no one could ever possibly understand what you're going through so why bother telling them. The even uglier truth about depression is that many people experience the demon but very few people openly discuss it. I don't get that. I mean I do, because as I've said, it's insanely difficult sometimes to put words to the feelings that you don't know how to handle. What I don't get, is when you are in a state of clarity and in a good place, even momentarily, is why you wouldn't even attempt to explain how you feel and to please bear with you when shit gets real.
Let's get this straight. I know it can be said a thousand and one times, and when you're in the middle of a really bad battle with the demon, it can be ridiculously hard to believe and convince yourself of it, but the bottom line is: you are not the only one who is feeling the way you're feeling. You're not. You are not all that unique in this regard, you are not experiencing something that someone else hasn't before, and you definitely won't be the last. I know how it is. Trust me. I know how embarrassing you feel it is to tell the people in your life that you feel worthless, you feel like a piece of shit, and you feel like nothing you do is worth it. But I also know how much better I feel once I know I have people in my corner of the ring ready to help me fight this thing to the death.
P.S.
There was one thing that I wanted to clarify, as I have had someone ask/confront/get mad at me for mentioning the happy pills. Personally, I have a love/hate relationship with anti-depressants. Some days really love, other days... When I saw my first therapist when I was 18, I started our first session by telling him I didn't want to be medicated. He respected my decision, however, as our therapy sessions went on and nothing changed, he suggested we start me on the smallest dose of something to see if that would help get me over the slump.
Long story short, the first anti-depressant I was put on almost killed me and the second I ended up taking the maximum dose and feeling nothing but numb, which in my opinion is far worse than feeling everything. After quitting the Prozac cold turkey, I had about a 4-5 year span with nothing in my system at all. At first it felt great. I felt liberated. Then the exhaustion set in, the 14 hour nights. The medication I'm on now is on the opposite end of the spectrum than Prozac and it's been working for me for 2.5 years. Am I suggesting that medication is the answer? Hell no. I'd argue against putting more chemicals in your system any day. However, if it's what it takes to help me get out of bed in the morning, then you bet your ass I'm taking it.
End of clarification.
No comments:
Post a Comment