That's supposed to help someone?

Monday 7-27-15
A very good friend of mine just read the sentence about depression being incurable and possibly terminal and asked me how that could possibly be the good news. My explanation was that the black humor of it probably escapes her. It makes perfect sense to me. Once I accepted how serious depression was,  I was able to get serious about it. Most people who write well meaning articles, books, pep talks about depression do not have the faintest idea what it really feels like. Let's let them know on this site how serious we are about it. 

Most cancers are incurable so the patient has to learn to live with that, or they can go down fighting, or both. But no one tells them to just cheer up - they bring them cheese cake.  

Now with depression people try to cheer you up. How often does that work for you? Yea, not me either. We are the HARD CORE of depression-land. 

    "IT WILL PASS"  ( no, it won’t pass)            2-12-15

                    

If I had a dollar for every time this has been tossed casually to me, like a basketball.

Please stop listening to people who, when you tell them you’re depressed, tell you it will pass. That’s sort of like telling homeless, starving kids that their hunger will pass. It’s ridiculous! 

Sure it will pass, maybe for 10 minutes, but it will be back again and you know it, because you’ve experienced that many times. I have experienced that many times too.

So you’re stable on medications after trying many combinations. You have a good therapist. You are able to hold down a job or live on Social Security or some other program or your private budget. Now you need to learn to live with depression day in and day out.

I’m having a break from it today. The anger underneath it is tolerable today too. It feels so good to have a break. Some days the state under the depression is more fragile than others.  Today is about a 5. I can accept myself today.  I don’t have to be liked by people so desperately today.  All the same I know just as sure as I know my shoe size, that it will be back – without my invitation. 

I can “make friends” with it. I can be curious about it. I can put it in a box, wrap it in pretty paper with a bow and put it in a desk drawer. All these things I’ve been advised to do by caring people that mean well. I’ve worked with all these systems and many others.  People say they will be “there” for me, and I think they mean it. They just don’t have any idea of what that would really mean. When the darkness, fire, or gallons of mud envelop me these people are not there. If they were they would not want to be around me for long.

I experience what is called post-traumatic stress disorder. It is decidedly less painful now than when I discovered it. So which came first, the depression or the trauma? Who knows. It doesn’t really matter. I still have to deal with it almost every day.  It is better to talk about it than try to hide.  Squashing it with alcohol, sex, drugs, food, work or money only last for a while.  Right? Of course right. You know what I’m talking about.

More to come.................vss