As someone who has suffered with chronic depression (dysthemia) (which has numerous times spiralled into full-blown clinical depression, requiring hospitalization at one point), I can attest to the brutality of the disease. I liken it to quicksand which reaches up and grabs you by the ankles with no warning and sucks you down into the darkest darkness that you can possibly imagine. When you're in there, stuck in that quicksand of darkness with no ability to talk yourself out, or no tools within you to find any way out at all, it quickly spirals into despair and an feeling of utter futility. You think it will never end, that you will never feel better again. Day after day, year after year, it keeps going on and on and on. I tried everything - EVERYTHING - meds, therapy, prayer, everything everyone ever suggested I do. Nothing made a dent in that darkness. And one day, I finally just couldn't see any way out and couldn't muster even one more ounce of hope to continue trying. I gave up.
Fortunately, I survived, but while I was unconscious I had a dream, which forever changed my life. I was very very lucky and blessed to find the medications, therapy, people and resources to then find my way to stable ground. Through all of that long hard climb out of that hellhole, I never made it all the way out of depression, but I learned coping skills and ways to manage my depression. Which made a huge difference.
For the past four years, I have been completely depression-free. I had a major hysterectomy operation where they removed everything. From the morning after the operation to present day, I have not had a moment of "depression". I have experienced down days, grief, blues, but not the same, not even remotely the same as the clinical depression. Then (i.e.,my entire life before the operation), I was never able to see light...I was forever living just under the clouds, and could never find my way to rise above and see the light. It was impossible, no matter what I did, I could not reach light.
Now I live in light...the difference is remarkable and joy-enkindling! I don't think I can accurately articulate this difference for anyone who has never not been able to see light from within themselves. It's indescribable in terms that anyone who hasn't been there can understand.
It turns out that my entire life's struggle with this darkness may in fact have been caused by hormones. But nobody ever caught that, or even investigated that possibility. They slapped that label "mentally ill" on my file and that was it. No doctor ever made the effort to go past that label. How sad is that.
Anyway, all suicide devastates me. I like what Janeway says: If Robin Williams and the nearly 30,000 other lights that are snuffed out by suicide each year are to be truly honored, let’s create a mental health care system free of stigma and easy to access. Let’s openly talk about our own struggles so that those struggling with bigger demons feel encouraged to open up. And let’s take care of our own mental health every day."
And I agree with Yonuh...the absolute worst thing we can ever do is judge, criticize, shame or ostracize anyone anywhere for any reason, because we never know what they're struggling with and how our unkind words and actions towards them can impact them.
I wish we could just treat everyone with the compassion and kindness that we wish others would show us.
Edited by Eagle Heart (08/13/14 03:21 PM)
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When you don't like a thing, change it.
If you can't change it, change the way you think about it.
(Maya Angelou)