Tales From Behind the Wall

I first wrote this back in August of 2017... shortly after my first session with a therapist in over ten years. I share it here, now... because it was and is a part of who I am. Back then I had intended to make a habit of continually writing and updating this post as a private diary of sorts... but like so many of my projects, the depression took that from me as well... at least until now. Now... now I take it back up. Chronic depression only wins when I give up, and I refuse to give up for long. If you want to understand depression... truly understand it... then I want to tell you about it. It is not an easy topic... but if I don't talk about it then the stigma is never lifted... the neglect is never ameliorated, and the scorn is never dissipated. Due to the chemical imbalance in my brain, my depression began pretty much when my memories began, but this effort to write about it begins roughly three years ago...

 

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I don't want to kill myself. I've never really wanted to do that... even though I thought I did as an angsty teen. Back then I just wanted attention... but I certainly understand the desire that some people have to just end things. Or more commonly... to just want them to end. There is a small but important distinction between someone who wants to kill themselves, and someone who wants to die...

But I'm in no position to pontificate on the subtleties of wishing "it" would stop. I want it to stop... but my "it" is depression. Other people's "it" is... everything. Well it's just degrees of the same thing, I guess.

I've gone back into therapy. It has been years - over a decade in fact - since I sought external treatment for my internal darkness. It's not that my depression ever got better, you must understand, but instead that I realized the therapy wasn't helping and it was costing me a lot of money. 

I tried anti-depressants... zoloft, wellbutrin, effexor, prozac, celexa... and several others. For two years I tried these drugs while in therapy with a certified MFT and a psychiatrist... and for two years I put up with side effects: feeling robotic, lethargic, sexually impotent, nauseous, incontinent, and let us not forget painfully poor.

 

 

As for the counseling... well it wasn't a total loss. I learned how to keep control of my anger better, I learned how to speak and think in non-hurtful ways to myself and others, and I learned that every MFT wants to pry open your relationship to find all your problems magically there... and heal them. Well when both I and my wife have chemical imbalances in our brains... no duh there are relationship issues. But... we are actually pretty good at dealing with those by ourselves... so I endlessly found myself with the "My eyes are up here" syndrome... the therapist just couldn't figure out how to treat JUST me... or leave my wife out of it.

At the end of it all... I gave up on drugs and therapists, and just decided I would live my life, never knowing what emotions other than anger and sadness really felt like. Six months later I found on a doctor friend's recommendation, that mega doses of Omega-3 fatty acids helped me to balance out... not to cure my depression but... it gave me a sense of control I'd never had before... a sense of agency... and my life changed dramatically.

Now here I am 10 years later... feeling like that sense of control is lost... feeling like I'm spiraling the drain... and feeling like restarting a regimen of Omega-3 won't be enough this time. I'm scared at my own inaction... afraid that I will destroy my life and the lives of those around me... all because my brain is broken... and I thought... I need to find that control again. I need... coping tools. I need HELP. That word... I had to practically rip it forcibly from my flesh. Depression doesn't like it when you seek help. It wants you to sit in the corner and stay there like a good sack of meat... while it feasts upon your soul. Well... I managed that small amount of control, even though it took months from my decision to seek therapy... to the day I actually made the call to book an appointment.

 

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As an afterword to this post, I'd just like to say that I will be continuing to post about my ongoing fight with depression, but I am as yet unsure of the format it will take - or if it will take a format at all. It just feels important to talk about it... to open that conversation. And so I welcome that conversation, whatever form it takes.