Depression - a tough topic, faced with love

[blue]

This is a tough, weighty topic. It isn't light and funny. But sometimes real life is like that, and it's something that needs to be talked about.

For some people, it may be hard to take, so please be careful, as it's emotionally loaded.

Recently, various friends and their loved ones have had trouble dealing with depression or suicide. A few friends here have had times in their past or present that continue to worry them.

I want to address that, please.

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Suicide is forgetting for just a moment too long that there are other choices we don't see and people who love us, maybe just around the corner.

It harms the one it takes. It harms the ones left behind, who would give anything to undo their loved one's actions, and to know why that loved one thought it was so impossible to choose anything else or tell anyone what hurt so bad to make it seem the only option.

Depression's a big, formless nothing, a hole that tries to swallow and smother and give back nothing. It doesn't even actively hate. It just consumes and destroys.

I have been too near both myself. They are ugly, monstrous things. I have friends who have been too near them both too. One of my childhood friends may have been lost from this life to them. But I will see the people no longer in this part of life, when I get to whatever is beyond it.

I have fought back. I have turned away. I still deal with depression. Sometimes it's gone, sometimes it's there.

For my friends and family, including more than one here, I say --

Fight back. Turn away. Get help.

Even if you don't know anyone now that you feel safe to talk to, I know there are people who care and who will help you get through whatever it is and help you get back to your better self. It is OK to tell someone. It's OK to lean on their support and let them carry you a little while, until you can get going again.

Be different. Make a difference. Be true to yourself.

There are people in your life who love you and want to help.

Be at peace, you are not junk. You are not useless.

I use one or two lines in my signature online to remind myself and to remind others that we are imperfect, but we can change and become better.

"You can be more." ~ Farscape

"You can't take the sky from me." ~ Firefly

Those are quotes from shows in which the characters are all flawed, but they struggle and achieve amazing things. Sometimes it seems like they lose, but they overcome.

[Rad]

Last year I went through a period where all I did seemed worthless how to say this? Like my life wasn't worth living. I felt stuck. Up until that point I never knew what is like to be depressed. Morose. Always sad. But I felt that way.

A doctor friend of mine suggested doing something to take my mind away. Taking up hobbies, exercises, etc. I did. Oh, He didn't prescribe any medications. Refused to.

After about two weeks, the feeling eased considerably before dissappearing completely. But the first week before I consulted my friend was the worse week in my life.

But nothing happened to me in that one week, nothing that should be making me feel depressed. My friend said that prolly the accumulation of past problems or things to that effect.

But I remember that it was horrible.....

Now, I don't know if it was depression or not, but I was depressed. If it wasn't depression, then I hate to know what depression is. Because it must be worse than what I felt......Let's just say that now I know why depression drives people to suicide.

Cheers!

Rad

[Guest rusticmonk86]

Too many cloudy days can make me get a little feverish. Like the two months of rain we just had.

Oh man.

Most of the time, I may seem depressed. I just have a morbid curiousity with a twist.

[The Pecman]

I can be a real moody guy sometimes. A couple years ago, I went through about a six-month period where I was unemployed, a couple of years ago, and I was ready to hang myself -- no question about it. When you're single, and you don't have the traditional wife and kids and so on, your job occuplies a huge part of your life. And when that's taken away, you don't have a lot left.

But i did make it through that awful time. As bad an experience as it was, it made me stronger in the long run. The three best pieces of advice I can give anybody who's feeling depressed are these:

1) find a way to keep busy. Volunteer work, helping friends, exercise, getting out of the house... all of this is preferable to staying in your house and goofing off. (Having a good diet is important, too; my moods go all over the place when I start eating badly.)

2) write all your problems down on a piece of paper, devoting one sentence to each, and look at them objectively. Every time I've done that, the problems look a lot less severe in black and white.

3) before doing anything drastic, get some sleep and see how you feel in the morning. So far, every time I've felt suicidal, I've decided to sleep on it first. Knock on wood, so far, I've felt better in the morning -- to the point where I decided to live another day.

There are many, many great writers who suffered from horrible depression. I don't claim to be a great writer, but clinical depression runs in my family. My dad went on Zoloft for the last six months of his life, and he told me (shortly before he died of natural causes) that he felt happier than he had in decades because of the drug. I haven't resorted to that yet, but if I go through another bad spell, I might.