“Oooh, I’m so depressed, my partner left me.”
While the line above isn’t unusual, this ain’t depression. We tend to throw the word around a lot, with most people utterly unaware what depression is.
Clinical depression is crippling. There are good days and bad, but I’m getting ahead of myself . . .
What is (clinical) depression? I’m not going to give you the definition or anything because, well, you have the internet (obviously) so you can look up the medical definition.
My depression was a long time in the making, and I was just too oblivious to realize it. I got by on rage, and scorn, and alcohol and cigarettes. All of those things gave me something to hold on to, so I figure my depression was dulled by them. Until it wasn’t anymore. I was in my early thirties, and I was busting my ass to be the best at my job, doing everything as correctly as I could, and because I hated the job I disappeared into the online world of Everquest. To say I was stressed out would be an understatement. The stress wore this wall of rage and scorn down, at that time I had already not been drinking for a few years, and I had quit (chain–) smoking only months earlier. I was exhausted, and when I did something by the book, but not in accordance with what the customer wanted, the guy managing that account pretty much ripped my head off. I was done for, burnt out, weeping in front of our boss, who also acknowledged I had done everything correctly . . . which didn’t help me in face of a choleric asshole.
I became unemployed, and my self esteem went down the drain. There were nights I slept for only a few hours, lying awake, trying to figure out what to do. It was then that the nightmares started as well. I did get a job, of sorts, but didn’t feel fulfilled. What were the nightmares? They all pretty much revolved around me losing my “Abitur” … for those unfamiliar with the German school system, the Abitur is pretty much the qualifier for a college/university education. Those nightmares were reoccurring . . as in every night. I woke up one day and determined I would either begin the day with vodka, or I began smoking again.
People have the misconception that antidepressants make you happy. They don’t.
It was only a few years later, with the nightmares wearing me down even more, plus some relationship issues, that this girlfriend said I was depressed and should get a prescription. I went to my GP, told him what was going on, he asked me if I had considered suicide, which I had, at least once, when the girlfriend broke up with me, and he put me on Zoloft for the day, and Doxepin for the night.
What happened then was incredible: first off, I could sleep again, without the nightmares. Second, it was as if a shroud had been lifted, or the weight taken off my back. I wasn’t happier or anything, I just wasn’t sad anymore. People have the misconception that antidepressants make you happy. They don’t. When your default for a day is pretty much in the negative, getting the dial set to Zero is already a great improvement.
But this positive requires you to take the stuff every day. And it doesn’t solve the underlying problems either. I learned that a few years later.
I got lucky and someone hired me, unfortunately this boss, and his wife, were abusive assholes, she more than him, and I was again stressed out. Relationship crap, again, paired with working three jobs. So on my last day there, the boss lady said something so incomprehensively nasty that I pretty much stood in the store crying for one hour.
People don’t see you’re depressed, we’re good at masking things, and we might have a good day. When you have a broken leg, people see your injury, and that injury heals. With depression, nobody sees the hurt and the pain; you might not even notice it yourself because as a man we’re taught to tough it out, bury the pain with alcohol and whatnot. People see you on the street and do not notice you’re ill, because, really, there are no wounds, no scars to see. All the shit is internal, and it leaves you alone, especially when you can’t talk about it . . . because, well, you’re a man, and men don’t have problems, only solutions . . . or some similar bullshit phrase that society has imprinted on us.
When you have a broken leg or something, people see your injury, and that injury heals. With depression, nobody sees the hurt and the pain, you might not even notice it yourself because as a man we’re taught to tough it out . . .
I got help, went to therapy. Now I can identify depressive episodes and can handle them, for the most part. Until I can’t. It’s an invisible struggle, an invisible illness, and because most people cannot understand how you can be unable to work because you’re physically fine.
What’s depression like? It’s impossible to explain, either you know or you don’t. And if you don’t know what it’s like, count yourself lucky. There were times I didn’t want to get up, felt everything was against me, knew I was worth more than my dreams and everything else told me. My father got me job ads which I applied to, already knowing that I didn’t want to do the job, or knowing they’d reject me. In time I grew afraid of even seeing ads, knowing I would be rejected again. I still get that feeling, for different reasons, but still. Now, in hindsight and after years of therapy, I understand the whys and hows, but in the beginning I did not.
When I went to therapy for the first time, I told my therapist I felt like I’m swimming, with no ground underneath my feet and no land in sight, anywhere. I think it’s an adequate analogy. When you’re depressed you feel even more alone than you can imagine possible. People are there and having fun around you, and you stand in a group, try to laugh, or try to make small talk, and there’s literally nothing, because you’re overwhelmed. You see all these joyful people, and you want to be part of it but can’t be because you just pretend to have fun, and you KNOW you’re just pretending to have fun.
Back when I was drinking, and you cannot imagine the kind of damage I did to my body, I fit in because my inhibitions were lowered by the alcohol. But it was also killing me. I stopped drinking because it had almost killed me, and as shitty as my life was, I did not want to die.
I cry when I’m sad. I admit my weaknesses, to others, to myself, and I don’t give a damn if they don’t understand. I know most never will, and if someone tells me to tough it out, I usually end the conversation. There’s no point explaining things to such people.
In a book, which I never finished, I read a quote about depression that might explain it better to outsiders. “People wear rose colored glasses, not consciously but they are a kind of automatic self preservation mechanism. Everyone has them. Except the people with depression, their rose colored glasses are off, permanently.”
