Downfall: A candid account of an episode of depression

Disclaimer: I wrote this last night and as you will see in the post I had reason to be a little scatter brained. I'm not going to go back and edit much so keep that in mind as you read.


Today I realized that I am sick.

I’ve been on some form of anti-depressants for the last six years. Before that, and in the periods that I was unable to take my medication, I suffered greatly from depression. I had all the classic symptoms. Sleep disturbances, no motivation, no interest in life, suicidal thoughts. Some would attribute these problems with my psychology. How I was raised, early childhood traumas, etc. Some would say that anti-depressants were there to make me functional, so that I could really get to the bottom of my issues with therapy and growth. But today I confirmed that my problems are largely physiological and cannot be dealt with from a purely psychological approach.

A little over a year ago I changed medications. I’ve done this a few times over the years. But the medication I take now works a little differently than others I’ve tried. I noticed a slight improvement with this new medicine, but nothing spectacular. Then, about six months ago, I began to be happy. Happiness, in my life, has been experienced momentarily, but never consistently. I usually just shot for not being miserable. Not wanting to die. But lately I’ve been happy. It’s an incredible feeling. I can find joy in everything. I have reasons to get up in the morning and I actually LIKE life. I don’t think I’m a good enough writer to express in words how this feels. It’s like . . . Waking up from a bad dream. No, it’s like being pulled out of the water and onto a beautiful shore, and suddenly you realize you had been drowning. Your reality changes and are in awe that most people have felt like this their whole lives.

Don’t get me wrong. It’s not that I’m always euphoric or never sad. There have been some very sad things going on in my life lately. But they are just a part of the picture, not the whole.

Today things changed. I haven’t taken my medication for three or four days now. I can’t keep track exactly how long it’s been. But I have no insurance and my supply ran out. The medicine stays in your system for a while, but today at approximately 9:07 my world came crashing down. I had no more tolerance for my roommates dog and put it in it’s crate, I cried for most of three hours, I felt my rationality slipping from my mind. The thoughts I had, am having, are unhealthy and dangerous to myself. But in the midst of this collapse I had a flashback. A real one. And in my flashback I was a young child, between 3 and 5 based on where I was living at the time, and I was throwing my doll into the wall. The emotions were identical to what I’m feeling tonight. I felt the same way toward the dog as I felt toward my doll back then. I just couldn’t take any more and I lashed out, followed immediately by sobbing and a great sense of shame and remorse. I have more self-control now. I didn’t lash out at the dog. But the feelings that welled up inside of me were so identical that it brought back that memory.

I have realized for a long time that my feelings and behaviors as a child were not normal. But it wasn’t until today that those thoughts were utterly confirmed. Nothing too traumatic had yet happened when I was 3-5. Nothing, at least, to make me feel the same way I did tonight. The way I feel most of the time when I’m unmedicated. I am absolutely incensed at people who will not accept depression as a valid mental illness. Who think that you must just have “issues” that need to be resolved. I worked with a midwife who didn’t even believe in post-partum depression. A MIDWIFE!! She thought PPD was just a response to an overwhelmed new mother who wasn’t getting enough help from her partner. COME ON! There are hormones and brain chemistry at play here. But today I confirmed, at least to myself, that my problems are largely physiological. And that’s worth something to me. To know that I haven’t just been weak all of my life. But it’s also worth something to know that I will most likely always need medical help. Someday I may be able to manage my physiology with more natural methods, as I hope to, but it will always need to be managed.

I’m thankful that I was not born a few centuries, or even decades ago. I would have been institutionalized, given shock treatments, possibly even partially lobotomized. Or maybe they would have said I was possessed and killed me in the process of trying to rid my body of daemons, who knows. And for the women that those things happened to, I’m terribly sorry. Some of the treatment of the mentally ill is no less shameful than the treatment of holocaust prisoners. But we spare little memory for those victims.