And that is one thing that I know very well.
So the next few posts in our depression series won't be answered by just me. I have a few friends who have walked this lonely road who are willing to share their answers too.
Their names will be changed, so that they can be kept anonymous. Except for me.
"When did you realize your depression was real?"
. . . . . . . . . .
Me:
I remember that morning perfectly. Grant was about 9 months old. I remember I woke up at 8am because he was crying. I got him a bottle and propped it up with a stuffed animal. I went back to bed and fell asleep. I remember once his bottle was gone I just laid there and listened to him crying for almost an hour.
Finally I got out of bed. I went and got him, changed him, and threw some cheerios on the ground and let him watch TV as I lay on the couch.
After the show was over... I put him back in his room. He cried.
I came out and dropped on the floor.
I felt nothing.
I couldn't even cry.
I knew I should have been crying or something.. but I was just nothing. NOTHING.
The next day Jaron and I got in a fight and I remember walking out and sitting on the sidewalk (we lived in a REALLY sketchy place back then so that was dangerous in itself) and I remember thinking, "I want to go to heaven now. Can I be done here?"
It wasn't like a "I am going to harm myself so I can die" thought... it was just a real "I want to just be in heaven instead" thought. I don't know. But I knew that wasn't normal thinking. So for the first time I decided to talk to someone about it.
. . . . . . . . . .
"Mary":
When I realized my depression was real,I had been known to get bluesy and have more down days than the average joe over a few years of my life.
I thought maybe I was just kind of a negative or sad person (which was a stark contrast to how people see me.)
We were at a time in our lives where I had little ones and my husband was gone traveling for work. A lot. One day after I had braved the winter to get the little ones out ot fhe house, I had a total freak out (for lack of a better term) trying to get them ready for bed.
I was yelling and crying and they were too.
Once they were all safely in bed, I went into the kitchen and grabbed a knife because I had heard that 'cutting' gave relief to mental angst for some people. I tried to do it... and I couldn't.
Not because I knew I shouldn't, but in my mind, because I was so pathetic. Who is so feeble and inadequate that they can't even do THAT right?
I cried and I cried for half of the night. I got up around 3 AM and wrote a letter of everything I was thinking and feeling. The next morning, I read it. I knew I was not well.
I called the Dr and asked to be seen that day because I was scared. When I had been having low moments, I believed my thoughts were normal.
That's what's hard- it's in your brain. You can't see it! When I read that letter the next morning in a 'better state of mind' I recognized the reality of my situation.
. . . . . . . . . .
"Sarah":
I think when I finally was like "oh my gosh this is more than me being sad from a break up"
was when I was carpooling with a friend to school.
While I was driving up over a bridge I very calmly and seriously asked her,
"I wonder what would happen if I just drove off the side?"
Needless to say I didn't drive for a while ha.
. . . . . . . . . .
"Jane":
It's hard to answer your first question,
I think I was in denial for a long time. I had experienced some depression and anxiety before when I was in high school so I thought I would have been more aware.
The truth is, because it was brought on with post partum from my first baby I didn't stop to think "is this normal?" I just assumed it felt like that for all new moms.
My son was 6 months old before I finally called my doctors office and asked if they thought what I was experiencing could be PPD/PPA. I was stuck in between the two, feeling like I didn't care about anything, but constantly feeling super worried about everything at the same time. If
And I manifested my anxiety with rage, so the smallest things would set me off. I started realizing that it isn't normal to be that angry and apathetic and paranoid 24/7.
And I realized that even though I hated the idea of taking medication,
I had a helpless little boy depending on me and my stubbornness refusing to
take care of myself was hurting him.
. . . . . . . . . .
"Elizabeth":
That is a hard question to answer. From having close family/friends who struggle with it I think I saw signs and kind of knew but I think it was when I started feeling like I wanted to be somewhere else. That I wanted to leave my life just to get away.
Not really for any reason. I had a wonderful life and knew it but I couldn't shake the feeling of just wanting to leave.
My thoughts started going to places that scared me where they could eventually end up.
And I would just cry. Just lay on the floor and cry feeling so alone for no reason really.
One of those days [my husband] came home and we talked and I told him he didn't understand and he told me to make him a list of all the things I was feeling or thinking about.
I think writing it down for someone else was the culminating event where it got real.
But it was empowering.
Because I wasn't alone anymore.
Its like in a way I made a choice to share that burden and most importantly I could do something about it.
Not that I didn't still struggle or still FEEL alone after that but I KNEW i wasn't and that there really were people who cared about me despite what my mind would tell me sometimes.
. . . . . . . . . .
Me, Carmina again..
When I was a Senior in high school I watched Grey's Anatomy a lot.
A friend and I really liked the term "Dark and Twisty".
I used to find that my brain got all "dark and twisty" a lot.
Once I got married, and then after I had Grant my brain was dark and twisty 24-7.
Like the title of my last post- a hell hole really, is what it became.
So if your mind is dark and twisty...
You might have depression.
Join the club.
-C