**TW: SUICIDAL IDEATION**

This post is full of Hope. But it is also about surviving depression and suicidal thoughts; thus, the trigger warning. If you are feeling sensitive to such things right now, don’t read it. You can always skip it or come back to it later, when you’re feeling stronger.

 

Image credit: Sydney Sims

 

I’ve started this blog post four times and, dammit, this one is going to stick! LOL

The first version was about Seasonal Affective Disorder (or SAD); the second version ended up miles and miles from where it started; and the third version was boring even to me, the writer. Hey, it happens. 😊

As I was pecking away at the keyboard, a thought occurred to me: Not only are we all Warriors, we are Survivors, in the most important aspect of the word.

A LITTLE BACKGROUND

I have never met most of you. But that doesn’t matter. You and I have something in common that most people never really have to worry about: We are Surviving depression.

A while ago, I wrote this post about how my thinking has evolved from that of a victim of depression to that of a survivor of depression. I even changed the tagline on my website from “Fighting the Stigma of Mental Illness and Addiction” to “On Surviving Depression”.

That might not seem significant to an outsider, but it was a big deal to me.

For me, the first symptoms of depression came when I was about 14 years old. Some stressful shit happened in my life, and gradually, I felt like I’d been tossed into the middle of a tornado from which I was never going to land.

My thoughts, though never what I would call “carefree” or “spontaneous” or even “fun” (even as a kid, I was usually anxious and serious) turned right when most other people’s was turning left.

I was so tired of being depressed and anxious that I had planned to overdose. I may have been a “mature” 14-year-old, but I was young, innocent, and naïve in so many ways. I figured I would just take all the pills in the house that I could find and that would do it. That would end my pain.

I was quite close to doing it, too. I remember staring at all of those pills spread out on the kitchen counter and asking myself again: Do I really want to do this?

Turns out I didn’t.

But I remember that day like it was yesterday. And I remember every day since that I felt the same way.

YOU AND I ARE BONDED

The very thing that I feared would eventually succeed in killing me – my faulty, cross-wired brain – must have somehow been holding onto the teeniest, tiniest strand of Hope all those years.

In my mind, Hope is the most important four-letter word there is. Without it, you have nothing. So many times in my life, I thought I was literally hope-less. But somehow, I managed to hang on.

And so have you.

Do you realize that you have won every. single. fight. that you’ve had with yourself? Otherwise, you wouldn’t be on this planet anymore. You have survived every bad day, the worst of your bad days, the days you thought would be your last.

And here we are. We are learning new tools, we are looking toward the future – we are living. And that’s really saying something.

That makes us brothers- and sisters-in-arms. We share a similar struggle. We are being tossed about in the same storm, but we are in different boats. And we’re all trying to navigate toward safer, calmer seas.

We can help each other land safely. You and I know better than most how it feels to wonder if life is ever going to get better, if we have a future. To want to end our lives because that’s the one thing we think will end our suffering.

Let’s reach out to each other. If you know someone who struggles with depression, it’s okay to reach out to them. You know their struggle, you know their pain. Like I said, we’re all in this storm together; if you see someone’s boat being manhandled by the circumstances of life, tie a rope to it. Pull it along until you both land safely on shore.

We are connected through this suffering, and we can move beyond it. I swear to you, it is possible. And it is worth it.

“A LIFE WORTH LIVING”

I know that may sound like some sort of oxymoron, but it’s not. At least, not from my point of view.

From the age of 14 until I was 47, I thought life was some kind of cruel joke, and that I was a sucker for going along with it. If you know my story at all, you know the multitude of ways I have tried to tackle my depression and anxiety. Therapy, groups, more than a dozen hospitalizations, psych meds up the yin-yang. I’ve even had ECT (which I will NEVER do again), also to no avail.

As you can imagine, and perhaps from your own experience as well, I thought I was doomed to live a short life full of despair and desperation. But the human brain has one simple (but not easy) job to do – and that is to keep us alive.

My life, I thought, was not worth living. And when I told people that I was depressed, I mostly heard some variation of “What do YOU have to be depressed about?” (Number one on the list of Things Not to Say to a Depressed Person.)

Okay, I had some things going for me, and I’ve never taken them for granted. I’m fairly intelligent, I have a great sense of humor, and I’m nice to people. Most people even seem to like me. And yes, I have a few accomplishments under my belt. But no amount of friends or accomplishments could make me feel better.

In fact, I felt like a complete failure.

Then, five and a half years ago, I was introduced to TMS (transcranial magnetic stimulation), which I have written about here. TMS is a non-invasive treatment for treatment-resistant depression and it has minimal side effects. I have been through it four or five times since 2015, and each time, it has magically reduced my depression by about 80%.

It has, quite literally, saved my life.

My brain did a 180 after my first round of treatments and after every round since. As I type this, it’s been almost a year and a half since my last round of TMS and I’m signing up to do another one, as my general mood has dropped and been less stable lately.

What’s different about my life, now that I’ve had specialized, adequate treatment? Only everything!

I no longer have to endure life; I enjoy it. My chronic headaches have all but disappeared. My irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) has gone away. I’ve quit smoking. I got myself out of a relationship that was really hard on my mental health.

I am learning how to relax and have fun now, which – believe me – is worth its weight in gold.

I’m not going to say that the world looked brighter all of a sudden, or that all the answers came to me just like *that*. But I do have some answers now. And what else do I have?

I have a future now.

All those years, I was so depressed, I had no real goals and very little direction. I mean, what’s the use of planning out a life that you expect to eventually snuff out? As far as I knew, I was going to feel like shit every single day of my miserable, god-forsaken life. Why keep going? Why bother with anything?

Life is so good now, and I am so grateful. No, it’s not sunshine and roses every day, but most days are pretty good. I’m even “happy” sometimes 😊 And on those days that suck, at least I know there is a treatment out there that can help me feel better and change the trajectory of my life.

IT CAN HAPPEN TO YOU

For many people with depression, the usual methods of treatment work well enough that they can live a fruitful life full of possibilities. Therapy for investigating your feelings and thoughts and psychiatry for medication management are two of the most common treatments.

But if meds and counseling aren’t enough for you, you are not alone. There are many, many people who have the same issue. I know there can be comfort in knowing how you’re going to feel every day (strange as that may seem), but don’t you owe it to yourself to do everything in your power to feel better?

You deserve that. Yes, I mean you.

If you’re not getting any treatment for your depression and you’ve been doing nothing but suffering, get some treatment. If you’re already getting treatment but it’s not helping (or not helping much), tell your shrink, tell your therapist, tell everyone who will listen until they help you find an alternate treatment.

If you’re having trouble managing life, call your county’s mental health help line (they all have one) and ask if you can get a case manager. A case manager can help with things like getting you to appointments, setting goals, signing up for programs, and checking in with you on (often) a weekly basis to make sure you’re okay.

If you’ve been reading my posts for a while, you’ve heard me talk about a type of group therapy called DBT – Dialectical Behavioral Therapy. This has also changed my life.

I gotta tell you, I resisted the idea of joining a DBT group for over a decade because I figured I already knew everything about myself. How could yet another group help?.

But it did, a lot. DBT helps you identify what you’re thinking and feeling and changes the way you react to it. It gave me power I never knew I had. Yeah, it’s a big time commitment (my program was three hours, once a week, for a year), which was another reason I was afraid to do it. I suck at commitments.

But I did it, and I am so much happier for it.

I may not be a mental health professional, but I do consider myself a lay expert on depression. If you feel like your life is going nowhere and you don’t know how much longer you can hold on, check out TMS and DBT on the internet machine. A couple simple Google searches is all it takes. That way, you can make informed decisions about these possibly life-saving treatments. Or if you know of another type of treatment, look into that.

After all, Knowledge = Power.

Look, all I know is that you deserve to feel better. You deserve to be just as happy and carefree as anyone else. So go ahead, take that bull by the horns. It will give you some control over that which haunts you.

Thanks for reading, Warrior. And let’s Keep it Real out there!