Defeating Depression

The Defeat of Depression

Depression, is this insidious spectre that draws the light from our eyes, the joy from our dreams, ties a spiked chain around our heart and squeezes, pulling us down until our knees buckle and we can't breathe. And then it doesn't even let us die.

I've heard so many shitty half-assed analogies for depression. I feel like that one is at least fairly accurate.

I lived with that soul crushing, laying awake at night, crying until you feel like your eyes ran dry Depression for years. I just kept hoping that something bad would happen to me and end it all. I even made some halfhearted attempts a couple times.

Now, I'm not writing this because I think my story or pain is in any way unique. You may have suffered more, or just suffered differently than I have.

What this is is about my struggle with the agony of depression, and how I fought through it.

And the real agony is not in the pain, not the current pain anyway. It's the way the pain wears you down over time. This anchor tied to your ribs and digging deeper into the pavement behind you as you try to trudge through each day. And life just looks like this endless uphill trek with this heavy anchor on your back, this nausea in your stomach, this constricting pain in your chest that after a while you just fear that it's never going to go away. That life will just go on like this forever. Until hopefully one day it just stops.

Death has been described as a release. For those with this sort of soul crushing depression, it becomes the Patron Saint of Oblivion. Just... nothing. No more long days. No more dragging that anchor. No more tomorrows just like yesterday. No more pain.

I'm not a doctor. I have to say that for liability purposes. I can't offer to 'treat' you. I can only share my story, and you can choose whether or not it's of any use to you.

Like so many other depressed people, I was a writer. I had stacks of half finished stories. 3-4 chapters of a novel that I'd likely never finish. Poems. Sometimes just words. Thoughts. Of either my own or some character of mine. There's boxes of these laying around my house. They're still my most prized possessions to this day.

It was cold, as only living up North in sight of the lake can be. I remember staring out of my window in my drafty apartment, the smell of kerosene from the heater in the wall hanging faintly in the air. The hiss of that kerosene heater would be what would lull me to sleep just as dawn rose after a long night of staring at the ceiling and thinking of all the ways that life had been unfair to me.

Ah yes, that window. Staring across the street to the often brown, choppy waters of Lake Erie, with the white crests that signaled another coming storm. Ice had formed along the shore. You could walk a good thirty feet out onto the water without falling in. When you walked out on it, the water was clearer than you had ever seen it. It looked almost blue. There's a stillness to winter up north that reminds you of how close that cold can bring you to death. When your nose goes numb and a deep breath hurts.

But there's a tranquility to it. A place for somber reflection. In that nearly clear water I found myself wondering if I just jumped in, would I drown, or freeze to death first? The idea of drowning terrified me. But freezing to death seemed a much easier way to go. I didn't know if they'd ever find my body. It might be easier that way. My family had always been poor and I didn't want them to have to figure out how to pay for my funeral.

Back in my drafty, wooden apartment, standing on carpet quite a bit older than I was, I realized one thing. If I died, I wouldn't be remembered. There would be a brief, sad service. Words like 'potential' and 'regrettable' would be used. And that would be it. A few angry friends and heart heavy family members would occasionally visit the stone that marked my passing. And that would be it.

I thumbed through my old notebooks and looked through all of the half finished stories.

“What a waste,” I thought to myself. I'd published a few poems and had a couple plays taken to stage by this point. But no work to be remembered by. Nothing that I felt made up for all the time I had wasted. Of my own, of others. So I decided that I would pick a single story and write it to it's conclusion.

I had quit acting at this point. I hated the politics of it. (Still do.) So all I had left to do was finish this. Then I could end it all. I could leave this world with at least something marking my passing through it.

And so I found Lilith. Or maybe she found me. I started researching her legend in any book I could find. (I still used libraries for most of my research. Still do, in fact.) I wrote down copious notes and began weaving them into scenes. I started putting these scenes together. I kept writing.

I'd like to say that things turned around for me quickly after that. But I kept staring at the ceiling and hating my life. I kept breaking down in tears when I just couldn't hold back any longer. (I would, at least once a night, lock myself in a bathroom at the far end of the building I worked at and fall upon the dirty floor and weep. I would just unload the flood gates, dust myself off, and go back to work, now able to pass off a semblance of normalcy.)

In the midst of my writing I focused on deceased loved ones, lost opportunities, failed relationships and how I didn't feel that I had at all been given a fair shake at life. (During this time I also learned that a lover of mine committed suicide. Months after the fact. That is another story, but it didn't help my state of mind much.)

Eventually friends of mine, knowing of my background in theatre, convinced me to join their group of circus performers. They were small shows at the college and for local family events. I took to it quickly and appreciated the joy of it all. From them I learned to juggle and breathe fire. I learned poi spinning. I learned to laugh again.

Still, the sadness did not abate. In the still of the night, when I was all alone, that ghost returned to remind me of all the ways in which I was unhappy.

“But my life isn't that bad! I know it isn't!” I argued.

But that didn't matter. There was something broken in me. I was still sad anyway. Depression just hung over, silently; a cloud of crushing despair.

Then I found anger.

I had a page to write. I had a book to read. I had training to do. I had a show to put on. People were counting on me.

Yes, they were often small shows. I'm not making any claims to fame or glory here. Merely that I had a group who I had made a commitment to, and who seemed to enjoy my involvement. I was very happy for their company and for the opportunity to perform onstage again, albeit in a much different format than before.

And thus the cycle continued. Bouts of happiness, camaraderie and brief feelings of accomplishment; followed by bitter disappointment and soul crushing despair. It would come from nowhere like a sledgehammer to the gut. And at one time to the face. (Again, another story...) I was filled with despair and horror that this awful feeling had returned. I was a clown! I was a performer! I had no reason to be sad anymore!

And I would wail inside “I thought you were gone!”

“From me?” Depression said. “What gives you the right?”

And I would break again, crumbling into despondency. The glimmer of the hope of joy stripped away and me left shaking on the ground, sobbing and wondering why.

I sought counseling, but found the same repetition of my own thoughts unhelpful. There was some insight, but I wasn't getting 'better.' I tried drinking. Oh, did I try drinking. But the hollowness never went away.

Then I tried something else. I tried shifting my thoughts.

This was something that had been germinating in my mind for some time. At first it was to focus on my writing. Then it was to focus on my reading and research. While my mind was occupied with something else, it was harder to be sad. I would watch movies and even goofy videos online. I'd play board games with friends, or video games on my own. Some of this was a brief escape, but it got my mind going in the right direction.

I would catch my mind wandering to the sadness, and I would quickly try to 'changes stations.' Think about anything other than those sad thoughts; a book, a movie, a bad joke, a video game, anything. Training and exercise helped. When nothing else worked, I'd just get mad at myself for thinking these stupid things. It's not perfect, but anger was better than depression in my mind. That, and it's harder to stay angry for a long period of time than it is to stay sad. I could exhaust myself to neutrality.

It was a slow process, and I would stumble often. I would fall back into the self-loathing and despair more times than I can recall. I fell into an emotionally and mentally abusive relationship that I stayed in far too long because I honestly didn't think I could do any better.

I finished my book, then proceeded to be turned down by every publisher and agent I could find. I moved to New Orleans and went to dozens of auditions waiting for calls that never came. Dejection and anguish clawed at ever fiber of my being. But I kept getting angry inside, I kept changing channels and finding something else to focus on.

During this relationship, I did get on antidepressants for a brief time. They work for some people, and they helped take the edge off for me. And they may keep someone aloft when needed. But I believed the problem was deeper. It was inside me, and I wanted to fix it. I didn't want a pill that just made me feel 'less sad.' I wanted to rise above the melancholy that had held onto me for so long.

So I kept on. I kept trying. I kept training. I kept writing, and acting and sending out to publishers that I knew would never take me, until finally, I got published. I booked work as an actor. I got out of a bad relationship. I started to believe in myself.

And still, Depression would come back. But I was ready.

“I don't want to think about you right now, I'm going to think about something else.” Cue online videos, writing, reading, exercising, training, watching instructional videos, auditioning, going out with friends, or just thinking about things that make me happy.

Depression would return.

“FUCK YOU!” I'd scream inside of me, like I was some Anime character channeling the energy of 'Fuck-Off' all around my being. And I'd go knock out push-ups, I write something in a journal and leave those awful thoughts there, I'd go for a walk, I'd call a friend.

I'd do something.

And that's what mattered. Not what I did specifically, but that I did something. That I kept finding reasons to be. That I kept allowing myself to exist and kept exploring what interested me. That I embraced the people that made my life better by being in it, and lost touch with the people that tried to bring me down. (This sometimes had to include business contacts and even talent agents.)

I kept changing channels. I kept getting angry. I kept reading. I kept writing. I kept working out.

And he still comes back. Depression is always lurking around the corner.

But now, years later, I've got too much left I want to do. I still love video games, although I have precious time for them right now. But if they help you change the channel, do it. Do anything that gets your mind going, your heart racing, that makes you happy that doesn't damage you or the world around you.

And you can defeat Depression.

I know it's not a one time victory. And you will feel like you are losing many, many times before you feel like you're winning.

But I want you to look down that endless, gray, jagged road ahead and think about the times you are going to kick depression's ass, and smile. Because it's going to happen. Force yourself to smile until you believe it.

I was weak. I was pathetic. I had no reason to be on this planet anymore.

Only none of that was true. Not now, and not then. And it's not true for you either. That's Depression talking. So get mad, change channels, and kick Depression in the balls.

Keep fighting. Keep exploring this wonderful world. Keep finding outlets and interests in this world that fulfill you. Yes, it's a struggle, but that struggle is life. And I smile now, and I want you to stand here and smile with me, and kick Depression every time he returns.

Keep fighting.

Keep fighting.

Keeping being, and discovering and fighting some more to be who you are.

You're worth it. I promise.