What would it be like to not feel depressed anymore? I truly can’t say I know how that would feel. I have memories of being happy or a period when I was not depressed. I have photos from such times and when I look at them, I remember that I was happy during that period. But right now, how it actually felt to be happy then, I can’t tell you. I imagine I felt lighter and this tightness in my chest wasn’t always there. I probably laughed more than I cried. But I can’t remember how all of that actually felt.
I have been depressed for a long time. My therapist told me recently that I have likely been depressed since I was a kid. Then I came across a blog post that said something like depression doesn’t go away. Once it starts, it’s there for your entire life. This got me thinking about how long I might have been depressed. The first memory I have is from 7th or 8th grade- I would have been 12 or 13. I remember sneaking a bottle of Tylenol from the medicine cabinet and hiding it under my mattress, just in case.
Just in case things got out of control with my dad. Just in case Mom tried to leave without us again. Just in case I felt like I couldn’t handle life anymore. It was there as a potential escape, and it was comforting to know that I had an action plan in place. Four or five years later, I would use that same action plan to attempt suicide. When I was 17, I pulled the bottle from under my mattress and proceeded to take most of it. I stopped when my tongue felt like it couldn’t swallow anymore and my two glasses of water ran out. I realize now that I must have been depressed since I was about 12, even though I didn’t have a name for it.
In college, I again contemplated taking my life when I wasn’t doing well in school, my college sweetheart and I broke up, and neither my sister nor my brother was living at home with me, leaving me alone with my parents. This time my friends convinced me to seek out therapy. It was the first time I went on medication. I don’t recall this period being identified as depression either.
In fact, the first time I recognized depression as a condition I have was in 2009. I had started seeing a new therapist and she recommended I get back on medication because I had stopped it at some point. I also saw that was the indication marked on the receipt she gave me to submit to my insurance – Major Depressive Disorder.
So, in my case, depression has been with me for about 38 years. It’s been lying dormant for long periods but seems to resurface every 5 to 10 years, except this time, when it’s only been 3 years. I attribute that to our lives being turned upside down due to a little pandemic, a cross-country move, a job change, a difficult project with a difficult manager. Any one of these is enough to trigger a depressive episode, but the combination of all – not too surprising, I guess.
Each of the episodes has had its own triggers and levels of difficulty in managing. However, this episode feels particularly hard. It may be because I was caught off-guard by it since I thought I was doing the things I needed to keep it at bay – exercise, yoga, journaling. I know this is also the first time I’m doing some really difficult work in therapy – dealing with the traumas I haven’t dealt with before. I know it’s all going to result in a healthier me, but on a day-to-day basis, it’s not fun, to say the least.
I’ll get through it, I keep reminding myself, just like I have gotten through the other episodes over the last 38 years. And I look forward to feeling happiness that stays with me consistently; happiness that outweighs the sadness; happiness that I will remember when things get rough again. I will get through it.
The Great Depression - 2019/2022 