“Are you happy?”
I’ll never forget those words coming from my wife as we were out to eat one night with our two young children.
With a furrowed brow, I replied, “Yeah????”
What a weird question to ask, I thought. Why wouldn’t I be? We had two healthy young boys, two dogs, good jobs, and nearly every other box checked when it comes to an idealistic life. Things weren’t perfect, they never are, but we were doing very well in my mind. I couldn’t understand why she would be asking that question.
Given the public setting we were in, the discussion didn’t go far. Nor did we ever really broach the subject again directly, but in hindsight, it was the beginning of a series of flare ups in our relationship and I couldn’t understand why.
What I didn’t recognize then, that I do so obviously now, was that I had developed depression and had no idea.
I’m not looking for sympathy. What I’m hoping to do is help others recognize the symptoms themselves early so that it can be treated earlier. My wife had recognized that something was wrong but she too had no idea.
With other illnesses or ailments, there are often very clear signs that something is wrong. You experience pain, a fever, a cough, a bone protruding from your skin; something.
But with the onset of my depression, there was nothing. It was a slow rising warm bath with no warnings until things began to spill over.
Had I known what the signs were maybe I would have recognized it earlier, but it happened so slowly, that it was only when I looked back on it much later was I able to recognize what I had.
Couples argue, fight, and disagree all the time. The more variables that are introduced like children, jobs (or lack thereof), money, etc., the more likely those contentions can happen. We weren’t without our share of those as we got older and moved further away from our honeymoon. But you overcome those things, compromise (hopefully), and move on.
The flare-ups that I mentioned earlier though started to have a common thread among them and was the biggest concern for me. My wife’s biggest complaint was that I no longer seemed to care for her. Nothing could be further from the truth in my mind and I couldn’t understand what I could have done, or didn’t do in this case, that would have caused her to believe this.
My wife thought it was something to do with her, something she had done, and worse that I had stopped caring about her or loving her altogether. I didn’t show affection in the same way.
It wasn’t anything that I had said or done or heaven forbid doing anything abusive, it was my inaction doing simple things, things that I had always done before. Things like helping out with household chores and being proactive in general in everything.
I can assure you that it wasn’t intentional. Nobody likes to do those things of course but looking back now the underlying problem wasn’t that I wasn’t helping out around the house, the problem was that I wasn’t doing anything. At all.
I will readily admit that I knew very little about depression before this. I was in the camp that a lot of people are in and that it was just being sad and that you could just choose to be happy. Or worse yet, that person must be sad because they’re not living a good life. If they would just make better choices or do things differently, they wouldn’t be depressed anymore. It was all in their head.
That last part is true. It is in your head. But it’s a physical, chemical condition though, not something that’s made up. While there are varying degrees of depression and varying lengths of suffering, depression isn’t a word that that describes moments of sadness.
In fact, for me, I don’t have have long bouts of deep sadness. I also don’t have many, if any, moments of happiness, even in events that should cause joy. The worst part about my depression is that I feel nothing most of the time. It takes an extreme event to invoke those feelings like a death or an equally emotionally-charged joyful event. I’ve received compliments in the workplace for my “calm-under-pressure” demeanor when things around me are on fire. It’s meant as a compliment but it’s really just a symptom of the underlying illness.
One of the biggest signs with depression that gets looked over is the sudden disinterest in things that you once liked. For me, that included such things as video games, watching/playing sports, reading, and yes, my relationship with my wife. Nothing was of interest anymore. But I had no idea it was happening.
In the movie Serenity, the crew discovers a world where a gas that’s supposed to calm the population is released into the atmosphere. It worked. Too well. One of the last reports from a government officer is shown via hologram,
“The people here stopped fighting. And then they stopped everything else.
They stopped going to work, stopped breeding… talking… eating… There’s thirty million people here and they all just let themselves die. They didn’t even kill themselves. They just… most starved.”
I am not that severe thankfully but it illustrates my indifference towards anything non-essential. Unless it was an absolute necessity (eating, work, etc.), it didn’t get done. As work piled up prioritization would increase and then something might get done. But it took grass getting nearly a foot tall to get mowed, dishes overflowing the sink, or any other extremes before I would work on things.
I wasn’t neglecting those things for fun things either. I wasn’t spending hours playing video games, watching movies, playing sports, or any other normal excuse that you might have to avoid doing the unpleasant things. I was doing nothing. Just the bare minimum and I didn’t realize it.
If I didn’t like doing things that I normally would do, then imagine how much more unlikely it was that I would do things that were considered unpleasant.
What frustrated (frustrates really because it still happens) me the most is the inability to start even simple tasks. I know what needs to be done but even simple things can impose the largest barriers to starting and completing tasks. One such simple task is paying bills. I have the means to pay all of my bills. I don’t have any incentive NOT to pay bills. If fact, it’s easier than it’s ever been to pay bills. There’s literally no barrier to me simply logging in to a website, username and password already filled in, clicking a couple of buttons, and being done. It takes anywhere between 5–10 minutes to complete them all once started.
And yet when I have to do it, I can sit and stare at the computer screen and not do it. I can think of a hundred other things that I could do but starting this simple task evades me. It makes no sense in the world.
I believe one of the reasons for this is that I can’t see the pleasure in getting a task done, no matter how large or small. No pleasure in anything. I have a stack of video games and movies that I’ve bought to play and to watch and right now, I know that I’ll never get to them. Yet I still buy them because the little envelopes that arrive at the door provide the fleetest moments of euphoria.
And when I do finally start things, the trigger to which still escapes me, I’m easily distracted because of the dozens of other things that I know need to be done and now I’m worrying about whether I should leave what I’m currently doing and jump to one of the others.
There are other smaller signs that I didn’t recognize but I do now:
Indecisiveness. It happens with even the smallest decisions: what to eat, what to wear, which task to start, etc. I can decide one thing and then change my mind five seconds later.
Forgetfullness. This was one of the biggest issues my wife had. When I was given a task to do from her, I literally wouldn’t remember it two minutes later. It was another sign to her that I didn’t care. But I literally would forget that she even asked.
Procrastination. This ties nicely to everything I’ve mentioned above. For example, I had originally wanted to write about this in October for World Mental Health Day.
Difficult to see the joy in things. Movies are an example of this. Despite enjoying myself once I sit down and start watching a movie, it’s very hard to even start one, something that should be pleasurable. My brain tells me it’s not going to be good or that I’m wasting my time. It doesn’t make sense even as I type this out.
Concentration. It can be difficult staying on task once I’ve actually started a task. I’ve started so many things and have finished too few.
Irritability. Because of these things, I didn’t like being asked to do anything, no matter how small. Each task was another brick in the insurmountable wall in front of me. I bristled at simple things my wife and others would ask of me. Everything, even fun things, had become an imposition and a chore.
I would like to say that everything is good now and I’ve overcome it. But I haven’t yet. I’ve been to a therapist who wasn’t effective. I know I should keep looking until I find someone that works but the aforementioned items are a big reason why I haven’t yet. It took me so long to go to that one.
Outside of trying a few supplements and trying to change eating/sleeping habits, I haven’t done anything drastic to change. Even then I fall back into old ways. And I’m scared to death of prescription medication treatments because it’s such a shotgun approach to solving things and the potential side-effects are more terrifying than what I deal with now.
I’m grateful that it’s not worse. There are so many others that are so much worse off. I have a young adult neighbor whose depression is so severe that she can’t leave the house most days including going to social activities, church, or work.
I hope though that this little article can help others recognize the signs that you wouldn’t normally associate with clinical depression.
The trigger for me was my deteriorating relationship with my wife. I honestly was not doing anything on purpose and thought everything was the same. And if my wife had noticed those things in me, and I treated her like that, how much more noticeable was it to others? To my professional relationships? What was my effect on the rest of my family? What example was I setting for my two young sons and would they grow up thinking like my wife, that I didn’t care for them?
I am more conscious of how I act and what I do now now that I know. I try to put everything in my phone to remind myself of what needs to get done.
My biggest hope from writing this is that it will help someone recognize the signs in either themselves or those that they love and care about. Neither me nor my wife could accurately describe what I had. We both saw different things and neither of us were right. We know what to do with fevers, coughs, and pain because we know them and are familiar with them. We need to know the symptoms and warning signs of depression as well. It was a revelation when I started searching for what was wrong and found that there was a legitimate reason for what was going on and that it wasn’t something in my head.
Second, we need to remove the stigma from depression. Those afflicted haven’t done anything wrong to deserve it any more than someone that is afflicted with cancer. It affects all walks of life. Nor can they get better by getting over it and choosing to be happy. There is nothing wrong with getting help. I didn’t want to be another statistic. That was one of the reasons that kept me from seeking help as dumb as that sounds now.
Finally, seek professional help. I’m not an expert and this is just my experience. If you had an open wound, a broken bone, or some other similar ailment, you wouldn’t let it go untreated and you wouldn’t try to hide it from others. There are professionals that can help develop a treatment plan for depression just like any other medical procedure. Everyone is different and there are different levels of severity and signs. Get a professional diagnosis.
There are others that care for you and will help you. You are loved. If you can’t do it yourself, there are others that will help make appointments, take you, and help with your treatment. The biggest lie depression will tell you is that things can’t get better. It does. I’m not where I want to be but I can say things are better.
A few Saturdays ago I woke up and felt different. It was an unseasonably warm January day. I was energized and motivated for the first time in I don’t know how long. I got my bike out, went for a long ride and got so much other stuff done and best of all, I wanted to! It was incredible. I wish I could say that it lasted past that day, but in that moment of clarity, I saw how things could be again. I was happy again. And it gave me hope.
There is hope.
- National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 1–800–273-TALK (8255)
- National Youth Crisis Hotline: 1–800–448–4663
- Finding a mental healthcare provider
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