Depression and Anxiety: Superpowers

Before we get started, let’s look at some facts:

• Depression affects more than 18 million people in the United States.
• Anxiety affects more than twice as much, with about 40 million sufferers.
• Depression is the number one cause for disability for teens and adults.
• 1 in 5 people suffering from major depression will experience psychotic symptoms.
• Anxiety disorders account for nearly 1/3rd of all medical spending related to mental health, as the symptoms can manifest physically, requiring or prompting medical care.
• As many as half of all people suffering from depression will also suffer from anxiety disorders, and vice versa.
• There are several different kinds of depression and anxiety disorder, including persistent depressive disorder, bipolar disorder, post partum depression, general anxiety disorder, panic disorder, and post traumatic stress disorder.

Now that we’ve got some of that out of the way, I should explain who I am and why I care.

Throughout my life I’ve been plagued by feelings of inadequacy, anger, sadness, melancholy, numbness, suicidal thoughts, and more. Like one of my heroes, Robin Williams, I often masked these feelings with humour as a defense mechanism to keep from having to confront those feelings.

Hell, I still do that.

I’ve had anxiety attacks so bad that I was certain I was having a heart attack, and nearly given myself an asthma attack because I couldn’t convince my body to breathe properly.

In 2015, after a series of events that completely destroyed me as a person, I caught myself sitting at a red light off the highway considering the ease with which I could simply release the brakes, close my eyes, and get in front of approaching semis. I closed my eyes, but couldn’t release the brakes because I kept thinking about how inconsiderate it would be to put that on the people around me.

I didn’t want to die, per se, but I wanted to fall asleep and release myself from the daily struggle of nightmares, lack of sleep, dissociation, self-hate, lack of appetite, loss of interest in previous hobbies, obsessive tendencies, chest pains so severe they took my breath away, and the glorious numbness I could find by completely engulfing myself in a full-time job, a couple part-time freelance jobs, video game marathons, and full-time school online.

I had an amazing support system of friends and family (and dog), even some that I didn’t realize were such great friends until I hit the absolute bottom of my reserves of emotional and mental strength. And still, despite everything they said, and how much I trusted them, and how much love I felt for and from them, I often couldn’t bear to open myself up to them. I was so afraid that by acknowledging those emotions that raged within me, I would be torn apart by the tide; that I couldn’t show anyone the weakness tearing me apart from deep inside my chest; that by burdening them with those emotions, I would be somehow less valuable as a person, and would lose them.

It wasn’t until that moment at the intersection that I decided that I might need help; that I decided that I truly didn’t have the strength left in me to simply “buck up” and “pull myself up by the bootstraps”. I surrendered completely and acknowledged that I no longer possessed the resolve to keep telling myself “there are others who have it worse than you, stop being such a baby,” or “it’ll be fine, you’re just being ridiculous; suck it up”, or, my favorite: “be a man.”

That night, I began doing research about seeing a therapist. (I could write an entire article about how ridiculously difficult it was, even though I had health insurance at the time, to find anything remotely affordable.)

After the first 6 or so appointments, my therapist told me confidently that I was suffering from a form of PTSD brought on by emotional trauma. A couple of months later, after attending sessions 1–2 times per week, my therapist also diagnosed me as bipolar.

(I have a family history of bipolar disorder, and it’s been assumed since my teens that I probably was bipolar, but this was the first confirmation I had. )

I’ve often sought to be a source of strength and solidarity for those around me. I’ve listened to friends talk to me about their plans to take their own lives, and I’ve held people as they sobbed and screamed because another of our friends had followed through with those plans without warning. I’ve talked on the phone to my own mother while she was sitting on the beach getting ready to give up her own fight. I’ve heard her share, at the recommendation of her therapist, the story of how she was sexually assaulted as a teenager, and how that experience has shaped her struggle to this point in her life.

But I could never bear to accept my own weaknesses, or to accept that I deserved that same strength and solidarity for myself.

Alright, so, that was a bit more exposition than I initially intended, but it is relevant to the conversation.

I want to emphasize that the events in this post are completely true, but that they do not encompass the entirety of who I am. I have some amazing people in my life, and for all the negative things I’ve experienced, I wouldn’t trade a single moment with the people I love to take away that pain.

Nor do I write this to try and compete with the suffering of others throughout the world. I know that there are people, even people I talk to on a daily basis, who have experienced hardships that I cannot even truly fathom.

I do not write these things to draw sympathy or validation: I need neither.

I write these things for one reason only: to let you, the reader, know that you are not alone.

I don’t have all of the answers, and those I do have may not work for you.

I don’t claim that I can solve your problems, nor do I believe that any single person, especially not me, is capable of solving this epidemic by themselves.

All I want to do is open the dialogue. I want you to know that you can talk to me, and others like me; that there are people in this world who genuinely care; who believe that you deserve to be loved and deserve to be treated as a human being.

None of us are fighting the same demons, but, damnit, we can all make it through this. So I want you to stand up, I want you to clean yourself off, and I want you to get back in the ring.

One of my favorite motivational posters of all time is this one, by the blogger “Boggle the Owl”:

Source: http://boggletheowl.tumblr.com/

I want you to be aware of the reality we all live in: that there are other people suffering in ways that you will not understand, or who have built up different defenses from the things that plague them, or who have been fortunate enough not to experience that much hardship.

I do not want you to feel like your disease is an excuse to stop trying, or to belittle those you feel have suffered less than you.

So I want you to take this article, and the stick I’m offering you. I want you to fight, and I want you to win. I want to support you when you need it, and oppose you when you need someone to bring you down a peg.

I don’t want to coddle you, or pretend like the world is a happy place where we can all get along in peace and serenity. I’m not naive, and I expect you aren’t either.

But I believe, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that humanity is pushing, however slowly, towards a better world. A world that will need compassion and empathy.

And I believe that the fact that you suffer means that you are uniquely qualified to empathize with others going toe-to-toe with their own demons.

For those who need that compassion, this is basically a superpower, and you are basically a superhero.

Let’s all be that for each other.

Statistics taken from the Anxiety and Depression Association of America