A Comment

I wrote the following on November 3, 2017. It’s still true.

News story today on Yahoo: 32-year old working actor committed suicide by jumping off a building.

A reader of the above Yahoo News story wrote a comment implying that he was weak and should have taken up the old-time values. Religion is what she means, I think.

This was my reply to her comment:

What does depression look like? What are the symptoms? 1. Loss of interest in previously enjoyable habits and activities. Which activities? could be any activity: job, family, friends, hobbies, crafts, books, television, movies, clubs and groups, sports, games; just about any activity that requires a person to get out of chair, bed, or house. May ignore or let slide household chores like dealing with mail, paying bills, laundry, dishes, cleaning, etc. 2. Inattention, forgetfulness, gazing into space, zoning out, difficulty concentrating. 3. Sadness, frequent crying spells, often for no discernible reason, pessimism. 4. Irritability, feeling put upon or angry, ranting or leaving the room if someone persists in talking, questioning, “hassling,” even if the questions are trivial and ordinary. 5. Loss of interest or attention to personal hygiene, may wear the same clothing for days, may not bathe or shave for days. Careless about dropping used clothing, wet towels, etc. on the bed, floor, any other room in the house, etc. 6. Loss of interest or appetite for food, can’t be bothered to cook or prepare healthy food, will miss meals because of long naps, or will overeat, binge on regular food, fast food, junk food. 7. May miss work or school or other situations by calling in sick, oversleeping, cancelling or avoiding dates, appointments, activities where other people are expecting the depressed person to attend, even if the other people are family members or good friends. 8. May feel helpless or hopeless, or both.

Depression can be SITUATIONAL in which unforeseen events occur — breakup or divorce, death of a relative or friend, personal/professional setbacks and disappointments. For most people that is not a permanent condition. It can be mitigated with light therapy, meds, healthy diet and exercise, talk therapy, and time — in any combination the doctor feels is helpful and necessary.

There is also Seasonal Affective Disorder SAD in the fall and winter which is caused by the dreary lack of sunshine, short days, long nights, and darkness. This also can be mitigated by the strategies.

With many millions of us depression is GENETIC, it runs in families and only if you are lucky can you avoid it. It too can be mitigated by those strategies, but it is never “cured.” Many physical and mental human characteristics are genetic, from eye and skin color, body build, to medical problems of all sorts. Some of them can be remedied with medical interventions and a healthy lifestyle.

As a lifelong sufferer of depression, I’ve had all three kinds. When you have them all at the same time, daily life becomes very difficult and feels even worse. Life is unbearable, and those of us who survive, in spite of suicidal thoughts, even suicide attempts, survive by keeping our heads down and putting one foot in front of the other going through the motions of work, family, and whatever seems least painful, until eventually the fog lifts, and we can feel alive again, for awhile.

Whether the original poster will ever see my reply is doubtful, but I hope she will, or that she will educate herself about depression. What I write here is a much condensed but factual description of my own struggles.

If you have never been deeply depressed over a long period of time, or you don’t know well anyone who has, then you cannot understand and appreciate what that is like. It is awful to go through; it is disturbing to even remember without feeling some of those feelings again, and to feel sad and tearful for the person that was. People who do get help and are able to walk in the sunshine again are fortunate; people who never get to that stage sometimes give up. Life is just too painful to bear, there is no hope for better days, no reason to believe that “this too will pass,” there is just an overwhelming feeling of being completely and forever ALONE in a cold, dark, indifferent universe. Suicide looks to be a sure escape from all of that.

And that is why a person would choose suicide. From the outside it looks like the person is normal, whatever that is, but that is a façade; he or she is coping just well enough to take care of the absolutely unavoidable tasks — job, interactions with spouse and children, meals, household chores but mostly going through the motions. Or ignoring and avoiding. Depressed people tend to teeter between insomnia and sleep so deep it is difficult for them — us — to wake up. Sleep is a way to escape from the cares and burdens of everyday life, from feeling helpless and hopeless. When that escape fails, suicide, the big sleep, seems desirable and inevitable, so why not? Might as well. To leave behind all pain and guilt, to fall into nothingness, what could be better?

Old, white, woman. Loves cats, pizza, reading, classical music, opera. Writes, edits, rewrites, rewrites, rewrites. Sometimes judges but mostly empathizes.

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