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My 3 Year Depression Odyssey, Part 1: The Story

6 min readApr 28, 2023

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Photo by Greg Rakozy on Unsplash

Depression is not fun. Those of you who’ve had it know of what I speak.

First, let me clarify what I mean by depression. I don’t mean the periodic ‘down-in-the-dumps’ phases we all experience.

Your girlfriend/boyfriend breaks up with you. You don’t get the promotion at work. Your daughter is struggling mightily in school. You feel terrible in all these scenarios. But most of the time, it doesn’t lead to full-blown depression.

My Bed of Nails

Which leads to that ever-so-difficult endeavor: Describing depression. To those who’ve never experienced it, clinical depression is hard to describe. It’s a type of pain one can’t pinpoint as one can, say, that of a broken ankle or a stomach flu.

Rather than expound further, I’ll give you what many say is the most articulate rendering of depression ever written. It came from the great American writer, William Styron, who, in Darkness Visible, a memoir of his bout with depression, wrote this:

“The pain is unrelenting, and what makes the condition intolerable is the foreknowledge that no remedy will come — not in a day, an hour, a month, or a minute…It is hopelessness even more than pain that crushes the soul

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Change Your Mind Change Your Life
Change Your Mind Change Your Life

Published in Change Your Mind Change Your Life

Read short and uplifting articles here to help you shift your thought, so you can see real change in your life and health.

David Gerken
David Gerken

Written by David Gerken

Meditation and Mindfulness teacher. Dad of three precious kids. Former writer for THE WEST WING. Follow me at davidgerken.net.