My first episode of depression

Depression hit me for the first time more than a quarter-century ago. Gosh. I don’t feel old, so much as several lifecycles removed from previous iterations of myself. Indeed, many moons back, I had my inaugural bout of major depression. I was a junior in high school. The darkness came during the winter months straddling 1992 and 1993. My primary recollection of the period is the incessant crying.

Every day I would return home after school and misery would swallow me whole. My parents were at work, my siblings were at college, and my friends were doing sports. I had discontinued my a-sport-every-season approach to school life that year. The new basketball coach was a jerk. And I couldn’t bring myself to submit to the fascism of wrestling. So I was not doing a sport or much of anything after school that winter.

I spent most of the season alone and inactive in my room. I remember this bizarre Bowflex exercise contraption that had been handed down to me from my older brother. It occupied space in my room, a totem signifying my emotional weakness and physical shortcomings. With the depression, I had no drive and no energy. The Bowflex accumulated worn flannel shirts.

This first bout of depression was so disorienting. It had no context in my life. I did not yet fully appreciate my family history and its hereditary clues. I had virtually everything a teenager could reasonably want in life — a lovely family, smart friends, and good grades, to name only a few checklist items. So why was I sad? What was wrong with…