Depression’s Reality 18 May 2006
Chilihead over at Don’t Try This At Home has posted some wonderful insights on depression this week. Reading some of the things she has written has prompted some memories and thoughts of my own. So I thought I’d forego the “search for something funny to blog about” and just write something perhaps worth thinking about. Definitely head over to Chilihead’s site for her thoughts as well.
I grew up with a mother and 2 sisters who suffer from depression. I never understood it. Being analytically minded (from my father!) I kept trying to explain it, analyze the behavior, get to the root of the appearingly out-of-control emotion. The questions were so scientific: Why is this outburst happening? What causes this? Why are they acting this way? Why can’t they logically explain what they want? Where is the control? Why don’t I act that way? How can I control myself and they can’t seem to control themselves in the smallest way? What does the medicine even do?
There were no logical explanations. It frustrated me so badly–I was expected to act one way and family members were allowed to act differently. They got innumerable concessions and excuses and understanding and pity. I got to “make sacrifices” over and over again in the hopes that if they got whatever they wanted things would be better for them, they wouldn’t be so “depressed”. I had to give and give mentally, emotionally, physically, socially, and spiritually. They got to take all they wanted to and and shove everyone else out–no reciprocation. It felt like an endless emotional mud wrestling pit where the “logicals”, the “ones who don’t have depression” weren’t allowed to play–they were just there to get shoved in the mud at the mercy of “those who can’t help” what they feel.
After years of this, I was so hurt and confused by it, on an “outsiders” sideline, that I was convinced it wasn’t real. I didn’t get it. And I was losing, it seemed, more than they were, with no end in site. There was no win-win situation and there was no way to work toward one. The whole thing just went on and on with no logic or understanding or improvement year after year. And finally I couldn’t take it any longer. I had to have an explanation and the only one I could arrive at was “she’s just making it up to manipulate everything and get exactly what she wants at everyone else’s expense.” And after grabbing hold for dear life to that, there was little respect or emotional trust left in the relationships. Being a VERY non-confrontational person, I retreated–I was done giving and trying and “dealing”.
Then at 22 I ended up by happenstance in a medical lecture on the physical signs, causes, attributes, and treatments of depression. In two hours time I found what I had given up on–understanding, clarity, empathy, and forgiveness. I hadn’t seen before that looking as an amateur at the why’s and how’s of a medical problem never supply the right answer or logical explanation. Analytically trying to disect my family’s “problem” only lead to more emotional pain and trauma resulting in broken and wounded relationships.
I love my siblings and my mother with all my heart. It hurts me to see them struggle with something so monstrous. I see how they have come so far in their life-battles. And I see how they have a hard time trusting in my love after the abuse our relationships took through years of misunderstandings.
I hate how depression and its effects have battered so many aspects of our family life. I wish I could have gotten the education on depression years earlier than I did. I wish I could have found understanding and empathy years earlier. Perhaps then, the years of healing that still lie before us wouldn’t be so long. And perhaps I wouldn’t still have such a hard time emotionally trusting some of my family members. I guess, instead of depression, that’s my own emotional struggle–one, ironically, they don’t seem to understand.