I’m going to write about something that most of my closest family members don’t even know. I have no idea why I feel the need to write it but I do.
I’ve talked about 15 years ago before. That’s when I got married, bought a new house, bought a new car, moved out of my parent’s home for the first time and got a new job – all within 6 months of each other.
I
was
happy.
Really happy. For a moment.
If you recall, my Uncle killed himself when I was 15. I was changed forever in that gunshot. Right after that I met my husband and I was rarely alone ever after that. I lived for my husband – through the grief of losing my Uncle – I lost myself and any identity I had. During our engagement my husband was gone for months in a semi – yet I lived with my parents – so again – I was never alone. I became a pro at masking my emotions. I laughed all day. I smiled at the appropriate times. Inside I was dying and every night I cried myself to sleep. I never knew why. I just couldn’t find peace within myself – though nothing was wrong.
The week after I got married my husband went on the road for two months. I was alone. Really alone. In a big house. There was no one to fake happy for. And the desperation made its way out.
I saw a doctor who told me this much change in a person’s life should be over a 5 or 10 year span and I did it all in months. My body couldn’t take it even if it was GOOD change. Fine – sounded good to me. Give it time – here’s some Xanax in the meantime.
The next week I got the flu. I vaguely remember being so weak nurses carried me to my mom’s car from the clinic I worked in…what a way to start a new job. I didn’t know it then but I wouldn’t see that place again for a month. They all thought I had the flu still – and bad.
I never had the flu. My mom took me to her house and put me in her bed upstairs and for two solid weeks I didn’t get out of it but to pee. I didn’t eat. Nor did I sleep.
You see eating meant I would live…..and I didn’t want to live. Sleeping meant rest so I could wake up revived….and I didn’t want to wake up. I stared all day and night at a ceiling praying my body would die to cure the ache inside. I had full blown bedridden depression. Just like that – happiest time of my life – and I couldn’t even move.
For those of you who haven’t been in the throes of this – it is inexplicable and excruciating. Your body is built to fight to live – but when your mind wants to die – you can’t fight it. You know you should…..but you can’t. I have lost most of the memories from that time. One I remember is my mom bringing me juice after I lost 20 lbs laying there and she begged me to drink just one sip. She pleaded and cried – I would not. Food meant life. This was not life.
I wanted nothing more than to drink that juice to wipe away the panic in her eyes as her daughter lay there dying. But I could not drink it.
And I remember being hidden. 15 years ago depression wasn’t what it is now. And in my family it was taboo and crazy. You know – like the Uncle who killed himself that no one wanted to talk about? My mom had a daycare – people and babies in and out all day. I was not allowed to come out of the bedroom. Someone might see me and what would we tell them? People – even family – even my own brothers – were told I had the flu. I saw no one and talked to no one but my mom.
My Uncle was a shame dead.
I was a shame alive.
Though I was in a living coma and blocked out most memories of this time - I remember being hidden. It is no one’s fault. My parents knew no better. It is what it is. They were scared out of their minds – watching me die – when in their heads nothing was wrong with me.
Being hidden is the reason that 15 years into a depression I have completely managed – most people in my life do not know of the time when I was inches from death. Most do not know the shame I carry with that secret – though I know I should not feel that way. It is ingrained in me.
There are days I want to scream it from the rooftops when my co-workers nonchalantly talk about mixing up their Prozac or doubling their meds on a bad day. I want to know if they hit bottom like I did – I want to know if they ever physically could not eat, sleep or move from a bed. I want to know if their pain was ever as real as mine. Really I just want to know how they talk about it without shame?
Many of you will tell me – just say it. Just tell the people that you want to know. But remember me? I’m the model employee, wife, mother, daughter, sister and friend? I’m the one who does it all nearly perfectly. What kind of a fake am I if I sit down and admit to them I once couldn’t do any of it? How can I explain that pain and make it real to them because to them depression is just a word. How can I admit that I’m vulnerable? I’m actually weak? I am human.
And to get to this SuperWoman spot that I’m in right now – I had to go through hell and back. I had to learn you can’t live for someone or something else. I had to learn to live for me and figure out I was worth it. What little memory I have of that time can haunt me to the core if I let it. 99% of the time depression doesn’t affect me and hasn’t for years.
The secret about having it and what I went through – well that affects me deeply. And why? I do not know.
Probably because I don’t think anyone who hasn’t suffered through depression or watched someone go through it really knows what it is and what it’s like. So if I were to say I had it – all the wrong images would come to mind – and I don’t want those images to taint the seriousness of my pain back then or taint who I am now.
It’s like living at the bottom of a black hole with not one speck of light…and you know you should get out. And you even know that somewhere in that hole there’s a rope that could get you out. But your hands won’t grab it…because your mind wants to die there. Your only way out is if someone reaches in and drags you out – or you die. It is unimagineable pain and the only way to end it is to get through it….and getting through it makes you feel a fear you’ve never known. Like I said – inexplicable.
I have watched two people I love die of two physical diseases. One Alzheimers and one cancer so big I could feel it in her stomach. I would take that pain and that death any day over what I felt in those dark days before meds kicked in. Hands down – no question.
Years later my younger sister suffered from depression too. Do you want to know if we hid her too?
We did not. We embraced her and her disease - because of my pain from years back we now knew what it was and how to fix it fast. I'm so relieved about that though I wonder who I'd be today if that's the treatment I would have gotten....though I know it wasn't intentional and it was no one's fault....it's hard not to wonder.
Please – my point is – do not minimize depression when someone tells you they suffer from it. Do not assume you know what it feels like. Do not think the pain isn’t debilitating. And for God’s sake – don’t hide that person. You’ve got to reach in and drag them out…there is hope…there is healing….
I am proof.
You can’t hide me. I remain.
