What do you do when you are in such a Dark Well that books that are designed to uplift you are discouraging?
This is the question that came to mind when I created this blog. I wanted to call it hands that hang down, dancing in the rain, or something else that indicates that this is for people that know what it is to suffer from darkness in the daytime. I think everyone is susceptible to depression at night when lights are out and you are all alone but recover once the next day arrives. I am wishing to write to those that wake up in the morning and think, “Oh Lord, its morning, how am I going to survive another day?” I decided that most people that write uplifting books do not suffer from severe depression and write from a top view, looking down. I remember when I first started in counseling and the image that came to mind was the counselor throwing down what he thought was a helpful rope; what I saw was a rope filled with glass shards that would be painful to grab and agonizing to pull myself out of the pit I was in. I decided to share my experience battling depression in hopes of reaching one other person that knows what this feels like. This may be partially selfish in that I am tired of feeling like I am alone in the dark. I do believe that my Savior, Jesus Christ, knows where I am, but sometimes I feel like He is busy and I would appreciate another person here on Earth to know where I am. I wouldn’t wish severe depression on anyone. I suspect, without proof, that there others out there like me already. I want to hold a small candle in the darkness and let us see each other just a bit.
My source for depression was not chemical imbalance. I had bazillions* of blood test to prove that physically, I am just fine. I was offered many different drug choices from epilepsy medication to antidepressants but I wanted physical evidence that any of these would work. (Paranoid about prescription drugs but that is for another day.) I 110% support using prescription drugs to help anyone that it works for them. My source for depression was unknown for one basic reason. I didn’t remember anything from before high school. In my mind, my entire childhood was a dark pit with only sprinkles of light that allowed small random memories to come through. The key to my depression was buried in that darkness. I have spent over 7 years in counseling and still counting. For about 5 of those years I have used emails to my counselor to help work through what was tearing me up inside. In the future, I will use some of those entries which will be direct quotes from those emails. I will eliminate information that would tell you who my family is because I wish to protect them from criticism and any repercussions from what I write. Some people looking in from the outside might say, why didn’t they do more to help me. How could they? None of us are professional counselors and we really had no idea what dark monster I was battling.
What qualifies me to write from this perspective? My official diagnosis is Post Traumatic Stress Disorder with Dissociation at a severe level, sometimes referred to as Dissociative Identity Disorder. The first time I read my own diagnosis I read it 10 times to grasp that this was me. In lay terms, I had a childhood from Hell and I used multiple personalities to survive. From my perspective, no matter what I did I always ended up at the bottom of a dark well feeling suicidal. I was once told to live one day at a time. I joked if I had tried to do that I would have committed suicide long ago. I learned painfully, I can do anything for 5 minutes. There were years of my life that I survived 5 minutes at a time. To those that come to this page, I want you to know that severe depression is hard and you are not alone.
This is the question that came to mind when I created this blog. I wanted to call it hands that hang down, dancing in the rain, or something else that indicates that this is for people that know what it is to suffer from darkness in the daytime. I think everyone is susceptible to depression at night when lights are out and you are all alone but recover once the next day arrives. I am wishing to write to those that wake up in the morning and think, “Oh Lord, its morning, how am I going to survive another day?” I decided that most people that write uplifting books do not suffer from severe depression and write from a top view, looking down. I remember when I first started in counseling and the image that came to mind was the counselor throwing down what he thought was a helpful rope; what I saw was a rope filled with glass shards that would be painful to grab and agonizing to pull myself out of the pit I was in. I decided to share my experience battling depression in hopes of reaching one other person that knows what this feels like. This may be partially selfish in that I am tired of feeling like I am alone in the dark. I do believe that my Savior, Jesus Christ, knows where I am, but sometimes I feel like He is busy and I would appreciate another person here on Earth to know where I am. I wouldn’t wish severe depression on anyone. I suspect, without proof, that there others out there like me already. I want to hold a small candle in the darkness and let us see each other just a bit.
My source for depression was not chemical imbalance. I had bazillions* of blood test to prove that physically, I am just fine. I was offered many different drug choices from epilepsy medication to antidepressants but I wanted physical evidence that any of these would work. (Paranoid about prescription drugs but that is for another day.) I 110% support using prescription drugs to help anyone that it works for them. My source for depression was unknown for one basic reason. I didn’t remember anything from before high school. In my mind, my entire childhood was a dark pit with only sprinkles of light that allowed small random memories to come through. The key to my depression was buried in that darkness. I have spent over 7 years in counseling and still counting. For about 5 of those years I have used emails to my counselor to help work through what was tearing me up inside. In the future, I will use some of those entries which will be direct quotes from those emails. I will eliminate information that would tell you who my family is because I wish to protect them from criticism and any repercussions from what I write. Some people looking in from the outside might say, why didn’t they do more to help me. How could they? None of us are professional counselors and we really had no idea what dark monster I was battling.
What qualifies me to write from this perspective? My official diagnosis is Post Traumatic Stress Disorder with Dissociation at a severe level, sometimes referred to as Dissociative Identity Disorder. The first time I read my own diagnosis I read it 10 times to grasp that this was me. In lay terms, I had a childhood from Hell and I used multiple personalities to survive. From my perspective, no matter what I did I always ended up at the bottom of a dark well feeling suicidal. I was once told to live one day at a time. I joked if I had tried to do that I would have committed suicide long ago. I learned painfully, I can do anything for 5 minutes. There were years of my life that I survived 5 minutes at a time. To those that come to this page, I want you to know that severe depression is hard and you are not alone.
*bazillions is a ridiculous way to say more than I want to count or too many.
2 comments:
God bless you, in your efforts.
Thank you.
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