Hi, howdy, hey!
Up front, I want everyone to know I am not looking for any sympathy or the like. I am sharing these thoughts and a view into who I am for three reasons. 1) so others may understand me better. 2) so y’all may be able to understand others who go thru similar things. 3) so I can process all this myself and move on.
I am sure the vast majority of you are aware that I recently got married. It was a whirlwind of a day, but I married a loving and caring woman who happens to be one of my best friends. We had a funtastic ceremony and reception, blessed by so many of our family and friends in attendance to our joy. The subsequent honeymoon was deeply relaxing, invigorating and just plain fun.
Upon our return to Michigan and home, I experienced a major funk. I had gone into depression, one such that I haven’t experienced in four years or better. Being up front, I was not to such a point where I even remotely considered harming myself, but regardless it was still a pretty crappy outlook.
Wrapping my head around what was causing all of this was nigh on impossible, and so I slunk even deeper into that cave I have in my mind where I go when I am physically on auto pilot, while mentally I am reviewing doomsday scenarios of epic proportion. I truly wasn’t finding joy in anything and even worse cared about nothing, unless I forced myself to.
My wonderful and amazing wife asked me what was wrong but I of course said I was fine. Which frustrates her to no end, because she could see, quite clearly, that I was not the fine I was claiming.
You see, and this may not apply to all people who have depression, but for me, I don’t notice it. At least not right away. Why? Because it is a natural part of me, and to me, I can only recognize my roller coaster of emotion after the fact, while those closest to me see both the subtle and the drastic. Honestly, we also don’t want to know that we are in a state of sadness and bleak outlooks, because that means we have to go to work and fight to come back out and recapture the optimistic and positive things going on and put them back into place in how we view the world. That is work. Not a physical type labor, but work nonetheless and it can seem very daunting and it is very tiring, emotionally and physically, and in some cases even spiritually.
Anyhow, here I was, on the edges of a major depressive episode and surely spiraling in, when Jen just said we need to talk. Slowly, I began to see where I was, and she was able to coax me out of that cave. I still couldn’t pinpoint what all had triggered my depressive state, but just talking, it made the stuff in my head start to organize and tackle things in an orderly fashion, versus seeing all the chaos in there as one big whole and being overwhelmed. Sort of like cleaning a hoarder’s home. If you look at the overall, it is easier to say put a match to it and rebuild. So you must instead start in one corner of one room and slowly begin reorganizing and cleaning, storing or trashing and work your way out. So, began a slow (and still ongoing) process of cleaning out and reorganizing my head and all the thoughts, ideas, memories and feelings that were cluttering up my brain.
For me this is, while not exactly normal, it is the typical cycle of my depressive episodes. I go into a funk, those around me recognize I am not my normal and usual introvert, but am withdrawn and even more reserved. I put off their observations and concerns as not being founded, until I am confronted and more or less pulled back out towards the more lighted and open area of that mental cave. Once there, I realize what’s going on and begin to work on finding the balance again.
Which, for me is great. I see that I have all those who care about me, all those who love me, all those who have some appreciation for who I am and what I do and that makes me want to process what is going on, why and start the journey back towards being the me that I want to be and the one that all those same people can rely on upon to do the same for them when situations are reversed.
What I came to discover this go around though, is how hard it is for those around you seeing these changes, seeing the pain, the worry, the loss of joy and lack of care and concern that they have seen as your normal, and when they say something or try to help they are told nothing is wrong, everything’s fine and keep getting shut down. Added ‘bonus’ when they are a fixer type personality, and are frustrated that there is no physical action they can take to make it all better, as even when you finally do come to understand where you are and start to make changes to return to the surface and live in the sun, there isn’t anything they can do to speed up the process or just fix it and be done.
In relation to the title of this piece, I wanted folks to know that even though I was out and about, maybe even with a smile on my face, the true genuineness of that smile may have been lacking. I wasn’t trying to be false, and I wasn’t attempting to be insincere. Once, I had realized I was being punky, and was working towards returning towards balance, I wore my mask(s), so as to not take away from whatever happiness and positive things were happening with you, nor add to any sadness or negative things going on in your life. Even in my own little world, I cared about you.
I want to reiterate, I was in no danger of any self harm during this current episode (nor have I contemplated such since February of 2002), but I want you to understand that there are others out there who could be experiencing a dark turn in their lives. They wear their masks well, and can possibly even convince those who love and care about them, who see that they are not acting their normal selves that they “really are fine.” If you know someone, peripherally or genuinely, and they are not their norm, I hope, that as M’Lady did with me, she kept inquiring and asking to talk so that I eventually couldn’t deny myself and where I was any longer. This is not to say that you have failed if you don’t get them to open up, to recognize these not good changes from their normal self or God forbid, they do some act of self-harm, but so you can say you did all that was within your power to help.
Yes, I as of the time I am writing this, I am still depressed. That being said, I am not suffering, but coping and working on a return to my normal. Do I know the root causes of this turn at the depths of apathy and despair? Yep. One is a condition that has come to affect me more every year, called Seasonal Affective Disorder. It is real, and it can be rather insidious. The other one that I have identified for sure is more personal, but now that I have identified it, I am able to move forward. Are there other reasons? Possibly. I haven’t identified them yet, if so and since I am making my way back into the sun (figuratively and when possible, literally) I feel that they are not impediments to my balance.
I am truly grateful to all of my family, friends and acquaintances who care about me and love me. It is that love and support that gives me the drive to do what I do. I hope that you all know that I love and care about all of you as well. I hope you know I support you in what you do and that if I am able to help you in any way, I am here for you.
Thanks for taking the time to read, to ponder, to go “What the hell did I just waste my time on” (hopefully not, but...😃). I look forward to any discussion or comments you may have.
Up front, I want everyone to know I am not looking for any sympathy or the like. I am sharing these thoughts and a view into who I am for three reasons. 1) so others may understand me better. 2) so y’all may be able to understand others who go thru similar things. 3) so I can process all this myself and move on.
I am sure the vast majority of you are aware that I recently got married. It was a whirlwind of a day, but I married a loving and caring woman who happens to be one of my best friends. We had a funtastic ceremony and reception, blessed by so many of our family and friends in attendance to our joy. The subsequent honeymoon was deeply relaxing, invigorating and just plain fun.
Upon our return to Michigan and home, I experienced a major funk. I had gone into depression, one such that I haven’t experienced in four years or better. Being up front, I was not to such a point where I even remotely considered harming myself, but regardless it was still a pretty crappy outlook.
Wrapping my head around what was causing all of this was nigh on impossible, and so I slunk even deeper into that cave I have in my mind where I go when I am physically on auto pilot, while mentally I am reviewing doomsday scenarios of epic proportion. I truly wasn’t finding joy in anything and even worse cared about nothing, unless I forced myself to.
My wonderful and amazing wife asked me what was wrong but I of course said I was fine. Which frustrates her to no end, because she could see, quite clearly, that I was not the fine I was claiming.
You see, and this may not apply to all people who have depression, but for me, I don’t notice it. At least not right away. Why? Because it is a natural part of me, and to me, I can only recognize my roller coaster of emotion after the fact, while those closest to me see both the subtle and the drastic. Honestly, we also don’t want to know that we are in a state of sadness and bleak outlooks, because that means we have to go to work and fight to come back out and recapture the optimistic and positive things going on and put them back into place in how we view the world. That is work. Not a physical type labor, but work nonetheless and it can seem very daunting and it is very tiring, emotionally and physically, and in some cases even spiritually.
Anyhow, here I was, on the edges of a major depressive episode and surely spiraling in, when Jen just said we need to talk. Slowly, I began to see where I was, and she was able to coax me out of that cave. I still couldn’t pinpoint what all had triggered my depressive state, but just talking, it made the stuff in my head start to organize and tackle things in an orderly fashion, versus seeing all the chaos in there as one big whole and being overwhelmed. Sort of like cleaning a hoarder’s home. If you look at the overall, it is easier to say put a match to it and rebuild. So you must instead start in one corner of one room and slowly begin reorganizing and cleaning, storing or trashing and work your way out. So, began a slow (and still ongoing) process of cleaning out and reorganizing my head and all the thoughts, ideas, memories and feelings that were cluttering up my brain.
For me this is, while not exactly normal, it is the typical cycle of my depressive episodes. I go into a funk, those around me recognize I am not my normal and usual introvert, but am withdrawn and even more reserved. I put off their observations and concerns as not being founded, until I am confronted and more or less pulled back out towards the more lighted and open area of that mental cave. Once there, I realize what’s going on and begin to work on finding the balance again.
Which, for me is great. I see that I have all those who care about me, all those who love me, all those who have some appreciation for who I am and what I do and that makes me want to process what is going on, why and start the journey back towards being the me that I want to be and the one that all those same people can rely on upon to do the same for them when situations are reversed.
What I came to discover this go around though, is how hard it is for those around you seeing these changes, seeing the pain, the worry, the loss of joy and lack of care and concern that they have seen as your normal, and when they say something or try to help they are told nothing is wrong, everything’s fine and keep getting shut down. Added ‘bonus’ when they are a fixer type personality, and are frustrated that there is no physical action they can take to make it all better, as even when you finally do come to understand where you are and start to make changes to return to the surface and live in the sun, there isn’t anything they can do to speed up the process or just fix it and be done.
In relation to the title of this piece, I wanted folks to know that even though I was out and about, maybe even with a smile on my face, the true genuineness of that smile may have been lacking. I wasn’t trying to be false, and I wasn’t attempting to be insincere. Once, I had realized I was being punky, and was working towards returning towards balance, I wore my mask(s), so as to not take away from whatever happiness and positive things were happening with you, nor add to any sadness or negative things going on in your life. Even in my own little world, I cared about you.
I want to reiterate, I was in no danger of any self harm during this current episode (nor have I contemplated such since February of 2002), but I want you to understand that there are others out there who could be experiencing a dark turn in their lives. They wear their masks well, and can possibly even convince those who love and care about them, who see that they are not acting their normal selves that they “really are fine.” If you know someone, peripherally or genuinely, and they are not their norm, I hope, that as M’Lady did with me, she kept inquiring and asking to talk so that I eventually couldn’t deny myself and where I was any longer. This is not to say that you have failed if you don’t get them to open up, to recognize these not good changes from their normal self or God forbid, they do some act of self-harm, but so you can say you did all that was within your power to help.
Yes, I as of the time I am writing this, I am still depressed. That being said, I am not suffering, but coping and working on a return to my normal. Do I know the root causes of this turn at the depths of apathy and despair? Yep. One is a condition that has come to affect me more every year, called Seasonal Affective Disorder. It is real, and it can be rather insidious. The other one that I have identified for sure is more personal, but now that I have identified it, I am able to move forward. Are there other reasons? Possibly. I haven’t identified them yet, if so and since I am making my way back into the sun (figuratively and when possible, literally) I feel that they are not impediments to my balance.
I am truly grateful to all of my family, friends and acquaintances who care about me and love me. It is that love and support that gives me the drive to do what I do. I hope that you all know that I love and care about all of you as well. I hope you know I support you in what you do and that if I am able to help you in any way, I am here for you.
Thanks for taking the time to read, to ponder, to go “What the hell did I just waste my time on” (hopefully not, but...😃). I look forward to any discussion or comments you may have.
