Depression Recovery

Question:

says… >Well, seems lately I’ve been getting the message from a few people >that I’m sounding like a "normie," who has never experienced depression, >or has experienced it to a lesser degree than others.  Perhaps this is >just the normal course of recovery.  Still…

[rest of message snipped] This surprises me.  In my own self-absorption, I haven’t been following your story since you posted some very scary stuff that made me convinced you were at death’s door back in March or April.  And now, just a couple of months later, people are telling you you’re a "normie"??? I’m impressed with how far you’ve come, because I remember the depth of your pain.  This is excellent progress, and you should be commended for it. Bluebird

Response:

writes: <rather large snip> – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text ->The hard truth for me was to learn that depression was indeed mine >and had responsibility for it.  I could let it rage inside of me.  Or I could >keep cutting off its limbs, small piece by small piece, until all it could do was >roar, not rule. >I’m still experimenting with appropriate gags for the noise.   >The monster inside me will never get out again.  It’s neatly tied up, >bound and gagged inside of me where I can keep a close eye on it.  It still >squirms,sometimes begs to be let loose a little…but it really cringes when >I show>it the bigger chains and whips I’m procuring to keep it in line. >I am responsible for my beast and I don’t feed it much anymore.   >Death  by starvation?  Hehehe…yeah, I’ve gotten pretty cruel toward the >beast of depression.  Maybe some of my friends have thought that my cruelty >was directed toward them instead of the beast that I hear roaring >inside them.  For that I am sorry.  My exuberance for this battle sometimes >overwhelms my sensitivity. >Leah >"Not once in the dim past, but continuously >by conscious mind is the miracle of the Creation wrought" >-Arthur Eddington

Leah, I found this post both exhilarating and inspiring….. mourning dove — For more information about this service, send e-mail to:

Response:

>Well, seems lately I’ve been getting the message from a few people >that I’m sounding like a "normie," who has never experienced depression, >or has experienced it to a lesser degree than others.  

Hmmmm….I would have thought that this this was what we were all aiming for. I am {in as far as it is possible} – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text ->Someone told me recently that I’d get depressed again, that it was >NEVER going to go completely away, that I had no power over it…like >it was a living thing, separate from my own being…a monster with it’s >own will.  I remember feeling that way. >But, this was my key to recovery…to incorporate the beast as a part >of me.  It can’t wait around blind corners if it’s already inside of me. >I had to bring it inside, to fight with it, to finally settle whether or not >it was going to rule or I was.  This is hard to explain, but when I stopped >seeing depression as a separate "thing" waiting to pounce from the outside, >I lost some fear of it.  I embraced it as mine, as a part of me, and got to >know >it’s tactics.  I could finally "hear" it’s plots to take over. It was easier >to >win small >battles against it when it became an intimately known enemy.  I can no longer >look at depression as something "outside" of myself waiting to strike me >unawares.  I started to get to know this beast, and I also started to learn >about the "tools" that others use to fight it…some of the tools sounded >vaguely like things "normies" use to live a normal life.

Exactly!!!! If I may give an example of what is going on in my life right now… I am ready to move on after Jim’s death. I dont know exactly where I am going, but as the road becomes clearer, I am walking down it.  One of the hardest things I have had to deal with is that sometimes what seem to be totally unrelated things will leap put of the bushes, attack me and throw me to the ground. An example: On a cats newsgroup, someone used the phrase "not dying, frightened and alone" about a kitten that had been rescued. That innocent, well-meant little phrase started me into a wailing, rocking orgy of pain and crying. BUT I have now learned that this kind of thing WILL happen, and not when I am prepared for it. {This last weekend I visited his grave with his mother and his daughter. Nothing…. but don’t ask me what happened on the drive home. . . } I have tools to cope, to get me through this and out the other side, and I know longer feel totally at its mercy. I think of depression the same way. Leah continues:  I poo-pooed a lot >of them because they sounded too simple for fighting this complicated beast, >but still, I found that when I had no cannon, a pea shooter sometimes came in >handy. >The monster inside me will never get out again.  It’s neatly tied up, bound >and gagged inside of me where I can keep a close eye on it.  It still >squirms, >sometimes begs to be let loose a little…but it really cringes when I show >it the bigger chains and whips I’m procuring to keep it in line.

I do not feel that mine is safe forever. I feel that when I am not careful, it may well slip out again. But the difference now is that I have some things I can do about getting it back into its cage. I was not overwhelmed by what happened to me on the way home {to go back to my sadness}. I was surprised, but then I accepted the way this was, and dealt with it. Patricia p’d and e’d You can do what you have to do, and sometimes you can do it even better than you think you can   Jimmy Carter

Response:

>Well, seems lately I’ve been getting the message from a few people >that I’m sounding like a "normie," who has never experienced depression, >or has experienced it to a lesser degree than others.  Perhaps this is >just the normal course of recovery.  Still… >snipped EXCELLENT post<

I know exactly how you feel Leah, it’s funny to me that someone else feels this way too. I have been through the levels of hell and try to help others through the process quicker. Sometimes people think I’m not understanding of depression because I’m not in the same state. I feel for your situation and think I can help you sort some of this out if you let me. We take a step back and look at it. It was horrible what we went through. With me suicide was my only option, my only thoughts, to a point it was my fantasy. When I was in "that state" others couldn’t really reach me. I closed my mind, my heart, my thoughts and no-one could get in. I couldn’t see past the pain. When in a severe depressive state, the depression is this huge head game and no-one can understand what you’re going through. (or so you think at that moment) We cannot dismiss the pain we suffered. It is because of what we went through that  we are always part of "the club". Our thoughts and suggestions, our hopes for others are worth a lot. If your head is saying they are worth shit, then maybe a part of that depression is still lingering in there. I get angry too at what I had been through, what I could go through again, and with myself at not being able to "save others from what I went through". Those who suffer are better than anyone with formal training, after all, we lived through it and somehow are still standing, right? My favorite saying has always been "No-one knows the pain, the suffering like those so crushed." We never forget what happened in the past, also with me the suicide thoughts, plans, hopes, attempts, near successes, hopelessness, panic, self injuries, and more. I’m glad I don’t forget them, it has made me the person I am today, as it has you. You made a very powerful post, one that I related to more than any other post I think I’ve ever read. You said it was hard to explain but you did explain me in the process. I don’t have an illness, manic depression is who I am. Mary Beth p’ed and e’d

Response:

Well, seems lately I’ve been getting the message from a few people that I’m sounding like a "normie," who has never experienced depression, or has experienced it to a lesser degree than others.  Perhaps this is just the normal course of recovery.  Still… I’m angry.  Angry that my near death, suicidal depression of the past has been so lightly dismissed because I am not the same person now…and don’t think the same way about my own depression, or about depression as a whole.  I don’t belong to the club anymore…so my thoughts as a recovered/recovering depressive aren’t worth shit. (This is the message in my head…purging is in process here.) I’m probably only angry about having to go through the growing pains of leaving depression and the skewed thinking of depression behind and finding out some hard truths about me that I want to share with others, but can’t communicate well.  I’m just angry at my own inability to communicate!   I’m not a p-nurse or p-doc.  I don’t have any years of formal training in how to communicate healthy thoughts to others who are where I have been. Have I forgotten what it was like to be so depressed that I was completely closed off to everything, everyone, any ideas for recovery?  No.  But, I avoid trying to "feel" that way again for the sake of comforting others and this is probably very selfish of me.  Recovery has seemed like a bit of a selfish process for me.  But, I also want it to come faster, sooner for others…and can’t let go of my own need for control in this area…something I need to work on.  No one walks the same path, much as we may seem alike, much as I’d like to say "here’s the way." Have I forgotten how it felt to want to die nearly every day?  No.  Have I forgotten a lifetime of suicide attempts, self-medicating with alcohol and drugs, slicing my body in self-injury?  No. Have I forgotten being so hopeless that death seemed the only way out, but I couldn’t even succeed at killing myself…so had to live numb?  No.  My brain hasn’t forgotten where I was…the hospitals, the doctors, being rolled out the door on a stretcher more than once under police escort.  There isn’t a part of me that has forgotten how cold and dead I felt most of the time under depression. There isn’t a part of me that’s forgotten how much I hated who and what I was. I spent a lifetime avoiding mirrors because all I could see in them was ugly and inadequate. And I haven’t forgotten how hard it was to hear someone else say "pull yourself up by the bootstraps."  I have a father who constantly reminds me that I still fail at doing what I should be doing.  I haven’t forgotten how hurt and alone I felt when no one seemed to understand why I was totally immobilized and sinking deeper.  I haven’t forgotten how sick to my stomach it made me to hear a "normie" simplify the solution to depression with "put on a happy face," "think happy thoughts."  I haven’t forgotten that I felt like I had no power to prevent my own downward spiral.  And I went down to no money, no job, no friends, facing homelessness and not being able to take the smallest of steps to prevent what seemed inevitable…dying or disappearing as a nameless drunk in a gutter. And I haven’t forgotten that when people said "I am responsible for my own feelings and behaviors," that it felt like a jagged knife of self-blame tearing the last little piece of hope out of me.  If I was to blame for being this way, than who but me could possibly rescue me…me who had nothing, NOTHING to grab a hold of for strength?  It sounded like a death sentence to tell someone who was depressed that they are responsible for being depressed, and I was sentenced along with all the other "criminals" who didn’t know how to find hope.   Someone told me recently that I’d get depressed again, that it was NEVER going to go completely away, that I had no power over it…like it was a living thing, separate from my own being…a monster with it’s own will.  I remember feeling that way.  No, I haven’t forgotten the fear that was constantly inside me, even on my best days, that the beast was waiting to strike around the next blind corner.  I lived my whole life with this fear!  I "knew" I was going to kill myself from the time I was a young teenager until this, my 42nd year. But, this was my key to recovery…to incorporate the beast as a part of me.  It can’t wait around blind corners if it’s already inside of me. I had to bring it inside, to fight with it, to finally settle whether or not it was going to rule or I was.  This is hard to explain, but when I stopped seeing depression as a separate "thing" waiting to pounce from the outside, I lost some fear of it.  I embraced it as mine, as a part of me, and got to know it’s tactics.  I could finally "hear" it’s plots to take over. It was easier to win small battles against it when it became an intimately known enemy.  I can no longer look at depression as something "outside" of myself waiting to strike me unawares.  I started to get to know this beast, and I also started to learn about the "tools" that others use to fight it…some of the tools sounded vaguely like things "normies" use to live a normal life.  I poo-pooed a lot of them because they sounded too simple for fighting this complicated beast, but still, I found that when I had no cannon, a pea shooter sometimes came in handy. The hard truth for me was to learn that depression was indeed mine and I had responsibility for it.  I could let it rage inside of me.  Or I could keep cutting off its limbs, small piece by small piece, until all it could do was roar, not rule. I’m still experimenting with appropriate gags for the noise.   The monster inside me will never get out again.  It’s neatly tied up, bound and gagged inside of me where I can keep a close eye on it.  It still squirms, sometimes begs to be let loose a little…but it really cringes when I show it the bigger chains and whips I’m procuring to keep it in line. I am responsible for my beast and I don’t feed it much anymore.  Death by starvation?  Hehehe…yeah, I’ve gotten pretty cruel toward the beast of depression.  Maybe some of my friends have thought that my cruelty was directed toward them instead of the beast that I hear roaring inside them.  For that I am sorry.  My exuberance for this battle sometimes overwhelms my sensitivity. Leah "Not once in the dim past, but continuously by conscious mind is the miracle of the Creation wrought" -Arthur Eddington

Response: