ADs are a risky business, and while they sometimes help, they often don’t. And they have their side effects.

Keep up the good work!

It sounds lie you’ve been through a lot and know yourself well. I learned that I really cannot change the world nor expect anyone to bend to my beliefs, so I really don’t even try. I just live my life, help others when I can and don’t worry about everything like I once did. The world is filled with greed, misery, hatred and everything else, but I can only control myself – not anyone else.

One thing I do not do is endlessly fixate on my past or guilt, I let go of it all. I find the more I talk about my inner pain, the longer and more intense it is. I have basically written all I can about depression. It’s out of my system and I now concentrate on living positively.

I suppose I use my depression rather than vice-versa, in fact I don’t even call it depression any more. In the past I’ve taken two overdoses and a few near jumps. It doesn’t even sound like me these days. I can’t say why, I just know it isn’t ever going to happen again.

My experiences were so extreme that I was able to distance what I call myself from all of them, and learn that I have through the years I have fundamentally been a string of different people, one after the other.

These days I like who I am, or rather what I do in this life, I don’t have any religious leanings, I distrust much of society, including who runs it and how, but now I can do far more than merely live with it. I can hone my perceptions, I can rise up further than ever before, without any over-emotional engagement, and simply take a snapshot of everything around me, everything that interconnects with who I am and learn.

I love to learn, the more I learn the more empowered I feel. I stay busy, but more so, what keeps me busy is extremely satisfying on a personal level. Learning new skills, and developing old ones make me feel complete beyond anything anyone else could emotionally or physically can offer me.

I let my thoughts wander where they will, if I find something of use I plunder it, if it’s simply self-hatred I wait for it to burn out, but through either process I continue with my life, no matter what. It’s all a window of opportunity, or rather an opportunity to learn about my life, and even life in general. Perhaps I am a man on a mission, a personal one, all I know is that it is what I do.

I believe that most of the treatments I have had has been as damaging as my former bouts (years at a time) of suicidal depression. Once the medical profession let go I learned to accept my hatred of existence, and of being, until I was able to pin point exactly why. For me, in essence, it is the individual’s inability to effect change in the world they live in, the nonsense fed into my subconscious via a gamut of world media bias and opinion, and perhaps even the ineffectual cycle of society to do more than merely repair itself (and that a rarity in itself).

I’m not depressed now, nor am I angry, I may have no influence over the world at large, but slowly over time I too have learned to appreciate what I do have, and all the experiences that come of my environment and close contact with those I love. Life is a miracle, perhaps even an impossibility when viewed in the context of a universal ‘everything’, yet here it is, here we are.

Silence helps too, perhaps it’s a little piece of Zen sneaking in these days, but all I know is that on the few occasions I experience it, it is an elating experience.

This is the first time I have discussed depression with anyone else who has had direct experience since a friend at The Priory who was found dead the morning after. Guilt can play a big part in depression. I used to wonder, if we hadn’t talked would she be alive, now I don’t, now I simply accept. No matter how irrational that may seem, the truth is it is what it is, and I no longer live in hope/fear, I live here and now, where the action is, and it’s neither thrilling nor depressing. It’s not too warm or too cold, it’s exactly who I am, exactly where I am, in my life.

Thanks for the great post, I appreciate the chance to speak about what is mainly still considered taboo in the world. I’m glad to discover there are a few rational souls out there who have learned in their own unique way it is possible to recompose and continue on with a productive life.

@Justin: Very true! Also, a traumatic event can actually cause a chemical imbalance if it is bad enough.

I don’t listen to music much anymore. It tends to make things worse. But on occasion, on days when it’s not as bad, I risk it.

Dave

Thank you Dave! It’s good to hear from you. I hope your sister’s symptoms lessen over time, but I know how debilitating it can be. I have a slight amount of hissing, like air blowing out of my left ear. It’s not real bad, so I’m careful not to listen to really loud music like I did as a teen. Problems like that are in a way like politics, you have to get your mind off of it or you go crazy…LOL!

One of my sisters is bi-polar and suffers badly from depression. For her, without medication, she cannot function. She doesn’t like taking it but now realizes what happens when she does not. She likens it to being in a constant fog covered in a heavy wet blanket.

Being better able to try and focus your mind and what you think about goes a long way for a lot of things. I suffer badly from tinnitus (ringing in the ears). For me it’s a constant high pitched tone (like in a hearing test) 24/7/365 that you can’t turn off. Sometimes it’s so loud I can’t imagine why people around me can’t hear it too.

Learning to to keep my mind occupied and not think about it provides some relief. That and a television or talk radio on all time, especially at night as it’s worse when it’s quiet.

It’s always there and whether or not I “notice” it at any particular point in time depends upon me not thinking about it or being focused on something else… writing this comment for example.

Dave

I see depression recovery like recovery from drug addiction, we are always in recovery. Feeling normal has become easier over time, but I have to maintain such a high level of self-awareness to keep from falling in the hole.

Everyone has a different path to recovery, but most are essentially the same in a deeper sense. I simply want to feel normal – not hysterically happy, not floating on air, but normal.

Have a great week ahead John!