Depression is a tricky one. People close to me know that it is something i have struggled with myself over the years. Depression, PTSD and Anxiety are words that bring back a flood of dark and shadowy places that leave you just outside of reach of anybody.
People throw around phrases in times like this, things like, 'suicide is selfish' or 'it's a cop out'. But the truth is when your in the haze of that kind of pain, a pain that is intangible and elusive, suicide holds a reprieve. Even if it is the most horrible kind, it is a reprieve and that is all that matters. The thing is when we look at depression, when we look at suicide, we are hammered by thoughts surrounding the loved ones that are to be left behind, the children the lovers the parents the friends - how could someone do that to the people they love. But there in lies a traumatic truth, there in possibly lies a glimmer in to how all-consuming depression is. Because in the light of all the love that surrounds them, the life that thrives just beyond grasp, there comes death.
People fail to fully comprehend that Death is the only light at the end of the tunnel for these people, and so with that in mind, maybe you get an idea of just how dark a place depression can really be. People are so encapsulated by the darkness of depression that to end their life becomes their final hope.
So to make gruff remarks about 'suicide is selfish' or 'it's a cop out', is not productive of conducive to helping those that are in the darkest moments of their life, wrangling each day with a cloud of endless, un-meetable desperation. Instead it is damaging, in ways you may not even fathom.
I was a lucky one, for a many varying, perfectly timed and balanced reasons, i - on this day, am a winner.
But it never really goes away, it's always there in the back of your mind. Not that you are these things, these words, simply that you had it. Like a black cloud that ceases to evade, it follows me, alongside the life i create, as a reminder of a time in my life when i felt alone and weaker, despite the love that pressed in on me from all around.
When i talk about it with people, i can almost hear the shock. The thing is, i think the shock comes from my ability TO talk about it.People avoid eye contact, they brush over it and they change topic very quickly, because it un nerves them to do so. So here is my advice, just listen. Let what they talk about be ok and safe, let them pour themselves out to you with out question or judgment.
We live in a culture where not being ok, isn't ok... and that's not OK!
Why can't people reach out and ask for help without feeling like they are being judged or belittled. Because i can tell you now, that's what it was like for me. People don't know what to say, how to react. And the most difficult part to explain to people, is that depression is not about being sad.
Sad is a very different thing. Depression is about deeply, so very very deeply, feeling hopeless, beaten and exhausted. Feeling sad would almost be a reprieve in it's own. depression is so very much more, a complex, debilitating and consuming state of being. To look back on it now it is even almost to difficult to put into words what it feels like to be depressed.
Perhaps that is where the problem lies. People can not relate, they can only relate to being sad,and well being sad sucks, but you get up, you dust yourself off and you move on-wards, right?
Not being able to relate to something intangible is difficult for people. There in lies the reality of mental health and mental illness.
How do you ask people to be patient with you, for years, for something they can not see and/or even begin to understand?
For me i was lucky. It took years, but i can safely say my life has never looked better. I have hope, i have love i have cleared my skies and danced in its sweet sweet light. But we do not all get that opportunity to heal, some of us fall down like defeated soldiers in the face of its wrath. Just like Robbin did.
My heart goes out to his family, and my heart goes out to anybody that is touched by this disease. It's a heart wrenching journey that takes it's toll, and theses people need acceptance and patience above all.
xxx
if you think you or someone you know is not ok ----> http://www.beyondblue.org.au/
