I have learned about depression the hard way, day to day with my spouse. He experiences it daily and is daily struggling to understand and to have others understand. He has a personality that can light up a room. He has lows that can depress a room. He helps the most needy, but when it comes to others understanding his needs, most don’t. They like him when he is happy and cannot understand he needs support. He looks okay and should be functional. Many days he is not. Many days he hides a lot of his pain by trying to be active and be a participator. He has very dark days and for a long time would not talk about them. Most people don’t see them and don’t realize how he retreats to the bedroom. He has days he cannot get out of bed; cannot face people and cannot leave the house. He gets angry at the smallest thing and says things he does not mean. He has a gift of understanding though. He understands and helps the most disadvantaged youth and families. He understands the beauty of nature and life and strives to show this in his photographs. He loves to show others how to capture this too. He has an understanding of what it takes to stop someone from ending their own life, which he has done on several occasions. He was there when several young people most needed a helping hand and had turned to him. He has also missed that opportunity for several people near and dear to him. He will give to the day he dies, even if people never understand him. For so long he did not want people to know about his depression because he did not want people to judge him. He was ashamed of his own being. Now he (we) wants others to understand so they can help those who also suffer needlessly.
I knew the day I met my husband that I was to be with him the rest of my life. I did not fully understand why until I really began to know him. NO one has seen the hurt on his face the way I have. No one has experienced watching him so desperate that he sleeps his day away, rather than fight with the demons inside. No one has seen him the way I have, try to be whole and try to get people’s acceptance, only to be stabbed in the back by these same people later when they misread him. No one understands how he pulled himself up by his shoestrings to stop drinking from sun down to sunset (this his only escape from depression for some time) to live life and help others. No one understands how he can shoot weddings and be so fun to be around and then be in bed for two days to recover from doing this. No one understands how he feels each day he awakes, to the hope that today will be a bright day, not a grey one. He says he has very few bright days, despite his attempts to surround himself with things he loves to do and the people he loves to be around. No one understands why he cannot always do what he has planned to do – looked forward to doing – and instead has to retreat to his bedroom.
In 2003 a friend of our family committed suicide in a desperate attempt to escape the depression and darkness that he felt surrounded him. As the family spoke and read of his short life I could not help but relate all too well. They described a person who loved life and wanted only the best for those around him. He loved to make people laugh and in an odd way be the center of attention, when really the attention was very scary for him. They talked of a natural love of understanding for those who are very different – be it age, race, income, ability or education. He had a need to not let others into his dark world, and tried to hide it with humor. If it was not for the age of the young man being remembered, this could have been my husband’s funeral. The difference is he is here and trying to cope with the feelings this young man gave in to. Watching our friends grieve reminded me also how this was not the first time depression has shown its ugly face in my family. A family member killed himself over darkness and seeming lost hope too. He too was young, had just graduated from college, gotten married and had a life to look forward to. He was my husband’s best friend, first cousin and someone who suffered when no one knew it. He took his life and it was kept secret for a long time, as to how he died, because in the 70’s there was a lot of shame attached. My own mother drank to be happy. She too had lots to live for and could not see that. She died in her sleep a very lonely yet well loved lady. Our own son struggles with his dad’s depression. He tries to understand but he also wants it to change so he can enjoy happy times, not just sad ones. He has the genes and will have to watch it too, but I pray he has an understanding of when to get help if he feels he just is slipping into that world. Right now he is trying other ways to be happy, which are working for him. We are thankful for that.
Well here we are many years later and yet another young man has ended his life. He was the younger brother of a friend of my sons. He was a young man full of life – talent and promise. The Chaplin who talked about him at his memorial service put it is perspective and reassured the students there that they should not be mad at him, not blame him but embrace his need for calmness in his life. He described a life of pain that once again is all too familiar to those of us who suffer for people we love whom have depression. He again described my husband and all that he is and tries to be. He described how misunderstand and yet full of wisdom people who experience depression are. He talked about the need for simple things and peaceful existence. How explained how those of us who do not experience it personally, cannot really understand it. Nor can we understand why that day was different, why that day he chose to end his life. He did this in front of the mother of the young man I talked about earlier. He ( the Chaplin) broke down into tears many times while trying to reach out to the captive audience. He got it and I surely hope some others there did too.
So once again we have a young man who just could not see any other way to end his misery. He too hung himself, again after trying treatment and again not doing well with the treatment. Again a high school has to rally around its students while all the while also around staff members, as this was a staff members son. This comes way to soon to imagine, for all at this school, being on the heels of an already bad month. I notice today that someone has painted the rock at the school to say Love Life. Someone gets it and is making sure others do too.
On the front page of the paper yesterday was an article about the first suicide.... a mothers plea to help others out there, help their children and loved ones. Although many may say is it not too soon to be doing this, she is trying to make sense of it all. The rocks at that school is still painted for her son. Many people are speaking out and hoping for the change that will help others.
