The best way to describe my depression was like a category 5, Hurricane Katrina, storm-of-the-mind that pressed and crushed and bore mightily down on my truly troubled and utterly exhausted brain. Its brutal force aimed to obliterate me.

Over time I truly wished I was.

The asteroid I wanted to smash perfectly and exactly on me and my car while driving down the interstate freeway, demolishing us both into extinction, never happened.

A sudden heart attack felt like it would be a welcome death.

And on those rare moments when I finally did fall asleep (though ever-so-briefly), my greatest desire was that I would never wake. Insomnia made each 8-hour nightfall a particularly dark, encumbered, and dreaded form of regular, repeated torment. There’s no rest for the wearily depressed!

“I just need the noise (in my brain) to stop,” said a fellow depression sufferer to her concerned and frightened mother several years ago.

In truth, the right amygdala, the fight, flight, or freeze part of our brain, is in overdrive with depression. Think of this almond-shaped structure (tiny yet powerful) like a hamster wheel with a poor, exhausted hamster running continually but finding no way to jump off or, better yet, stop altogether.

The thoughts that may be running through a depressed person’s mind are often ruminations of the past; therefore, each depressed person suffers from their own unique story. For me, those thoughts included:

• rehashing the unkind way I left Rick
• questioning my choice to leave in the first place
• reliving conversations of family members who were angry at me
• feeling harsh judgment from many
• judging myself as bad
• questioning my decisions on everything
• having an overwhelming desire to isolate

These miserable ruminations melded into one big, lifeless dough ball with no nourishing life force within. No wonder things seemed so dark.

Depression hurts so differently than a broken bone or a bout with the flu. Cancer gets incredible sympathy. Depression? —not usually that kind of support. Physically you seem to look normal to others. Looking normal on the outside makes it easier for some to say to you, “Pick yourself up by the bootstraps.” “Shake it off!” “Change direction.” “Get on medication” (which may be true). “Just think positive thoughts” (though something can be said for positive thinking). Loved ones indeed are terrified for you but aren’t sure what specific things would be helpful.

I was pretty sure that depression was my new, permanent, and eternal reality—that it would never, ever, ever, ever go away. Life felt hopeless. And without hope, what was there, really?

I began to consider other ways to make depression disappear permanently.

I knew there were people who loved me. I knew that my dying by suicide would crush them. I also knew they would feel guilty and wonder what they could have done to help me more. There’s a logic to how you know it will affect others. I’ve lived long enough to have heard many stories of those left behind who suffered deeply after their loved ones ended their lives.

Depression leaves many victims.

But more than anything or more than how anyone would be affected, I SIMPLY WANTED THE PAIN TO GO AWAY!

Yet, even before depression and wanting my life to end, there was anxiety. I look at anxiety as worrying about a future that hasn’t happened yet.

I am ten years older than my sister, Julie. We have a shared experience of working jobs during our marriages but not having the burden of being a family breadwinner. We both found that when our jobs got too complicated, the pressure too intense, we had the luxury of quitting each job. (I know many people do not have this luxury or would even call it such.)

I liken the feeling of job pressure to a tea kettle. You turn the burner on to high so the water will boil. The tension in the teapot builds. Though it takes some time, the kettle eventually whistles and the scalding hot water is now ready to use.

That’s great for tea-making but not so great for people.

Julie and I could quit our jobs before the kettle whistled—before our anxiety reached the boiling point. It wasn’t fun to quit jobs, nor was it easy. Over the years, as it happened with more frequency, the pattern became noticeable and confusing. Still, the quitting-a-job tactic worked at keeping the tea kettle whistle from blowing for many, many years.

Remember that I left Rick over “another perceived financial stress?” Ironically, holding down a job was all on me now. I became my own breadwinner. I paid my monthly cell phone bill, utility bill, and rent. Though I would likely get alimony for a period, two attorneys stated that there would be a time limit. Knowing I had to supply my own health insurance for the rest of my life proved an especially harsh reality.

The tea kettle shrilled long and hard.

It’s true that I grew up with an angry father who criticized us kids often, as well as those around him. After he died in 2008, my mom admitted that early in their marriage, she would hide in the closet and cry after receiving each of his verbal tirades. She later learned to give back to him what she got. They bickered a lot. It created unstable footing for me in my life, and I venture to say, within my siblings.

Yes, life can be HARD. Fair or unfair, life is often complicated, tricky, and problematic. Some of us get to slog along the broken, potholed roads of major depressive disorder and generalized anxiety. That slog is an arduous and terrifying journey. Coming out the other side does not seem possible.

In my case, with a whole lot of WORK and plenty of fortunate help, I eventually did come out the other side.

And I hope that you will, too.

Suppose you recognize any degree of this storm-of-the-mind within yourself or others. In that case, my sincere hope for you is that you find the commitment, or faith, or wherewithal, or ability, or courage, or whatever word that works for you to do the tricky work of getting well. You might not believe that you have any degree of momentum to slog forward, but if you are reading this book or a loved one reading this book is helping you, you are still moving through your depression. Early on, I recognized I only needed to take one step at a time—just one. You pick just one thing and do it. Keep doing it for as long as it takes. A day will come when you realize you can now do the next thing.

TAKEAWAYS

1. Can you or your loved one relate to and classify their depression or anxiety as a hurricane? If so, what category is it? (A hurricane’s category classifies as 1-5, with five being the most damaging.) This information could be helpful for medical and therapeutic personnel as well as loved ones to know.
2. Others have described their depression or anxiety as a tsunami—a giant wave that washes over them and recedes with time. There are three types of tsunamis—local, regional, and distant. Still, on a scale of 1-5, with five being the most damaging, a number could be helpful for medical and therapeutic personnel as well as loved ones to know.
3. My friend Hunter who is studying to be a psychotherapist, explained that depression is only one word for the thousand other words used to describe each person’s unique and varied experience living with mental illness. For Hunter, depression showed up in him as apathy—he could not feel anything. Learning that depression often feels distinctly different within individuals, your depression might not feel like a hurricane, a tsunami, or apathy. It will likely have its own distinct, though distressful, compilation of emotions and sensations within your inner world. Putting words to your depression may be helpful. Using a feeling wheel may aid you in defining with specificity how depression feels.
4. This memoir contains several methods that worked for me—one of which was therapy. My Experiential Psychotherapist, Deborah A. (DeBora) Miller, LMFT, who specialized in trauma, threw numerous challenges at me from her psychotherapy toolkit. I would choose the one thing that resonated and could rouse myself to do.
5. In the beginning, getting in my car and driving to the appointment was the only thing I could do.
6. A friend, who reviewed this memoir, found this chapter difficult to read—scary, even. “Depression,” she explains, “is the elephant in the room.”
7. True, mental illness is challenging to discuss with loved ones, let alone know how to help move toward a solution. My story will provide some helpful ideas, but you will likely realize that your path to mental wellness veers in a different, though beneficial, direction. There are many roads to wellness.
8. There is hope!