Depression and Holidays

This post is for anyone who might be struggling with emotional turmoil and depression. For a lot of us, tough times always feel tougher around major holidays.

We think of holidays as being a time of joy and togetherness, filled with good times and high spirits. People who don't understand the "Blues" outside of the usual and "ordinary" type, might assume that a holiday will lift make everyone feel better.

When you are dealing with any kind of depression - no matter the reason or source - it's easy to see only the downside to all that holiday cheer. While other people are gathering together, you might feel alone and forgotten - even while gathered with others. You see families and couples and friends and think of your own broken relationships. If you live in a snowy climate, you feel isolated. If you live in a sunny climate, you feel shut off from the seasonal spirit of things.

It's not only people who are dealing with mental illness or other emotional issues who can feel this way. Depression can come from lots of sources: having your life thrown out of whack by some surprise circumstance, illness or personal loss. Depression is a form of mental illness.

Let's stop and look at what that term means instead of just making snap judgments. This from NAMI is the best definition I've heard. The sentence is under the question of "What is mental illness":

A mental illness is a medical condition that disrupts a person's thinking, feeling, mood, ability to relate to others and daily functioning. Just as diabetes is a disorder of the pancreas, mental illnesses are medical conditions that often result in a diminished capacity for coping with the ordinary demands of life. (source)

If we lived in a society that subsisted mostly on sugar (and we just might), lots of us would suffer tooth decay and obesity (and we just might). We do happen to live in a society that is stressful most of the time, is it any wonder that so many of us are suffering from mental stress?

Times are just tough for a lot of folks and for lots of reasons. Money doesn't buy happiness, but poverty is no picnic either. Society is so fractured around us, with everyone feeling the pressure of belonging to (or being excluded from) some kind of group - racially, gender-wise; Boomers and Millennials and the Y's and Z's; the rich and poor and middle class; the "Singles" and the "Coupled Up"; Liberal, Conservative, Christian, Jewish, Athiest, and every other moral or religious or political persuasion.

No matter who you are, or which "group" or "percent" you belong to, you might be feeling the Blues a little bit harder than at any other time of year. I have my own version of the Blues that hum at me constantly like I'm being serenaded by Mississippi John or Memphis Minnie, so I get it. Totally.

What I want to say to anyone else who is dealing with their own Blues is that I hope you try to get through it one moment, one breath, at a time. I hope you don't let the cloud of your sad feelings overwhelm any light you have in you or around you.

Here are some resources for anyone feeling troubled - and these are just some, not all. If you don't find what you need here, call your local clinic or hospital and ask if there is counseling available. There are also resources for those of you who know someone who might need help.

• Info from National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI)
• Tips for coping during the holidays (from Mayo Clinic Staff)
• Great article at Huffington Post (9 Things Only People With Depression Can Truly Understand)
• Psych Central on ways you can help a friend
• Trans Lifeline for transgender people in crisis
• The Trevor Project for LGBTQ young people aged 13-24
• Teen Lifeline
• National Suicide Prevention Lifeline

And, finally, because I am a Christian, I turn to the Bible for reassurance. One of my favorite verses from the Bible is Psalm 27:1. I remind myself of it when I just need to get through one more moment: "The Lord is my light and my salvation. Whom shall I fear?" (You have to know how awful my memory is to realize how much that verse must mean for me to have it memorized.) Here are 8 more verses that might be an encouragement to you. (And, if you are a person of faith, please pray for others.)

Peace

--Free

Still Here

It does so break my heart every time I hear this song.

I mean, I've heard that she had a lot of heartache and troubles, but she was still here to sing about it. Now she is gone and she will always be one of the many reminders to me that life is life and death is death. I don't want to be punked into giving up  - not by disappointment or shame or hurt or loss or fear. I want to go out fighting a little bit harder than that.

People say that suicide is a coward's way out. I don't think so anymore; I think that suicide is a brave act -stupid but brave. After all, you are rolling dice on eternity.  By giving up in a moment of overwhelming pain, you are forfeiting a chance at any more joy. It's stupid because you don't know how much of your love you are robbing other people of. You are giving up ever finding what could have been your saving hope - a person or pursuit. There could be someone you don't even know who will need you, and you won't be there. 

I bring up all this because there are many ways to commit suicide (and I'm not talking about intentional styles or methods). What I mean is that there are people all around us who are committing suicide by lifestyle and mindset.

A close friend of mine is dying a little every day by sitting and letting life pass her by. She is letting depression kill her without a weapon in sight. (And I am not downplaying the very real problems of depression.) 

Like I said, there are people dying of suicide all around us. When you are depressed and won't let anyone help you, that's suicide by default. When you are in a dangerous relationship and won't get help, that's suicide by shame. If you feel overwhelmed by life and can't lay down your fear or pride or shame to reach out in any way, that is suicide. It's slow suicide. 

Just like we should do for anyone with suicidal tendencies, we have to keep trying to reach people who are lost in their pain. Maybe because I am a Christian (imperfect as I am), I truly do believe that I am my brother's keeper.

I've been the one who needed "keeping." Thank God I had friends who were there for me. I was the one committing suicide by shame and pride and misguided wishing. I didn't want anyone to know I was in a dangerously abusive relationship. Shame and pride. I didn't want to give up on someone I once loved and wanted to love again - no matter how many times he put me in fear of my life. Misguided wishing. 

Anyway, believe it or not, a lot of my thoughts for this post came together out of a simple conversation about the weather. Yeah, I am both complex and simple! (Or just simple.)

It's been an unusual summer here so far. Anchorage is home to some great summertime weather. (Fairbanks has better summer weather, but they also have winters that will freeze your ovaries.) The weather here at this point sucks. It's so gloomy today that I had to have three hits of caffeine just to fall out of the right side of my bed. This is the way things have been since we expected summer starting in late April.

Am I complaining like a champion whiner? Yes, you bet. But I have a new philosophy about everything:

As long as I am here to complain, I'm doing better than I could be. I am still here. Some people left us way too early. I wonder if they can know that we miss them and think about them; crave their presence and need them?

Peace

--Free

Don't Give In, Don't Give Up.

I was felt personally devastated by the news that Mindy McCready apparently killed herself yesterday.
This woman is a stranger to me, but at some point when I was going though a really, really tough time, I caught an episode of Celebrity Rehab and she sang this song. I have listened to it when I needed a reminder to keep pushing on.

We never know what people are going through. No one who knows me know what I sometimes have and still do go through in my heart and mind. Whenever I have crept close to the edge of too much pain, God has pulled me back.

I didn't know her, but I am so very sorry that this woman's pain stole her away. If you are in pain, please don't let it own you. Don't give up. There are folks you can talk to.


In the U.S.:

1-800-273-8255 National Suicide Prevention Lifeline

For those outside the U.S.: International Association for Suicide Prevention (IASP)

Peace
--Free

Keep me as the apple of your eye; hide me in the shadow of your wings. Psalm 17:8

Coming Off The Ledge

I had a few very bad days of being super-depressed. When I get like that and nothing else can bring me around, I go off the grid; close myself up away from everyone and everything so that I can do my praying and thinking in peace. I also try to find reasons to deal better with everything.

The other day - about Day 5 into my time in the abyss - I was re-reading a book about the band INXS. I just loved  this group back in the day. The singer, Michael Hutchence committed suicide (or at least, gave in to sadness) at such a young age, 37. Like a lot of people, I was surprised and had to ask the usual "Why?"

A good way to revive yourself out of a funk - or at least talk yourself off the ledge - is to think of someone who didn't make it out. You think of how much they must be missed by the people who loved them, and all the wonderful things they did not live to see. You think, or I did in the case of Hutchence, of  how the talent they shared with us is the only thing left. I still use the lyrics that Hutch and Andrew Farris put out there for us. And Hutch isn't the only sweet soul who didn't make it; he's just a famous face of so many people's pain. They just didn't make it out of a very bad, and probably very temporary, place. As Bono put it about Hutchence: he was just stuck in a moment.

Now, know one thing about me: I get stuck in moments, but I've always made it out. I have a secret weapon in the war on depression. I have a deep faith in Jesus. If I didn't, I'd have not made it through things that came years before this bad time. Trust that.

Jesus promised, "I will not leave you as orphans, I will come to you." (John 14:18)

Some people don't have faith in anything. Some people just teeter alone into the bad places that depression can take any of us. If you are depressed, please find a positive way to deal with it. Call someone, hold on tight to someone, pray - just don't give in to it.

Anyway, my bad moment has passed. I celebrated last night by listening to some of  my favorite INXS songs. My "favorites" in anything change with my mood. Right now, this is my favorite:

R.I.P. Hutch

Peace

--Free

P.S.: If you don't understand faith, I don't either; I just have it. This is a story of a woman who seems to have & understand it.

U.S. National Suicide Prevention Lifeline:

1-800-273-8255

Save.org

Suicide Awareness Voices of Education

**Wikipedia has list or resources for those of you who live outside the USA**

To Parents

How ridiculous is it that I know someone (either personally, very personally or by some association) who, in the past 2 1/2 to 3 months who:

• Has committed suicide
• Had a friend/family member commit suicide
• Has attempted suicide (more than once in one case)
• Has a child with severe problems 

What's in common in all this (other than the obvious) is that these people felt that they couldn't talk to their parents (or, in one case, couldn't talk to their kids, I guess).

I'm not the most emotionally stable person in a crowd of millions, Lord knows. I've had some rocky times, especially in these last several years. What I do have is someone to talk to. Some things I can talk to my sister about, some things I talk only to one or two of my BFFs about. There are some people I can't bring myself to talk to - not about anything deep or seriously personal or troubling. But I have had someone.

Right now, I know of one young person who is dealing with some very sad and depressing feelings. She has support. I know of about 4 young people who are dealing with just the everyday worries and struggles that come with life. What breaks my heart is that they feel they cannot talk to their parents. That puts the other people they can talk to in a strange position.

I was very lucky growing up. There was nothing I couldn't talk to my mother about. I don't mean that I had no problem in telling her every and anything, but if I had a serious problem - one that affected my emotions or mental state - I could go to my mother. Her love for me was greater than any shame I might feel. Thank God, thank God.  Of course I was embarrassed to talk about some things, but she somehow made it okay for me to deal with that hesitation. (It wasn't like we didn't have the awkward "Mom, do you ever have that not so fresh feeling?" moments. By the way, I always thought that was the stupidest commercial ever made...)

I believe that adults sometimes forget that kids have problems that are serious to them. We have to deal with things like bills, mortgages, college funds, putting up with bosses, spouses or jobs we loathe and other crap. A kid having a first-love fall apart or not being liked by classmates, failing a school subject, worrying about their looks, their smell, their personality, what to do after high school or college - whatever it is kids worry about might not seem like a big deal to us. I think we forget that to a young person the things they worry about weigh on them as heavy as the things we worry about. A burden is burden when you are the one carrying it, no matter how old you are.

The reason I worry about some of the young people I know is because I have personally had more than one of them tell me that they don't like talking to their parents. That scares me. I usually say something to the parents, but in some cases that's no big help. 

One parent I know very well, probably doesn't think this is a big deal, but he has a personality flaw. He's just one of these people who (intelligent as he is) has a huff-and-puff impatience that permeates every pore of his being. I can't imagine his child being comfortable talking to him. I just don't see it. This parent is one of those people who seems to feel that what he can do and be, anyone can do and be. In his mind, here are no barriers to achievement of anything. This is a great attitude. For him. It's served him well. But, good God in Heaven, his kids feel so unable to live up to his expectations. And they don't feel they can talk to him.

This particular young person I know told me about a pretty minor little problem he is having. He isn't sure about a decision he needs to make. I told him to see what his mom and dad thought. His answer to that is what made me write this post. He said, "My folks? You're kidding, right?" And he laughed, but it was the least funniest thing to be said. 

Parents - or whoever you are to a young person - please, please, please open your eyes, ears and hearts. Listen to your kids. Let them know there is nothing they can tell you that will make you not love them or want the best for them. 

My mother was one of those people who knew her kids. A lot of times when I needed her, I didn't even have to open my mouth. She knew me and loved me. She could take my emotional temperature just by thinking about me. Maybe that's a gift some parents have. I don't know, but I think that you can learn to be better in parenting.

I'm so tired of hearing about babies killing themselves or not reaching their potential just because no one heard them.

Peace

--Free