16
Jun
Coming Out about Depression
I suffer from depression. There. I said it.
None of my regular readers, nor many of my closest friends, family members, and coworkers probably would have guessed it. As a matter of fact, I wouldn’t have guessed it myself either and I didn’t for a very long time–at least two years. However, since I discovered that I suffer from depression, I’ve decided that it’s not something I’m going to be quiet about. I’ve already shared about it with a number of people and I’m really glad I have; if I hadn’t, I would still be suffering much more than I am today. Hopefully by sharing from my own life experience I can help others as well.
Some of you may be asking yourself, “What does Ricky have to be depressed about? He has a good job, he has people in his life who love him, he’s active in his church, he’s always learning, he joyfully serves and helps others. I mean, if I had his life I certainly wouldn’t be depressed.” If you’re asking that question, it is a question based in ignorance. It’s like hearing that I have a broken arm and saying, “Why does Ricky have a broken arm? He has a good job, he has people in his life who love him, he’s active in his church, he’s always learning, he joyfully serves and helps others. I mean, if I had his life I certainly wouldn’t have a broken arm.” 
Although depression affects the psyche, it is very much a physical problem–as much as a broken arm is a physical problem. I do not hold a psychology degree but I do have an understanding of the ailment now. It is nothing to be embarrassed about and it doesn’t indicate some particular weakness that is the fault of the depressed person. For some reason, in our society, we tend to remain quiet about mental disorders. Just like we can’t always control what’s going on with our physical body, we can’t always control what’s going on with our brain either (note that the brain is part of our physical body). Because depression is a physical problem, it can be treated like other physical problems, often with medication and/or therapy. When I was debating on whether to consent to take medication for my depression, one of my friends asked me, “If you had cancer, would you take chemotherapy? If you were diabetic, would you take medication for that?” “Sure,” I replied. “Well,” she said, “this is no different.”
When Did It All Start? How Did I Realize I Was Depressed?
I’m not quite sure when my bout with depression started. I tend to think that it was at least two years ago though. For a couple years now I’ve had a very difficult time getting motivated to do things. I’ve been procrastinating a lot and causing myself extreme stress to meet deadlines. Even for those things I haven’t had to do, and I would normally want to do, there just hasn’t been a lot of drive there.
You may recall that a couple years ago I was looking for a new hobby and decided to take up sketching and drawing. This was coming off wrapping up a particularly challenging project. In retrospect, I think this is about the time some shift began to take place in my brain. Looking for a new hobby seemed to be the way to resolve the problem, even though I didn’t really know what the problem was. I only knew that there was something wrong in my life.
Well, drawing and sketching didn’t hold a lot of interest for me. I tried several other things and nothing else has held much interest for me either. When I talked to friends about how I was feeling, some of them, had suggested that maybe I was dealing with depression. I dismissed that quickly thinking that I had no reason to be depressed; therefore it must be something else.
One person suggested that I talk to a counselor. I seriously considered this option. Because I think like an engineer, I can’t just tell someone that there is a problem without identifying the problem as much as possible. At this point I knew I had some problem in my life, but I had no idea what that problem was. For me to go to a counselor at this point and tell her, “I’ve got a problem,” would have been like someone telling me, “My email isn’t working, fix it for me,” without telling me what they were trying, what the desired and expected behavior was, and what they had done to try to fix the problem themselves; I need more information to even know where to begin investigating.
So, last fall I began a “Depression Notes” journal. I’m not quite sure why I called it this, but that’s what I called it. I didn’t journal every day, but I would mostly journal when I was stuck and couldn’t seem to work on anything or when I was especially stressed. I think I discovered a lot about myself through this process. On May 12th of this year I wrote:
I’m bored. I mean, I’m like really, really, bored. Sure, I have plenty of things I could be doing. I have plenty of things I should be doing. In fact, I have another big project that I’m behind on now and I just don’t want to get started on it. I have a tight deadline and I’ll probably be majorly stressing for the next 2 or 3 days as I work on it. Right now though, there just isn’t anything that I want to do. I don’t really want to be journaling right now, but it seemed to be one of the least negative things that I could do.
So, what am I bored with? Pretty much everything. I’m bored with my job. I’m bored with my business. I’m bored in my ministry. I’m bored in Toastmasters. I’m bored with what I read. I’m bored in my marriage. I’m bored with computers. I’m bored with our evening routine. I’m bored with music. I honestly can’t think of anything that I’m not bored with.
When I applied the word “bored” to my life, I felt like I finally had something tangible I could grab onto. I now had some way of describing what I had been feeling for a couple years. I had something that I felt could be “fixed” because I knew what the problem was.
At this point I thought it was a problem with myself, a sin, if you will. I’m a believer. The Holy Spirit lives inside me. I shouldn’t have felt so bored with life. I repented to God of my boredom and asked Him to help me grow through this. After this, I was really motivated and excited for the next couple of days.
James tells us, “Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective.” I think that confession is a big part of getting the help to grow and improve, however most of us want to just deal with things on our own in blatant disregard for James’ wisdom and God’s instruction. I began to share this with some of my friends so they would be praying for me as well.
One friend shared with me that he thought I may be clinically depressed. By this time, the ‘high’ from my realization and repentance was wearing off already. He shared about depression in his own life and urged me to see a doctor about it. I didn’t even know what kind of doctor to go see. He told me that any general practitioner could diagnose and treat it. So, I made an appointment with my doctor.
What Is My Current Treatment and Experience?
When I talked with my doctor, he agreed that it sounded like I’m dealing with depression and prescribed 10mg of Paxil per day. I started taking it the next day. It’s supposed to take a couple weeks to kick in, but almost immediately I began feeling better. I think a lot of this may have been the placebo effect and just psychologically knowing that I was on a path to getting better.
About a week-and-a-half after I started the medication, I felt “lower than a snakes belly” for a couple days. After feeling so good for over a week, this provided a great point of comparison for how I had felt for so long as compared to how I could feel.
I’ve been on the medication for three weeks now and I really can tell a difference. No, I’m still not as motivated and energized as I would like to be, but I’m still in the very early stages of my treatment as well. Imagine having a toothache and having periods, maybe days, where it doesn’t bother you at all, or not quite as much; that’s kind of what this is like. I see my doctor again next week and we’ll talk about the medication and how things are going. He may also recommend psychiatric counseling, but he wanted to see what the medication would do first. I also need to talk to him about Sleep Apnea as something that could possibly be contributing to this.
Along with the medication, God has also been bringing other sources of strength and help into my life. When I told one friend about it, he put out his hand to shake mine and exclaimed, “Welcome to the club man!” Other friends have also shared about their experiences and encouraged me and listened to me.
Many of the books I’ve been reading lately have been dealing with depression (even though depression is the focus of the book). One of them is a book that overcoming creative blocks that I just started re-reading. Even though I read most of it just a few months ago, I don’t remember much about it; it’s as though I was in some kind of haze at the time. Now I see that the book talks a lot about depression in creative type people. It’s odd that I re-read any book, and I don’t have any good reason for re-reading this one except that I believe God drew me to it again, knowing that I was now ready for it’s message and teaching.
I’ve also joined a virtual Master Mind group which is helping me through some of my productivity and motivational issues. We meet over the phone every other Monday evening and a personal productivity coach facilitates the discussion between us. I’ll be sharing more in future blog posts about what I’m gaining from participating in the group. I don’t think that I would have joined it if I wasn’t moving down the path of treatment for depression, even though I’ve wanted to take part in a Master Mind group for several years.
So, through confession to others, God is helping me. He’s brining all sorts of helpful resources into my life that I would have otherwise have ignored. I’m so thankful for His abiding presence in my life.
Why Am I Sharing This on My Blog?
The bottom line for why I’m sharing this is that I want to help others. I believe God allows all of us to experience things so we can help others who experience those same things after us. I wish I had read a blog post like this a long time ago–it may have pointed me in the right direction a lot sooner and I could be even further down the path of treatment. Maybe by reading my confession, some of you will be encouraged to share your own experiences with depression and therefore be able to help others as well.
I also have a number of new blog posts that I plan to write, and some of them deal with lessons that I’m learning as I grow through this. I think that by writing this public confession it will provide a better context and background for those articles.
Finally, just as opening up to others has already helped me, hopefully confessing to a larger group will provide other help as well. Perhaps some of you will share your own stories and encouragement which will contribute to my further healing. And hopefully some of you will be much in prayer for myself and others who are dealing with this.
Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective. — James 5:16
Great blog Ricky. We have both been suffering with the same stuff together and never knew it. I was first treated for depression but it has turned into anxiety (General Anxiety disorder). I have experienced Panic attacks for 7 years and have been in treatment for that long. I truly understand the lack of motivation and how it has affected me. I have been on 6 different meds over the years. Like you, many people do not know because I feel they will see me as weak, thus this has limited my interaction publicly. If you don’t know me, Ricky was my Sunday School Teacher for a couple of years and I’m sure he knew very little about my emotional mental struggles because I have kept that very private. I am recently beginning to come out of this funk which all began with the birth of our second child and the sudden death of my father. I learned at that point how little control I really have over my own life. That sound like a great revelation but I continued to try to control even more which has led to all of this anxiety. My first Panic attack came roughly 4 months after my father’s death. Although I still have a lot of control and perfectionist issues-which makes it all worse, I have been able to control it with meds but my neurologist(due to lack of sleep issues for years) has been treating me for sleep apnea. I tried medication-did not work. I have been using my CPAP machine for 4 weeks and I can see a vast difference.
June 17th, 2010 at 12:25 amRicky, I know that you did not know who you might be reaching out to as you posted it, but you have already ministered to me, someone in your Sunday School Class who has not attended church in a while due to these insecurities and inadequacies. I didn’t want people to know because having a “mental condition” destroys one’s self-esteem and people feel that you can’t handle certain things. I have always been a strong independent woman who has confidence to go out into the world and do anything God places in front of me.
As I sit and type, tears flow uncontrollably and I hope it begins to release the angst I feel that others do not understand. The tears have overcome my ability to think clearly. I’m beginning to ramble. This is all I can post today. Say a prayer for me and I will for you in hopes that you will continue to improve.
Cindy – Thanks so much for sharing your story! I do remember you sharing once, a long time ago, about your anxiety. I’m not sure how I responded at that time. I’m certainly more knowledgeable now, and I hope more compassionate and understanding too, toward those who suffer from these types of things.
I really appreciate you sharing your story. Although it’s very difficult, as you already know, I really do believe that God’s instruction to open up anyway is one of the methods He uses to bring healing–and to help others. So I applaud you for sharing here, and I hope it gives you strength to continue sharing. You have a great opportunity to help others through your experience and to be helped as well. Your words certainly ministered to me as well.
One thing I didn’t write above, that I probably should have, was that I never felt “depressed.” At least, not in the sense that I usually understood it. I imagined people who were always sad and just moped around with their head hung low with no goals, ambition, or sense of purpose in life. While this may be one way depression manifests itself, it’s certainly not the only way. For me, it was mostly a lack of interest in everyday activities that I used to find really exciting.
Since I stepped down from teaching that class, we haven’t been attending. We’ve been exploring other options for where God might want to use us. It’s nothing negative about that class, just that I need to seek God’s plan for our future. Since we haven’t been in there, I didn’t know you hadn’t attended in a while, or else I would have reached out to you. We really enjoyed running into you guys a couple months ago though.
Thank you for your prayers. I’ll be praying for you as well.
June 17th, 2010 at 9:42 amThat second paragraph (about the broken arm/depression analogy) is really good. I never thought about it in that way. Good to get your mental models challenged
On opening up: yes, it can help. I struggled with my study at university and got tired of saying “everything is OK”. So in my last year (1999/2000) I made a web page that listed all the courses I still had to complete. I regularly updated it. Good motivator for myself, but the big effect was the big relief to have it all in the open.
All the best in dealing with this!
p.s.: as a programmer, I found the part about not wanting to go to a doctor before you had a better “bug report” than “it doesn’t work” hilarious
June 18th, 2010 at 4:10 amRicky, I’m glad you are aware and getting help with this. My prayers are with you.
I was diagnosed as clinically depressed back in the early 1980s. My symptoms were the lethargy, but also extreme sadness and at least a nodding agreement that suicide could make sense. Luckily I went to mental health to get out of the Army and found out that the Army was not my problem, at least not this problem.
I got weekly one-on-one therapy, but no meds. I had been having jaw pain such that it would lock on me. I had been to the orthodontist who had given me exercises and had asked if I would be willing to have a psych eval. I laughed it off at the time. But the funny thing is that after a few weeks of therapy I no longer had jaw pain. Hmmm.
I distinctly recall a day perhaps a year into this when I was in a session and had the thought that I could be happy. It was like the sun came out. It was a turning point. So in that case it seems that it was mostly my thinking that was the problem. I had not realized that never in my life had I thought I could be happy. I had not been in the state of sadness that brought me to get help, but I had never even thought of happiness as a possibility.
Many years later, I was having problems controlling eating and read a book called “Potatoes not Prozac.” Short story is that I tried out what the book said, which had to do in part with serotonin, and could control my eating. It also seemed like I had a different feel, sort of like the background music had changed. After a while I stopped doing the method and after a week or so I noticed I was extremely angry for no reason. My opinion is that I had a serotonin problem and it manifested as anger instead of sadness. I mention this, because Paxil also works on serotonin. My problem seems to be managed by the “potato” treatment, but I think it is a similar chemical issue.
June 18th, 2010 at 11:26 amReinout – I’m glad you found the humor in this! It’s good to hear from you as well; it’s been a long time!
Thanks for sharing also that publicizing your goals also helped you achieve them easier!
June 18th, 2010 at 3:48 pmAnita – Thanks for your prayers! The person who was most instrumental in getting me to see a doctor about this had shared that he had been seeing a doctor about a pain in his neck. None of the treatments and pain medications they tried helped, and the doctor suggested an antidepressant. When he started that, the pain went away. It’s a great example of how depression is a physical issue.
It sounds like you felt the way I generally thought depression makes one feel. At least, with my own internal definitions of the words “happy” and “depressed”. For me, I guess I was happy and depressed at the same time.
I’m glad that you’ve found ways to deal with it and that you’re a happy person now. Thanks for sharing!
June 18th, 2010 at 3:55 pmRicky,
As your friend said, welcome to the club. I have had issues with chronic depression ever since puberty. I too take paxill each day. And like you I fought it for a long time. I agrre, God gives us challenges in our lives so we can help others, and with my work dealing with many differnt personalities and hearing their problems, my depression makes me stronger for those who are dealing with the stigma of a mental illness. The difference between a broken arm and mental illness is..with a broken arm you know when it should be healed..with mental illness we never know when it will go away and it may never go away…I spent many years with a counselor. As I look back, those were the years that I truly grew as a person. I had been so tunnel visioned in my chronic depression, I don’t think I liked myself during that time in my life. Though counseling and self awareness, I like me, I am strong and I can accomplish anything I put my mind (strange I would use the word mind, don’t you think?) to do. I have learned we are what we believe about ourselves, the mind is a very powerful part of the body…a very complex part of the body. I am so glad you are on the journey to understanding who you are and how to manage this illness. I fought the taking any thing for my depression, but the depression finally wore me down and God picked me back up and sent me to the right Doctor who understood and told me it was really O-K to do the right thing for myself…take care. What doesn’t kill us only makes us stronger.
In loving faith,
Vicky D.
June 19th, 2010 at 9:12 amRicky,
We add you to our prayer list, I don’t know how to help you, but if there is anything we can do, please do not hesitate to ask.
I honestly don’t know anything about it, but reading your post and the great answers, remind me once more, why I have read your stuff and admire you over the years, You are not afraid to be Yourself. Thanks for that.
APO
June 19th, 2010 at 2:52 pm[...] months since I’ve published a new meditation. I recently shared on my personal blog about how I’ve been dealing with depression and didn’t know it. That, along with other things in my life, prohibited the writing and recording of this meditation. [...]
June 19th, 2010 at 9:11 pmVicky – You’re absolutely correct that once you experience this, you begin to empathize with, and better understand, others–not just those who are dealing with it, but I think people in general. It’s probably one of the reasons you can understand and relate so well to your employees.
Thanks so much for commenting and encouraging me!
June 20th, 2010 at 3:48 pmAugusto – Thank you for your prayers. I count you as one of my best friends and I excited about the new capacity in which we get to work with each other. Your input in that group has already helped me greatly with this. I look forward to growing with you more!
June 20th, 2010 at 3:51 pm[...] Coming Out about Depression 21 [...]
June 21st, 2010 at 12:37 pmRicky – isn’t it a relief when you finally realize what’s wrong, and then you can give it to God to see his healing work? Just reading about my diagnosis was a huge turning point, as well as experiencing the first time affects of an anti-depressant. I finally saw another way of life, another way to live, without tears, without chronic anger and sadness.
Good luck on your journey. Just be thankful every day that you are on it! Some people don’t even reach that point. I fought it, just like you did, felt embarassed, weak. So, welcome to the club, and thank God you joined!!
August 27th, 2010 at 8:14 pmRita – Thanks for stopping by and for your words of encouragement! Have a great week!
August 30th, 2010 at 2:30 pmHi Ricky,
have you tried some form of daily meditation?
November 24th, 2010 at 3:26 pmMarek – I usually do begin my day with some time meditating on the scriptures. In fact, I produce the Christian guided meditations on the Mindful Worship web site (www.MindfulWorship.com).
A couple months ago I also attended a seminar on Centering Prayer which is probably a little closer to what you’re talking about. I’ve tried that some, although not every day for an extended period of time. Perhaps I’ll be able to discipline myself to do it more regularly at some point. Thanks for the encouragement!
November 27th, 2010 at 5:25 pmThanks for sharing your story … I can identify with everything you shared. As a Christian I thought that admitting I suffer from depression and anxiety issues was a hard thing to do. After all, Christians aren’t supposed to suffer from ‘mental issues’, right? Well, I finally admitted it to myself and to God. With His guidance I am dealing with it and trying to heal with healthy eating, physical activity, time in the sunshine, herbs, supplements, meditation, prayer … the only drug I was willing to try was xanax and I only use that to sleep and it works well. Drugs have SO many side effects and none of them are good. But you gotta do what you gotta do and everyone’s path to healing isn’t the same. I still have depression, mood swings, anxiety, panic, anger and frustration issues that are way out of proportion to life’s challenges. One day I hope to manage it and perhaps overcome it. If it doesn’t happen here, at least I know I won’t be suffering in heaven!
June 11th, 2011 at 12:37 pmMarci – Thank YOU for sharing YOUR story! I really need to do an update to this post. Here’s a short preview though. After working with a clinical psychologist, it turns out I’m not suffering from depression after all. I have ADHD instead and that appears to be the root cause of my problems. I’m also treating that by instilling new coping mechanisms (and God’s help) instead of using pharmaceuticals.
Keep hanging in there. We’re almost home now!
June 30th, 2011 at 4:08 pm[...] of you will remember the post I wrote last year where I came out about suffering from Depression. I never provided any updates about my condition after that [...]
July 23rd, 2011 at 4:34 pm