The happy face that betrayed me. I was a "Smiling Depressive" -- among the worst of types due to how well you can hide your pain.
You don’t just wake up one morning and say “Darn it! Today I’m clinically depressed”. In fact, depression can start out slowly, where maybe you just feel blue or that life is extra difficult right now because something stressful and negative has recently occurred, such as a death in the family. The problem arises when that low feeling does not go away or at least lighten up in several weeks as it should, but you hardly notice it because, well, you feel bad enough that you really just don’t care or want to deal with it.
The numbers tell the real story but what should concern you is that the longer you allow the depression to settle in and grab hold of you, the harder it is to eventually treat. Even worse, the longer you have it, the greater the chances are that you will have a recurring episode that is even worse later in life. That is something to think about and should give you reason to pay attention to how you and/or your loved ones respond to a negative event.
The numbers bear this out, as I said, with the statistics showing that major depression affects 21 million people, or about 10% of the U.S population every year. Translated, this effectively means that 1 in 10 people suffer at least 1 major depressive episode that lasts two weeks or more each year. 1 in 6 people experience major depression at some point in their life. Given the severity of the illness in terms of how disabling it can be (it may progress to where it is impossible to get yourself out of bed in the morning if fully struck by this mood disorder) the numbers are truly staggering. Out of the 44 million people a year affected by some mental illness, according to the National Institute of Mental Health, almost HALF the events involved depression.
I could cite further facts about this mood disorder, but I’d rather share my own story so that you can see how truly horrible this illness can get if you don’t treat it. It can linger on not just for months but for years without you necessarily understanding what is wrong, as it did in my case. It may be triggered by a sad event, such as the death of a pet or loved one, but usually you will have had some other events piled on your plate at the same time, such as a divorce, a physical illness, or perhaps even severe financial problems. It is the leading cause of disability in the U.S. between the ages of 15-44, and the median age of onset can be in the prime of life, at age 32. While depression generally sets in between 30-40 years old, it has a secondary peak in the 50-60 year old group. Depression in teens is on the rise, also.
The real problem is it creeps into your life and begins to take hold of your thoughts, your body and your life in such a way that you may not even immediately realize anything is really wrong. Only when it gets extreme do people tend to turn for help. My point here is to pay attention to the symptoms listed below and ask about depression as soon as you sense your life is changing — so you can stop it before it gets a stranglehold on you. Before you know it, many years can slip by while you are fighting a force that you simply can’t beat alone. If I can pass the wisdom of asking for help on to just one person who is afflicted with depression, this article will have fulfilled its purpose. Asking for help when you are depressed, however, is MUCH more difficult than you would think.
Whether it is our egos, or whether the illness itself gets you to a point where you just don’t care enough about yourself to reach out for help, I can’t exactly say. I just know that for me, life had always been great fun, and I took joy in many activities. Slowly, between a bad marriage, a stressful job, and a lawsuit that dragged out over years, the once fun and very social life that I had been living became a distant memory. Year after year and slowly but surely, the situation got worse and worse. I attributed my loss of interest in hobbies and social activities to aging, and as I entered my mid-forties I just figured this was the way life went. My father, a physician, had become increasingly concerned about me until one day he called and suggested I consider electroshock therapy. “Sure”, I answered without missing a beat, not caring much about the ramifications.
But then it struck me. I had always associated shock therapy with Jack Nicholson’s character
- Cover of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
in “One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest”. I have always remembered how dramatic his “zombie walk shuffle” scene was after the shock therapy. And here I was saying “sure”, without even caring? Suddenly I realized something really was terribly wrong. Despite having held down a deep six figure job and having all the outer trappings of success, I was a very sick person, and I agreed to go to a psychiatric hospital. Ultimately I was diagnosed as a “Smiling Depressive”, the worst type — because we put on such a good act that nobody can see how badly we hurt. Trust someone who knows: if you are not feeling like your old self, you are likely depressed. SEE A PSYCHIATRIST AND GET HELP. I feel now like I wasted the best years of my life because I was either too proud or too stubborn to admit something was wrong and I desperately needed help.
To try and describe how bad depression can get, there was a moment I shall always remember that came on my 35th day in the hospital. It occurred upon realizing that I had suddenly broken out of this multi-year depression and it was triggered because I was walking to a meeting and I caught myself humming a tune — that’s all that happened. This cannot sound very significant, I know, but let me assure you that this moment was an awakening like no other. It was not that I thought, “Oh, I’m humming now, I must be happy”. It was the fact that I had NOT hummed a tune to myself in 8 years and was only realizing it now. THAT was the revelation.
It stunned me, but at last I had a point of reference regarding exactly how sick and depressed I had become. You see, I had always been a guy who had lived a pretty wild and colorful life. Year after year, however, life had begun to take on various shades of gray as my interest in things slowly faded. Perhaps the most insidious aspect of the illness for me was how that gray darkened ever so slowly over the years so that I never felt any dramatic change as I slipped further down the rat-hole. This humming revelation, however, enabled me to have perfect perspective and for a moment allowed the whole world to make sense again. I mean, how many people do you know who can say they didn’t hum for 8 years? Probably not too many, and he or she would not have been at the top of your “fun to invite to our party” list. Indeed I had almost entirely withdrawn from my once active social events.
Here are some classic symptoms of depression:
- We prefer to stay home rather than go out, or be alone rather than hang out with friends. We tend to push others away, where at one point we may have been very social.
- We become introverted, sensitive, easily offended, and easy to cry.
- As our relationships start to break down, we blame ourselves. We feel worthless, believing that no-one would want to be with us because we don’t want to be with ourselves. We push people away and then we feel even worse because we are alone.
- Perhaps it takes days to do chores that used to only take hours to do. “To-do” lists are everywhere, but they don’t get done. You procrastinate habitually.
- Maybe you have let yourself go. You don’t care about what clothes you wear or if you look frumpy or a bit disheveled. You don’t exercise any more like you used to and there will be days when you don’t bother shaving –perhaps a number of them in a row.
- You tend to think negatively. Where you used to be good at spotting opportunity, you now just see work and downside. It may be difficult to concentrate, make decisions and work may seem like an almost impossible task.
- You don’t appreciate the smell of flowers, the birds chirping, and you may not enjoy sunshine like you used to.
- You’re drinking more alcohol or have started using different drugs to try and feel better. Maybe you have a prescription for sleeping pills. You look forward to taking the pills and passing out to escape the pain.
- The idea of a party or your old hobbies or what used to be fun activities don’t turn you on anymore.
- You lose things, you lose track of things and can’t always remember what day it is.
- You’ve either stopped eating or even caring what you eat, or you are eating far more than you used to. You may especially love chocolate, or high carb/high sugar snacks around the clock.
- You feel so lousy about yourself you almost feel like you are a bad vibe – and you don’t want to subject anybody around you to yourself.
- If you have not started with sleeping pills, your sleep patterns are erratic. You might wake up and wander around in the middle of the night, or just want to sleep all day.
If you have a few of the above symptoms, you are likely depressed. Just admit that could be the problem and force yourself to get to a doctor. If you can’t do it yourself, confide in your closest friend or spouse and explain to them you know you have changed and you want help. Ask them if they will help you find a psychiatrist, and perhaps come with you. DO IT!
My deepest hope is that you won’t ever allow depression to get the better of you for long, and you will be able to recognize that perhaps a brain chemical is simply out of balance and a psychiatric doctor’s visit is in order. You may be pleasantly surprised at the net result by getting help in the form of a medication or two, and you’ll NOT allow precious “humming” time to slip away for very long, as I did.
READ THESE PLEASE!
- Coming to Terms With Depression (webmd.com)
- Letters: Is It Normal Grief, or Depression? (nytimes.com)
