Prior to last year, I had no personal experience with depression. I’ve always been anxious, and that’s given me the blues sometimes. I’ve been lonely which has that depressed feel, so I assumed I knew what depression was. Until I felt that soul-sucking darkness, there really is no way to know.
Without knowing though, I’ve been there for others suffering depression. I don’t feel you have to actually know exactly what someone is going through to empathize and be there for them. It was hard. People with depression are difficult. Those people fought me, insulted me, traumatized me. I never turned away, though. I knew it wasn’t about me personally and that if I gave up on them, they may give up on themselves. So I put on a smile and gave love from the empty well that I was and eventually they got help and medication and they’re doing okay.
Which brings us back to me. Last year, after a health scare, I began to suffer severe depression. I’ve had chronic illness for years but I had acute issues and I was afraid. I was afraid of dying. I was afraid of surgery. I was afraid of more pain. I was afraid of never being independent. The depression came very rapidly and I went from 108 pounds to 94 pounds within a month or two. I was wasting away. No one did anything about it. They’d say “eat a burger” like it was so easy, because by that time, in all honesty, it was bordering on being an eating disorder as well as depression. But it wasn’t to be thin, it was to avoid pain.
Months went by and I was having something similar to an existential crisis but instead of thinking everything meant nothing, I felt everything meant the world. I just wanted to spend one more holiday with my family. To see them smile and laugh. I imagined what would happen to them and how they’d go on without me if my health problems ended up killing me. I was so sad for me and I was sad for them. I felt like they loved me so much, they’d never recover from it. It was hard to imagine. I loved them so much, my heart ached. Sometimes I would just look at them and tears would fill my eyes wondering if I did die, if I would really see them again. I’d see my dad in his garage next door and wonder how his heart would ache when he’d look over to see a dark house where I once was.
Eventually on Christmas night, coming home with tears streaming down my face as usual, I couldn’t take it anymore and I gave in and started medications for pain and depression that had been prescribed to me long before, but I was too afraid to take. I didn’t want to be one of those people who needed medicine! I gained the weight back, and then some. I wouldn’t say I was happy, but my moods were a bit more even. I gained so much on Zoloft, one of the meds I’d started at that time, that I had to stop taking it. I had hunger pains all night no matter how much I ate and I was over 130. It’s been a month off of it now and the weight hasn’t budged!
I was a bit emotional coming off an antidepressant. My family was on a trip. They said I should wait but it’s their 5th trip this year so it’s hard to catch them not traveling, which I can’t do because of my illness, and any time I’ve needed their emotional assistance, I didn’t get it. So I didn’t take them into account for when to stop a medication. Last year I would have and would’ve synced all our calendars so they didn’t miss a beat on their baby girl. That was when I thought they cared.
My brother has always been the golden child of the family. If he was doing badly, he needed extra help. If he’s doing well, he needs to be greatly rewarded for his basic accomplishments. I loved him more than anyone in the world, but I’ve grown to resent him over the last year. He didn’t work for many years and abused drugs and now that he’s off drugs and working for the family business, he and my dad think they’re the authority on labor and chronic illness and that I’m faking my illness, I’m lazy and the emotional stuff they won’t even entertain. I just need to get over it. So I’m alone and the years of work and good I put into the world just don’t count. Just this week I was filling in at the family office and it wasn’t busy so I didn’t push to be there super early and he called everyone to tell them.
I don’t expect anything from my brother or dad. They’re not known for having empathy or emotional intelligence. I expected my mom to be there for me. They say to reach out and someone will help you, people love you but they can’t read your mind, so I reach out to my closest human and she ignores me as if my feelings are as dangerous to her peace as a loaded gun. If she doesn’t ignore me, she accuses me of being negative or pointing fingers and the classic and carelessly problematic “it could be worse” line. I’m not pointing fingers, I’m trying to bring awareness to the fact that there’s a glaring double standard and if it was my brother, people would be fighting each other to try to help, but since it’s little ole me, no one cares. NEWSFLASH: PEOPLE WITH DEPRESSION CAN BE DIFFICULT. I can’t stress this enough. I know I am being difficult but it’s like I’m fighting so hard for someone to tell me I matter, and they don’t want to validate me by doing so. She could offer to get me help that I’ve stated I can’t afford. Or honestly just listen. That’s honestly all I wanted. For someone to say, “I know it hurts now but it will get better and you’re worth it.”
I know what you’re thinking! Depression makes you paranoid. It makes you feel like you’re a burden and that your family would be better off without you and that no one cares enough to help you. But we’re told to reach out because that’s just our mind playing a trick on us. In my case, it’s actually true! All of my paranoia that I hoped was just depression talking was actually all true.
I don’t even know what to do anymore. What do you say to someone who ignores you when you said you were hopeless? What do you chat about with someone who changed the subject to their new glasses when you said you felt like you wanted to die? It’s not just mom. I tried to reach out to my brother too. He cussed me for feeling how I feel and said I just didn’t want to work. I know better than to bother with my dad or grandmother. They’re both Dylan’s minions. If saving me meant angering him, it would be too high of a cost for them.
I don’t really want to die, I just want help. I just want someone to love me and to tell me that what I’m feeling is wrong. That I’m loved and needed and worthy. That the world is better for me having been in it. I don’t have money for much help right now. They would do more if it was for my brother. His love has always been worth more than mine because he will yank it away from them. I loved them unconditionally, which apparently was a mistake. My family kind of runs on narcissism. I’ve blamed myself for so long for not being good enough, but it’s not me. I didn’t ask to be sick. I didn’t ask for all of the other trauma I’ve been through.
I made the best choices I could at the time. I thought I was doing the right thing. I had no idea I’d marry someone who would lose it all and send us back to square one. Sometimes it does seem like it’s too late and I’m too tired to rebuild. There’s a small amount of resiliency left in my spirit applying for jobs online today and telling myself that it will get better. I had considered moving in with someone because being alone like this is not great, but I can’t bring my dog. My dog that mom didn’t want anymore and dumped off on me when she got her new one. That’s ironic.
I’m trying to work on not being so damn angry. I’m not usually an angry person but I’m furious right now. I’m angry at my body for being sickly, I’m angry at the person I married who ruined the great life we could’ve had, I’m angry at my family for being so ignorant they can’t see someone at their very lowest and just love and support them. God knows I’ve done it for them. They can even turn my sadness around to some sort of insult toward them.
So in conclusion, when you tell people to reach out to their loved ones, not everyone has loved ones who care or can help. Some don’t care. Some don’t take you seriously. Some think that if they ignore it, it’ll go away. I spilled my heart out on texts to mom and she ignored it and said hours later, “hi u feeling better?” Yes, mom, my crippling depression healed in the hours since we spoke.
The only thing I can make of it that doesn’t make me want to jump off of a cliff is that they probably don’t have cruel intentions, they just don’t understand or don’t know what to do. Which I understand. But honestly, at times like this, sometimes you can’t afford to be wrong or hope for the best. If I had done that to them, they may not be here right now. Let’s hope I get strong enough to self-soothe.
