As you get into this blog you’re going to notice that I am a multi-dementional person, like most people are,but way more intense. Some of that is due to a mood disorder, and some of that is just my personality. But most people who blog about a specific subject like news, politics, religion, pop-culture, etc. seem to be very even keeled. They are predictable because they do not have to expose their deeper selves to the public. If you look at various social networking sites like Facebook, which I like to call “Fakebook”, you’ll find that people are putting their best self forward. They are not posting when they feel like killing themselves because that would scare the hell out of everyone around them and could get them labeled and stigmatized (which I will address in another post), and probably fired from their job (which I should also cover in another post because certain laws protect people with mental illness from be fired because of their illness, and we have legal recourse.).
Unlike my personal Facebook page, I have to keep this blog raw and real because otherwise how are you going to know that I speak from any personal experience, and that some of those experiences are similar to yours. If I’m Mr. Happy Guy all the time, how will that make you feel? I know it would anger the hell out of me because I’d be thinking, “What the fuck do you know about depression?” and “Why would I want to read about your perfect Mr. Brady family? My family is fucked up, so I’m jealous and I hate you!” And what about if I’m always depressed. We all know there are those drama queens out there who really don’t suffer from Depression and they just go on whining about the most trivial crap. Why would you want to hear about their trivial “problems” when you’re dealing with life and death here? What do those people know about surviving for your family even though your in agony? So I have to keep this blog real.
Someone’s sad because they’re boyfriend broke up with them. Yeah they hurt. Yeah they’re crying. Yeah, it sucks. But is she now so despondent that she actually tries to kill herself? Or what about when absolutely nothing is wrong in someone’s life and they are still in so much pain that they’ll try anything to stop it, and again suicidal ideation takes the stage. There have been times in my life where I have had nothing to complain about. I had money. I had family. I had friends. I had people who loved me. I had a great lifestyle. Nobody died. Everything was great except me. I was miserable all day every day and I cried all the time and my body ached and my heart ached, and I only stayed on this earth because I had children and I did not want to fuck them up for the rest of their lives. I didn’t and don’t want to pass that on as my legacy the way my mother’s father did. He killed himself when she was two.
And let’s not forget anger. I don’t have multiple personalities, but I do have multiple moods. And my moods run strong! Can you relate? One minute everything is okay and then suddenly something happens and I explode! I’m angry! I’m yelling. I’m punching a hole in my wall. People who don’t suffer from a mood disorder will do this kind of stuff too, but for those like me who do, these occurrences are more frequent and much more intense. The reaction is an over-reaction. It pushes beyond the boundaries of the average scale of mood swings.
Have you ever hear people refer to depression as anger turned inward? Yeah I got that too. It can come from something as simple as watching a move with a sad ending. The sadness gets turned to anger, and the anger gets turned inward, and again the reaction is much more intense than the situation calls for. I’m saddened by the ending of a movie and somehow I got from O.K. to sad, to angry, to wanting to die, because of a movie. Yes there is definitely something wrong with this picture.
So why am i telling you this? Because I want you to be prepared for the multiple moods that you will see that my posts take on over course of time because Depression is an illness and I intend to be real with you. Yes you can break the grip of depression and live a mostly happy life, but for some of us the illness is not cured and it can rear its ugly head at anytime and we need to be prepared for it. We need to have tools, the techniques, and the mindset to be ready to use to break depression again. And that is what this site is going to be all about.