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People

I've appreciated getting e-mails and facebook messages from readers, thank you.  It's taken a lot of courage to be so open about my struggles.  The response has been for the most part VERY positive.   I'm glad that there are people learning from my experiences and advice.  That's the whole reason I started this here blog. So with that said...

People.  Whether they're our spouses, children, co-workers, brothers, sisters, mom, dad, neighbors, friends, cousins, roommates, hairdressers, bosses.  These are the people we joke around with, hang out with, go to dinner with, work with, gossip on the phone with and live with.  These are the people that shape us and make us who we are.  

Recently I was e-mailed by two readers of this blog a similar and very specific question regarding people.  It was something to the effect of the following: 

"I'm confused.  In my darkest hour of depression I reached out to the people that I consider to be closest to me and surprisingly I felt little support from them.  I felt like they minimized my depression as something that I could change on my own.  They say that they want to be there for me and are willing to do anything to help me, yet I feel like they deny the reality of how difficult depression is and leave me feeling empty, how can I make them understand?"

 I also have asked myself this same question and I'm still working on figuring it out.  

The feelings I had in my most serious bouts of depression were literally so painful that I felt like somebody had died, that I had cancer, that my husband had lost his job and that everything in my life had been completely destroyed.  Completely hopeless.  I like what this columnist has to say about it:

I have dealt with unipolar depression and I take medication daily to treat it. Over the past seven years, I’ve had two episodes that were severe... I did not eat much and lost weight during these episodes. I couldn’t sleep at all...and had constant diarrhea. It was also accompanied by a constant, thrumming pain that I felt through my whole body. I describe the physical symptoms because it helps to understand that real depression isn’t just a “mood.” These two episodes were the most difficult experiences of my life, by a wide margin, and I did not know if I would make it through them. To illustrate how horrible it was, being in jail in a wheelchair with four broken limbs after the car accident that prompted me to get sober eight years ago was much, much easier and less painful. That isn’t an exxageration and I hope it helps people understand clinical depression better; I’m saying that I would rather be in jail in a wheelchair with a body that doesn’t work than experience a severe episode of depression. (Robert Delaney " On Depression And Getting Help" Feb, 26 2010)

Sounds terrible doesn't it?  It is.  When we're faced with things like this, we reach out to those we trust most.   We go to them having high hopes and expectations that in pouring out our hearts to the people that we love that we'll feel strengthened, supported and most importantly in my book: Understood.

If you're a religious person you might turn to God when nobody understands you.  This has been key in helping me deal with depression, God can help fix problems no matter how complicated, no matter how deep and dark.  However, it's also my personal belief that most times God answers our pleas for help with people. 

WE NEED PEOPLE.  

Here's three things that I've learned in this past year:

#1.   Depression is real, that's a fact.  It is a very debilitating and frightening battle and you need       support of others to get through it.

#2.   You don't have to (and shouldn't) try to prove how difficult it is to people who don't understand .  

#3.   Because of the nature of depression, people need people that can validate them and make them feel understood. 

You don't have to prove it to everyone you know.  

You can't make it your mission statement  in life to make all people in your life understand depression.  Don't get me wrong, that can seem all backwards.  You want people to understand.  You want those closest to you to fill your needs and validate your struggles.  It's painful opening up to a loved one and then be left feeling empty and completely misunderstood.  It may leave you confused and asking yourself, "Maybe I am just making this up, maybe it isn't as big of a deal as I feel it is".  I've felt that.  But there couldn't be anything further from the truth, it is VERY real and VERY hard.  Some people are just scared.  Some people just don't want to understand it and maybe never will want to.  And many just don't understand.  It's not that they don't want to, or that they're scared it's just that they don't. 

 You'll get some people who try and give you advice on how to fix it.  Things like, "Well just be positive and have faith and things will work out", ouch.  Which can feel a lot like, "Your problem is simple and doesn't really measure up to the "harder" problems  in life that people go through, so just put a smile on your face, set some goals, say your prayers and get going!"  

I can't think of a more un-motivating statement for a person struggling with clinical depression.  There are many more reasons why some people act like it isn't a big deal.  My advice?  Work on not holding it against them. Know in your heart that this person still loves you and if they really understood what you were going through they would be there for you.  It's hard not to become bitter and distance yourself when someone you love reacts in a way that hurts you.  Suddenly you start questioning your relationship.  Your automatic response is, man, I thought he/she would for sure be there for me!  Now when I need them most, they just don't understand me or my situation.  What good is our relationship then if they can't help me now?

However, just as it would be foolishness, when you are thirsting to death, to go to an empty well, crank as hard as you can just to get nothing out, and then return the next day to the same thing.  It would not be wise to keep opening up to people that don't understand it.  It's too harmful to you.  Like I said before, don't assume these types of reactions mean people don't care about you or what you're going through, but they don't know how to handle it and they just don't understand.  BUT, you need people who can validate you and understand you when it comes to a problem like this.

Identify people in your life that can support you or go find people that can

I used to think that in order to maintain a close and healthy relationship with people you had to know EVERYTHING about each other.  You share every detail all the time.  Well sometimes it's healthier not to, ESPECIALLY when it comes to depression.  

This is what I'm working on understanding:

Identify the strengths of the people you rely on the most, and turn to them for the things they are best at.  Some are listeners, some understand things really well, some are open-minded.  Focus on their strengths and don't hold their weaknesses against them (E.G. not understanding why you are feeling the things you are feeling right now).  My advice, don't cut yourself off from the people in your support system that don't seem to understand what depression is like.   You love these people and they love you.  They can be a gold mine of laughter or a diamond cave uplifting your thoughts when it comes to other aspects of your relationship.

HOWEVER, like I said before, it may be the case that when it comes to depression they don't really know how to help so don't keep going back expecting them to understand.  It will probably end up being a frustrating experience for both of you. 

 Well here we are back to the question of what if I keep hitting dead ends?  What if I've gone to every person I consider close to me and still feel misunderstood?  Then my friend, you've got to reach out.  It's not easy, it wasn't easy for me, but having people in my life that truly understood and validated what I was going through made all the difference.  So who might some of these people be you might ask?   It's been my experience that counseling with a professional is a REALLY good idea and a really important person to include in your support system.   They do a fantastic job of making you feel understood.  Like what you're facing is real.  The best part isn't that they just listen, they give you more understanding and skills in facing it effectively.  It took me a couple different therapists to find the right fit for me, but I finally did and she's taught me so much and brought so much peace and understanding into my life.  It's not scary, I promise.  After you go you'll wonder why you didn't go sooner.  Give it a chance, I'm SO grateful I did.  I'm a huge fan.

One drawback to therapy is that it can be a little expensive.  NAMI, The National Alliance for Mental Illness is a wonderful resource that offers community classes and group therapy in many if not most communities.  Best part, it's free.  Go to this link to find out more.  Someone else that might be helpful would be a clergyman that you trust, not necessarily for counseling per say, but he'll likely know of some good resources and will be able to point you in the right direction.

There are people that can understand you if you don't already have them in your life right now.  I know it!  I went for a couple years feeling so separated from everyone else.  It can be very destructive to you and to the people in your life.  Be good to yourself, you're doing the best that you can.  Come to terms with where you are and what you're facing and humbly accept that you need help.  You'll be so thankful that you did.  Be mindful of who you talk to about the things you're experiencing with depression and remember that the people that don't understand it love you very much.  Appreciate what they offer and don't cut them out of your life.  I know at times depression can take over your world.  I've had times where I've had an insatiable need for feeling understood with my depression and when people didn't get it I felt frustrated with them and very disappointed. Then the time came when things got a little easier, when the depression lightened and I felt sad that I held it against them. 

Love those currently in your life for all the wonderful qualities they possess.  You need them and they need you. If you don't currently have someone that understands what depression is like, reach out and make a new friend or find a professional that can help lighten the load of depression and go to them for comfort.  

Two of my favorite quotes to end on.

"Old friends is always best, lest you catch a new one that's fit to make an old one out of"-author unknown

"The blessing it is to have a friend to whom one can speak fearlessly on any subject; with whom one's deepest as well as one's most foolish thoughts come out simply and safely. Oh, the comfort — the inexpressible comfort of feeling safe with a person — having neither to weigh thoughts nor measure words, but pouring them all right out, just as they are, chaff and grain together; certain that a faithful hand will take and sift them, keep what is worth keeping, and then with the breath of kindness blow the rest away." -Dinah Craik

The Best Job

Recently a friend wrote me and asked about postpartum depression. She's expecting her first baby and as a reader of this blog, knew of my experience with depression. She politely asked me if I would share with her my experience specifically with postpartum.  She opened up about not knowing who to talk to about all of it, that her family didn't quite understand how to help, and she didn't feel like her friends would be able to much either.  I'd been feeling for some time that I needed to share a bit of what I went through with postpartum, but I wanted to wait till I felt like the right time to share, well I want to say thanks to my friend for giving me the go ahead on this post.

You want to know the truth?

 I was about two months into motherhood and I felt like something was terribly wrong with me. Every time I heard or read something to the effect of ..."Being a mom is the best job in the world", "I love being a mom", "I just love to hold my baby and be at home with him/her all day long"... this frustrated me.  I was confused because I didn't feel that way at all.

Now, before you jump to the conclusion and judge me as a cold-hearted ingrate for not appreciating the privilege it is to be a mother... please let me explain.

I remember when we found out I was expecting Logan. We were both incredibly in awe and happy.  I felt real joy knowing that I was, for lack of a better word, fertile :)  I was amazed and almost shocked that there was a real LIVE person inside of  me.  I almost couldn't wrap my mind around it.  I felt so privileged to be carrying a baby, it amazed me that I was actually going to be a mom. It amazed me that I, ME was actually in the "mom" phase of life.  For the first time it hit me, wow we can actually GROW humans, crazy!  Ok, so maybe for some of you it isn't that mind boggling, but it was for me.

It took ME being pregnant to realize what a miracle it is that we can actually create human life.

Pregnancy proved to be challenging for me. Morning sickness wreaked havoc on my body for about five months. I think that's when post-partum depression started for me.  Ya weird, I didn't know until then that you could get "post" partum depression before you actually have your baby, but I did.  I was miserable.  I wasn't productive.  I couldn't cook or eat much and felt like such a drag to my husband.  I tried to read but it made me sick.  I tried little hobbies and crafts but mostly just felt like sleeping.  It was really rough physically, emotionally, and spiritually.  I felt worthless.  I had specific goals before getting pregnant to eat only the healthiest of foods and exercise hardcore daily, but ended up relying on top ramen and soltaire to get me through.  I felt like a failure because I couldn't be the best pregnant woman that I had imagined myself being.  Truth was, I was one sick girl and I did the best I could.

Towards the third trimester things started looking up.   I could eat.  I could go do things with my husband.  I could walk into a grocery store and not throw up because of all the weird smells. I was feeling great emotionally and physically.  I felt better about myself and my confidence in myself and the future improved.

About three weeks before being full term, I remember there laying in bed with overwhelming anxiousness and fear about being a mom.  I was feeling depression and anxiety start to creep  their way back in.  I got up and decided to take a shower hoping to be reassured by the warmth and wash away the coldness and confusion. I sobbed and sobbed there for a while.  I knew I needed to talk to my doctor.

 My doctor talked to me about starting therapy again and maybe trying an anti-depressant.  I agreed.  I frantically started trying to get things in order, but therapists have long waiting lists and anti-depressants take a few weeks to really get in your system and take effect.  

When my son was born I wasn't prepared emotionally for the positive or the negative.  I felt what people had described to me as, "An instant and overwhelming love" as I held him for the first time.  Yet again, Ryan and I were both amazed that all over the world every single day hundreds of babies are born, because to us this felt like the grandest and most personal miracle either of us had ever experienced.  I was so filled with love for my son and my husband. I felt the depression that had found it's way back in a few weeks prior, literally wash away.  I was elated and felt safe again.

The first month was a whirlwind.  I think I was just running off of adrenalin.  I felt great actually.  Was I overwhlemed?  Yes.  Was I depressed?  Not yet.  In fact about a month into parenthood my husband looked at me and said, "Wow you're doing great!  Maybe we're going to be alright, I think postpartum would have hit by now?"  Ya maybe you're right I thought, inside though I wasn't really sure.  First of all  my son was a REALLY colicky baby.  He cried NON-STOP for the first 5 months of his life.  And because we had just moved down into our neighborhood less than 6 months prior to him being born I didn't feel comfortable asking for help. People offered, they were very kind.  But I was paranoid, I felt like I HAD TO DO IT.  I was the mom and I had to be strong, my son needed me. 

After two months of no sleep and constantly listening to crying all day, I started to lose it.  I became severely anxious to the point that I couldn't even sleep even if my son was sleeping.  I had to watch him to make sure he didn't stop breathing.  I had to check on him every few minutes in the night and readjust his blankets so he didn't die of sids. 

 It was like being hit by a huge wave in the ocean.  Has that ever happened to you?  I remember being amazed at the force of the wave as it pushed me down under and smacked me down to the sandy bottom. I  felt disoriented by the swirling of the water and the salt in my nose and mouth and before I knew it, WHAM another knocked me back down to the bottom and came up gasping for air.   WHAM!  Again and again.  This is what it was like.  Here I was as a new mom trying and wanting so much to enjoy this special time.  But I was drowning.  I'm not a stranger to depression, so I knew what it was when it hit.  But I had never EVER experienced it to the degree that I experienced after having a baby.  There was so much going on.  I had other health problems as well.  I was diagnosed with a thyroid disease which partially explained some of my emotional state.  I had a very difficult baby.  Some of it makes sense in a way.  But the specifics of why and how I don't know, all I know was that it was really bad.  I was plagued with guilt by one thought.  I HATED being a mom.  I loved my son, but I hated my role as a mother.  I wanted so badly to like it.  I had always wanted to be a mother, I never wanted a career, all I wanted was to be at home with my children.  Yet I found myself with a dark dark cloud over my mind and heart that left me feeling desperate for something, anything but being at home. It ripped me apart to talk to other new moms that were loving it and were confused when I opened up a little bit about the horror I was experiencing.  What was wrong with me?  Was it just because I was some selfish weirdo that I couldn't be happy?  Why couldn't I just be happy?  It just didn't make sense. 


 It started to take a tole on our marriage.  I would call my husband and sob and tell him that I hated my life and I hated that I hated it.  He would reassure me that I didn't need to feel guilty, he knew it was hard.  More than once he came home from work to help me, telling his boss that I was sick. And I really was just that, sick.   It was so hard for him.  Here I was drowning in this dark sea of depression and sometimes he just got frustrated with it all.  That was one of the hardest parts, feeling so much pain and emptiness that I just couldn't explain, that he couldn't feel.  On the outside, we were a happy newlywed couple experiencing the joys of being parents for the first time.  We had a beautiful, healthy son.  We had really good days, but the bad days were really bad.  I don't think anybody really knows how much we suffered, it was hell.  


A few months passed and I was still on a waiting list for a therapist and a psychiatrist who could prescribe an anti-depressant.  My endocrinologist reassured me that once my thyroid was in order, my depression should clear up.  It didn't.  I waited for four months for my thyroid meds to do the trick, instead I just kept getting worse and worse.  I don't want to and can't blame anyone for it.  Not doctors, not waiting lists, not God, not my son, not my husband, nobody.  What happened, happened.  I got lost through the cracks and spiraled out of control, and 6 months into motherhood I had a nervous breakdown.  


For personal reasons I don't want to get into all the details.  Maybe someday but not now.  It was really bad, you can trust me on that one.  I had really hit rock bottom like I never thought I could.  I was angry with God.  I had been a really good kid growing up.  I was nice.  I tried really hard to do what was right and to help others. I chose being a mother over pursuing a career.  I was accomplished and well-liked.  "Optimistic" is what most people described me as. How could this have happened?  I wanted to and was trying to be a great mom, It blew my mind.


But I guess the old adage is, "The good thing about hitting rock bottom is that the only place to go is up".  And I did start going up.  I did get the help I needed.  I have people that have helped me get things back on track.  The puzzle isn't completely solved, but I'll take 50% over negative -100% any day.  I'm really grateful to be where I'm at.  I can see a light in the distance.  There's a lighthouse in my sea of darkness, I'm not out of the sea yet, and I don't know how long that will take to be free, but light is a powerful thing.  Even if it's a little pinprick, it can reach through the darkness.  Sometimes I get all motivated and try to rush my progess.  I try to run to the light.  I'm reminded that it's like I'm pulling a semi-truck behind me, and so while I'm moving towards the light and making progress daily, I have to be patient with myself and congratulate myself for even the smallest improvements.  If you're pulling a semi-truck you're only going to be able to go a centimeter at a time.  Other people run past you to accomplish their goals and sometimes you get frustrated with yourself, how come I can't go faster?  Just remember you're pulling a semi-truck that no one else can see, what matters is that you focus on the light, no matter how dim it may be and keep moving towards the light.  God will help you, he's making all the difference for me.  It's my belief that God helps those that have depression through therapists, psychiatrists and other professionals. 
 My advice?  Don't feel embarrassed to utilize them. I've heard countless people say they wish they had gone to therapy sooner instead of waiting till they were really off.  If you've dealt depression in the past, then there's a high chance that you'll also deal with postpartum. However, there's also those that never experience depression until they become mothers.  Whatever the case, try to get your cards in line the best you can BEFORE.  That meaning, talk to your OB about it.  Express your concerns.   Ask what medications that are safest to use and get recommendations of a good therapist.   Be proactive in finding a therapist that you LIKE before your baby is born (get on the phone, call them, talk to them a bit and see if they're a good fit for you). Make appointments and get on waiting lists before your due date, because once the baby comes there won't be any "you" time for the first couple months.  I'm not saying worry about it, just be prepared. You may be one of the lucky ones that escapes it, but don't wait till it's bad before you seek help.  If you're not sleeping when your baby is sleeping through the night, if you're crying A LOT weeks after your baby is born and you worry incessantly about your baby dying, it's past time to get help.


It wasn't just until about a month ago that it happened.  I was chasing my son up the stairs, he was laughing and trying to go as fast as he could, struggling because his pants were too long, it was really funny.  The thought, "I love being a mom" came effortlessly.  Oh my gosh I thought. I wanted to cry.  wow.  People weren't lying about the joy they felt being a mother.  I'm thankful that I can honestly say that I'm beginning to truly feel that way about it.  I'm not saying that the depression ended and  that I don't still struggle, I do, yes that's for sure.  Daily actually. BUT, there's hope and love in my heart that wasn't there before.  Our marriage was put through the fire and we felt so punished, we felt so weak as a couple.  However, our experience forged us together.  We literally are one.  The depth of our relationship is deeper and truer.  When we say, "I love you," we really mean I love you unconditionally.  It's a beautiful thing.  I'm beginning to see the beauty and grandeur of God's plan, families.  Families bring joy.  Our son brings us joy.  We're better because of what we went through.  We're still going through it I guess, but the load has been lightened significantly.  


A blogger that went through something like I did, sums up perfectly why there's hope for postpartum sufferers.
"I will always remember how hard it was the first time, and I will always sympathize with women who struggle they way that I did. But now I feel like I can understand the others who beamed when talking about life with an infant. I get it now. Yes, I know this makes me some droning mommyblogger, but I also hope that this, from the perspective of someone who has lived through the blinding demons of sadness and hopelessness, might give someone out there a glimpse of what it can be, and maybe they'll go for it."


And you most definitely should.

Hell And Back

(Hey reader, this is Sarah... so I found this column online and just HAD to share it.  Having been a skeptic of depression myself, I totally related to this guy and his experience of denial, darkness, eventual accepting that he had a "disease" and then realizing that he couldn't handle it by himself anymore.  He totally gets it!  I love how he describes so eloquently what it's really like but at the end sums what it's like to "get back" again which is what I really like about it, let me know what you think!  One more thing I want to stress what he also stresses, that if you are dealing with anything like this, GET HELP!  Don't wait till you're super bad off like he was, do it for yourself and your loved ones today!  You may not choose the same route of treatment as he did, but for your sake do SOMETHING!)

A chronicler of the storm is crushed by its sorrows. A skeptic on depression is consumed by a disease he doesn't believe in. A man teetering on the cliff finds his salvation in an unexpected place: modern medicine.

Sunday, October 22, 2006

Chris Rose

I pulled into the Shell station on Magazine Street, my car running on fumes. I turned off the motor. And then I just sat there.

There were other people pumping gas at the island I had pulled into and I didn't want them to see me, didn't want to see them, didn't want to nod hello, didn't want to interact in any fashion.

Outside the window, they looked like characters in a movie. But not my movie.

I tried to wait them out, but others would follow, get out of their cars and pump and pay and drive off, always followed by more cars, more people. How can they do this, like everything is normal, I wondered. Where do they go? What do they do?

It was early August and two minutes in my car with the windows up and the air conditioner off was insufferable. I was trapped, in my car and in my head.

So I drove off with an empty tank rather than face strangers at a gas station.

. . . . . . .

Before I continue this story, I should make a confession. For all of my adult life, when I gave it thought -- which wasn't very often -- I regarded the concepts of depression and anxiety as pretty much a load of hooey.

I never accorded any credibility to the idea that such conditions were medical in nature. Nothing scientific about it. You get sick, get fired, fall in love, buy a new pair of shoes, join a gym, get religion, seasons change -- whatever; you go with the flow, dust yourself off, get back in the game. I thought anti-depressants were for desperate housewives and fragile poets.

I no longer feel that way. Not since I fell down the rabbit hole myself and enough hands reached down to pull me out.

One of those hands belonged to a psychiatrist holding a prescription for anti-depressants. I took it. And it changed my life.

Maybe saved my life.

This is the story of one journey -- my journey -- to the edge of the post-Katrina abyss, and back again. It is a story with a happy ending -- at least so far.

. . . . . . .

I had already stopped going to the grocery store weeks before the Shell station meltdown. I had made every excuse possible to avoid going to my office because I didn't want to see anyone, didn't want to engage in small talk, hey, how's the family?

My hands shook. I had to look down when I walked down the steps, holding the banister to keep steady. I was at risk every time I got behind the wheel of a car; I couldn't pay attention.

I lost 15 pounds and it's safe to say I didn't have a lot to give. I stopped talking to Kelly, my wife. She loathed me, my silences, my distance, my inertia.

I stopped walking my dog, so she hated me, too. The grass and weeds in my yard just grew and grew.

I stopped talking to my family and my friends. I stopped answering phone calls and e-mails. I maintained limited communication with my editors to keep my job but I started missing deadlines anyway.

My editors, they were kind. They cut me slack. There's a lot of slack being cut in this town now. A lot of legroom, empathy and forgiveness.

I tried to keep an open line of communication with my kids to keep my sanity, but it was still slipping away. My two oldest, 7 and 5, began asking: "What are you looking at, Daddy?"

The thousand-yard stare. I couldn't shake it. Boring holes into the house behind my back yard. Daddy is a zombie. That was my movie: Night of the Living Dead. Followed by Morning of the Living Dead, followed by Afternoon . . .

. . . . . . .

My own darkness first became visible last fall. As the days of covering the Aftermath turned into weeks which turned into months, I began taking long walks, miles and miles, late at night, one arm pinned to my side, the other waving in stride. I became one of those guys you see coming down the street and you cross over to get out of the way.

I had crying jags and fetal positionings and other "episodes." One day last fall, while the city was still mostly abandoned, I passed out on the job, fell face first into a tree, snapped my glasses in half, gouged a hole in my forehead and lay unconscious on the side of the road for an entire afternoon.

You might think that would have been a wake-up call, but it wasn't. Instead, like everything else happening to me, I wrote a column about it, trying to make it all sound so funny.

It probably didn't help that my wife and kids spent the last four months of 2005 at my parents' home in Maryland. Until Christmas I worked, and lived, completely alone.

Even when my family finally returned, I spent the next several months driving endlessly through bombed-out neighborhoods. I met legions of people who appeared to be dying from sadness, and I wrote about them.

I was receiving thousands of e-mails in reaction to my stories in the paper, and most of them were more accounts of death, destruction and despondency by people from around south Louisiana. I am pretty sure I possess the largest archive of personal Katrina stories, little histories that would break your heart.

I guess they broke mine.

I am an audience for other people's pain. But I never considered seeking treatment. I was afraid that medication would alter my emotions to a point of insensitivity, lower my antenna to where I would no longer feel the acute grip that Katrina and the flood have on the city's psyche.

I thought, I must bleed into the pages for my art. Talk about "embedded" journalism; this was the real deal.

Worse than chronicling a region's lamentation, I thought, would be walking around like an ambassador from Happy Town telling everybody that everything is just fine, carry on, chin up, let a smile be your umbrella.

As time wore on, the toll at home worsened. I declined all dinner invitations that my wife wanted desperately to accept, something to get me out of the house, get my feet moving. I let the lawn and weeds overgrow and didn't pick up my dog's waste. I rarely shaved or even bathed. I stayed in bed as long as I could, as often as I could. What a charmer I had become.

I don't drink anymore, so the nightly self-narcolepsy that so many in this community employ was not an option. And I don't watch TV. So I developed an infinite capacity to just sit and stare. I'd noodle around on the piano, read weightless fiction and reach for my kids, always, trying to hold them, touch them, kiss them.

Tell them I was still here.

But I was disappearing fast, slogging through winter and spring and grinding to a halt by summer. I was a dead man walking.

I had never been so scared in my life.

. . . . . . .

Early this summer, with the darkness clinging to me like my own personal humidity, my stories in the newspaper moved from gray to brown to black. Readers wanted stories of hope, inspiration and triumph, something to cling to; I gave them anger and sadness and gloom. They started e-mailing me, telling me I was bringing them down when they were already down enough.

This one, Aug. 21, from a reader named Molly: "I recently became worried about you. I read your column and you seemed so sad. And not in a fakey-columnist kind of way."

This one, Aug. 19, from Debbie Koppman: "I'm a big fan. But I gotta tell ya -- I can't read your columns anymore. They are depressing. I wish you'd write about something positive."

There were scores of e-mails like this, maybe hundreds. I lost count. Most were kind -- solicitous, even; strangers invited me over for a warm meal.

But this one, on Aug. 14, from a reader named Johnny Culpepper, stuck out: "Your stories are played out Rose. Why don't you just leave the city, you're not happy, you bitch and moan all the time. Just leave or pull the trigger and get it over with."

I'm sure he didn't mean it literally -- or maybe he did, I don't know -- but truthfully, I thought it was funny. I showed it around to my wife and editors.

Three friends of mine have, in fact, killed themselves in the past year and I have wondered what that was like. I rejected it. But, for the first time, I understood why they did it.

Hopeless, helpless and unable to function. A mind shutting down and taking the body with it. A pain not physical but not of my comprehension and always there, a buzzing fluorescent light that you can't turn off.

No way out, I thought. Except there was.

. . . . . . .

I don't need to replay the early days of trauma for you here. You know what I'm talking about.

Whether you were in south Louisiana or somewhere far away, in a shelter or at your sister's house, whether you lost everything or nothing, you know what I mean.

My case might be more extreme than some because I immersed myself fully into the horror and became a full-time chronicler of sorrowful tales. I live it every day and there is no such thing as leaving it behind at the office when a whole city takes the dive.

Then again, my case is less extreme than the first responders, the doctors and nurses and EMTs, and certainly anyone who got trapped in the Dome or the Convention Center or worse -- in the water, in their attics and on their rooftops. In some cases, stuck in trees.

I've got nothing on them. How the hell do they sleep at night?

So none of this made sense. My personality has always been marked by insouciance and laughter, the seeking of adventure and new experiences. I am the class clown, the life of the party, the bon vivant.

I have always felt like I was more alert and alive than anyone in the room.

In the measure of how one made out in the storm, my life was cake. My house, my job and my family were all fine. My career was gangbusters; all manner of prestigious awards and attention. A book with great reviews and stunning sales, full auditoriums everywhere I was invited to speak, appearances on TV and radio, and the overwhelming support of readers who left gifts, flowers and cards on my doorstep, thanking me for my stories.

I had become a star of a bizarre constellation. No doubt about it, disasters are great career moves for a man in my line of work. So why was I so miserable? This is the time of my life, I told myself. I am a success. I have done good things.

To no avail.

I changed the message on my phone to say: "This is Chris Rose. I am emotionally unavailable at the moment. Please leave a message."

I thought this was hilarious. Most of my friends picked it up as a classic cry for help.

My editor, my wife, my dad, my friends and just strangers on the street who recognized me from my picture in the paper had been telling me for a long time: You need to get help.

I didn't want help. I didn't want medicine. And I sure as hell didn't want to sit on a couch and tell some guy with glasses, a beard and a psych degree from Dartmouth all about my troubles.

Everybody's got troubles. I needed to stay the course, keep on writing, keep on telling the story of this city. I needed to do what I had to do and what I had to do was dig further and further into what has happened around here -- to the people, my friends, my city, the region.

Lord, what an insufferable mess it all is.

I'm not going to get better, I thought. I'm in too deep.

. . . . . . .

In his book "Darkness Visible: A Memoir of Madness" -- the best literary guide to the disease that I have found -- the writer William Styron recounted his own descent into and recovery from depression, and one of the biggest obstacles, he said, was the term itself, what he calls "a true wimp of a word."

He traces the medical use of the word "depression" to a Swiss psychiatrist named Adolf Meyer, who, Styron said, "had a tin ear for the finer rhythms of English and therefore was unaware of the damage he had inflicted by offering 'depression' as a descriptive noun for such a dreadful and raging disease.

"Nonetheless, for over 75 years the word has slithered innocuously through the language like a slug, leaving little trace of its intrinsic malevolence and preventing, by its very insipidity, a general awareness of the horrible intensity of the disease when out of control."

He continued: "As one who has suffered from the malady in extremis yet returned to tell the tale, I would lobby for a truly arresting designation. 'Brainstorm,' for instance, has unfortunately been preempted to describe, somewhat jocularly, intellectual inspiration. But something along these lines is needed.

"Told that someone's mood disorder has evolved into a storm -- a veritable howling tempest in the brain, which is indeed what a clinical depression resembles like nothing else -- even the uninformed layman might display sympathy rather than the standard reaction that 'depression' evokes, something akin to 'So what?' or 'You'll pull out of it' or 'We all have bad days.' "

Styron is a hell of a writer. His words were my life. I was having one serious brainstorm. Hell, it was a brain hurricane, Category 5. But what happens when your own personal despair starts bleeding over into the lives of those around you?

What happens when you can't get out of your car at the gas station even when you're out of gas? Man, talk about the perfect metaphor.

Then this summer, a colleague of mine at the newspaper took a bad mix of medications and went on a violent driving spree Uptown, an episode that ended with his pleading with the cops who surrounded him with guns drawn to shoot him.

He had gone over the cliff. And I thought to myself: If I don't do something, I'm next.

. . . . . . .

My psychiatrist asked me not to identify him in this story and I am abiding by that request.

I was referred to him by my family doctor. My first visit was Aug. 15. I told him I had doubts about his ability to make me feel better. I pled guilty to skepticism about the confessional applications of his profession and its dependency medications.

I'm no Tom Cruise; psychiatry is fine, I thought. For other people.

My very first exchange with my doctor had a morbidly comic element to it; at least, I thought so, but my sense of humor was in delicate balance to be sure.

While approaching his office, I had noticed a dead cat in his yard. Freshly dead, with flies just beginning to gather around the eyes. My initial worry was that some kid who loves this cat might see it, so I said to him: "Before we start, do you know about the cat?"

Yes, he told me. It was being taken care of. Then he paused and said: "Well, you're still noticing the environment around you. That's a good sign."

The analyst in him had already kicked in. But the patient in me was still resisting. In my lifelong habit of dampening down any serious discussion with sarcasm, I said to him: "Yeah, but what if the dead cat was the only thing I saw? What if I didn't see or hear the traffic or the trees or the birds or anything else?"

I crack myself up. I see dead things. Get it?

Yeah, neither did he.

We talked for an hour that first appointment. He told me he wanted to talk to me three or four times before he made a diagnosis and prescribed an antidote. When I came home from that first visit without a prescription, my wife was despondent and my editor enraged. To them, it was plain to see I needed something, anything, and fast.

Unbeknownst to me, my wife immediately wrote a letter to my doctor, pleading with him to put me on medication. Midway through my second session, I must have convinced him as well because he reached into a drawer and pulled out some samples of a drug called Cymbalta.

He said it could take a few weeks to kick in. Best case, he said, would be four days. He also said that its reaction time would depend on how much body fat I had; the more I had, the longer it would take. That was a good sign for me. By August, far from putting on the Katrina 15, I had become a skeletal version of my pre-K self.

And before I left that second session, he told me to change the message on my phone, that "emotionally unavailable" thing. Not funny, he said.

. . . . . . .

I began taking Cymbalta on Aug. 24, a Thursday. With practically no body fat to speak of, the drug kicked in immediately. That whole weekend, I felt like I was in the throes of a drug rush. Mildly euphoric, but also leery of what was happening inside of me. I felt off balance. But I felt better, too.

I told my wife this but she was guarded. I've always heard that everyone else notices changes in a person who takes an anti-depressant before the patient does, but that was not the case with me.

"I feel better," I told Kelly but my long-standing gloom had cast such a pall over our relationship that she took a wait-and-see attitude.

By Monday, I was settled in. The dark curtain had lifted almost entirely. The despondency and incapacitation vanished, just like that, and I was who I used to be: energetic, sarcastic, playful, affectionate and alive.

I started talking to Kelly about plans -- a word lacking from my vocabulary for months. Plans for the kids at school, extracurricular activities, weekend vacations. I had not realized until that moment that while stuck in my malaise, I had had no vision of the future whatsoever.

I wasn't planning anything. It was almost like not living.

Kelly came around to believing. We became husband and wife again. We became friends.

It all felt like a Come to Jesus experience. It felt like a miracle. But it was just medicine, plain and simple.

. . . . . . .

I asked my doctor to tell me exactly what was wrong with me so I could explain it in this story. I will be candid and tell you I still don't really understand it, the science of depression, the actions of synapses, transmitters, blockers and stimulants.

I've never been much at science. I guess I'm just a fragile poet after all.

The diagnoses and treatments for depression and anxiety are still a developing science. The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders -- psychiatry's chief handbook -- practically doubles in size every time it's reprinted, filled with newer and clearer clinical trials, research and explanations.

Does that mean more people are getting depressed? Or that science is just compiling more data? I don't know.

Measuring depression is not like measuring blood sugar. You don't hit a specified danger level on a test and then you're pronounced depressed. It is nuance and interpretation and there is still a lot of guesswork involved.

But here's my doctor's take: The amount of cortisol in my brain increased to dangerous levels. The overproduction, in turn, was blocking the transmission of serotonin and norepinephrine.

Some definitions: Cortisol is the hormone produced in response to chronic stress. Serotonin and norepinephrine are neurotransmitters -- chemical messengers -- that mediate messages between nerves in the brain, and this communication system is the basic source of all mood and behavior.

The chemistry department at the University of Bristol in England has a massive Web database for serotonin, titled, appropriately: "The Molecule of Happiness."

And I wasn't getting enough. My brain was literally shorting out. The cells were not properly communicating. Chemical imbalances, likely caused by increased stress hormones -- cortisol, to be precise -- were dogging the work of my neurotransmitters, my electrical wiring. A real and true physiological deterioration had begun.

I had a disease.

This I was willing to accept. Grudgingly, for it ran against my lifelong philosophy of self-determination.

I pressed my doctor: What is the difference between sad and depressed? How do you know when you've crossed over?

"Post-traumatic stress disorder is bandied about as a common diagnosis in this community, but I think that's probably not the case," he told me. "What people are suffering from here is what I call Katrina Syndrome -- marked by sleep disturbance, recent memory impairment and increased irritability.

"Much of this is totally normal. Sadness is normal. The people around here who are bouncing around and giddy, saying that everything is all right -- they have more of a mental illness than someone who says, 'I'm pretty washed out.'

"But when you have the thousand-yard stare, when your ability to function is impaired, then you have gone from 'discomfort' to 'pathologic.' If you don't feel like you can go anywhere or do anything -- or sometimes, even move -- then you are sick."

And that was me.

And if that is you, let me offer some unsolicited advice, something that you've already been told a thousand times by people who love you, something you really ought to consider listening to this time: Get help.

. . . . . . .

I hate being dependent on a drug. Hate it more than I can say. But if the alternative is a proud stoicism in the face of sorrow accompanied by prolonged and unspeakable despair -- well, I'll take dependency.

I can live with it. I can live with anything, I guess. For now.

Cymbalta is a new generation of anti-depressant, a combination of both selective serotonin and norepinephrine re-uptake inhibitors -- SSRIs and SNRIs -- the two common drugs for anxiety and depression.

I asked my doctor why he selected it over, say, Prozac or Wellbutrin or any of the myriad anti-depressants whose brand names have become as familiar as aspirin in our community.

He replied: "It's a roll of the dice." He listened to my story, observed me and made an educated guess. If it didn't work, he said, we'd try something else.

But it worked.

Today, I can bring my kids to school in the morning and mingle effortlessly with the other parents. Crowds don't freak me out. I'm not tired all day, every day. I love going to the grocery store. I can pump gas. I notice the smell of night-blooming jasmine and I play with my kids and I clean up after my dog and the simplest things, man -- how had they ever gotten so hard?

The only effect I have noticed on my writing is that the darkness lifted. I can still channel anger, humor and irony -- the three speeds I need on my editorial stick shift.

And I'm not the only one who senses the change. Everyone tells me they can see the difference, even readers. I'm not gaunt. I make eye contact. I can talk about the weather, the Saints, whatever; it doesn't have to be so dire, every word and motion.

Strange thing is this: I never cry anymore. Ever.

I tell you truthfully that I cried every day from Aug. 29 last year until Aug. 24 this year, 360 days straight. And then I stopped. I guess the extremes of emotion have been smoothed over but, truthfully, I have shed enough tears for two lifetimes.

Even at the Saints' "Monday Night Football" game, a moment that weeks earlier would have sent me reeling into spasms of open weeping, I held it together. A lump in my throat, to be sure, but no prostration anymore.

The warning labels on anti-depressants are loaded with ominous portent, everything from nausea to sexual dysfunction and, without going into more detail than I have already poured out here, let's just say that I'm doing quite well, thank you.

It's my movie now. I am part of the flow of humanity that clogs our streets and sidewalks, taking part in and being part of the community and its growth. I have clarity and oh, what a vision it is.

But I am not cured, not by any means. Clinical trials show Cymbalta has an 80-percent success rate after six months and I'm just two months in. I felt a backwards tilt recently -- the long stare, the pacing, it crept in one weekend -- and it scared me so badly that I went to my doctor and we agreed immediately to increase the strength of my medication.

Before Katrina, I would have called somebody like me a wuss. Not to my face. But it's what I would have thought, this talk of mood swings and loss of control, all this psychobabble and hope-dope.

What a load of crap. Get a grip, I would have said.

And that's exactly what I did, through a door that was hidden from me, but that I was finally able to see.

I have a disease. Medicine saved me. I am living proof.

Emphasis on living.

. . . . . . .

Columnist Chris Rose can be reached at chris.rose@timespicayune.com, or (504) 826-3309, or (504) 352-2535.

"Well I was sitting, waiting, wishing..."

It's been a little while since I've really talked about what's going on.  Like really opened up and talked on this good old blog.  

Today is one of those days that my mind is spinning with ideas and thoughts and I just can't put off posting on here any longer yet I'm still trying to organize those thoughts even as I'm writing now. 

So here I sit on the couch, the laundry, clean (yes I feel proud of myself that at least it's clean) sits in a pile, a HUGE pile, on the other couch. There's a couple dirty diapers that need to be taken outside upstairs.  The kitchen is pretty cluttered.  I don't really feel compelled to clean any of it up or even guilty that I'm doing this instead.  I'm feeling inspired, happier than I've been in a while yet bothered and a little self conscious at the same time.

I think it's the fact that I'm bothered and self consciousness that is motivating me the most right now, sad to me, but true.  I'll try and keep this insightful and not just a "vent fest".

When I decided to start this blog I knew there would be mixed reactions from people.  I hoped that most of them would be positive reactions and at the same time I tried to prepare myself for the maybe not so good ones.  

Well I'm happy to report that for the first little while the response was EXTREMELY positive.  I received e-mails and texts almost daily (most decided not to post a "comment" for personal reasons) about how people were grateful for my openness.  They told me that I described exactly what they went through or are currently experiencing.  This was definitely fuel for me to keep posting.  

And then there were a few nosy people that I've maybe said three words to in my life that called or talked to me "out of concern", so they said

 well meaning person: "are you ok Sarah?"

me: "ya, I am.  I've been through hell, but yes I'm doing better."

well meaning person: "I don't believe you.  You're just saying that, I think you're lying."

me: (inside I'm thinking ok I don't even know you...)  "Oh well I don't know how to convince you that I'm not lying.  I feel like I've been pretty OPEN and CLEAR on my blog about the fact that I'm getting PROFESSIONAL help.  No this blog is not my means of therapy.  No I'm not trying to be a therapist to anyone else.  No I'm not an incapable mother.  No I don't just cry all the time.  No I don't just shut myself up in my house and do nothing. (and more and more explaining...)

After a couple of conversations like that I was seriously considering ending this blog all together.  I felt so courageous and proud of myself for opening up.  It has not been easy to do!  However I felt that if I could have given myself the advice and education that I have now FIVE years ago when this all started for me, it would have been so reassuring and comforting!!  After having my baby post-partum depression broadsided me I was desperate to find a mom, someone that had experienced it!  What the crap was happening to me and would it ever end?  As soon as things started getting better for me I wanted to give people that same glimpse of hope that things can and will get better!

So........I did a bunch of thinking and I guess even if it means people treating me like I'm crazy, or that if I'm happy then I must be faking it, I think I still want to continue to do this.

  A WORD TO THE WISE:  If a depressed person is acting happy, then they probably are in the moment!  Don't always do that "turn your head to the side thing" and say "are you ok?" EVERYTIME you see them.  Treat them like the are normal.  Trust them when they tell you how they are feeling.  And if they don't open up and tell you about everything, then DON'T worry about it!  MOST of the time, people that deal with depression turn to those that have been through it or those whom they are closest to.  They turn to those that can fill their needs, fill the void.  If you aren't close with them then don't dive right in and ask them about it, it's none of your business if they don't bring it up themselves.  It's a sensitive subject.  The only time you should "worry" about a depressed person is if you don't feel like they have a good support network and they may harm themselves.  If they have no family and no friends. Then you can step in and ask them about it. 

BUT MOST OF THE TIME depressed people just need to be treated normally.  You shouldn't make them feel like they have to explain everything just so "you know what's going on" and can talk about it with other people or to satisfy your own curiosity.  

I WANT TO MAKE IT VERY CLEAR TO MY FAMILY AND FRIENDS WHO ARE READING THIS, DON'T WORRY I AM NOT TALKING ABOUT YOU! I appreciate all of your love and support and prayers.  The people I'm talking about in this post probably won't even read this since I barely know them anyways...