Depression is a chronic illness.
Like so many other stigmatized health issues, no one really wants to talk about it.
However, we ought to be honest about it. Treatment resistant depression, drug/alcohol addiction, and PTSD, among other issues can lead to fatal outcomes. There is no single person on this earth who hasn’t been touched by it in some way. I am positive of that.
A friend mentioned that it’s National Mental Illness Awareness month. I found this article shortly after one of my favorite artists, Chris Cornell of Audioslave (Soundgarden), took his life. Every time I hear his song “I am the Highway”, I am reminded of how much darkness hides inside of those who are so gifted.
I appreciate so many things and good writing is one of them. This article speaks beautifully to what this level of hopelessness feels like:
“when you are in that desperate, frantic, lightless moment of despair [and] reason fails. There is no processing of things that seem so clear to people sitting calmly in parks and at desks and living rooms offering detached, knee-jerk commentary; those in their right minds, unclouded, lucid, and sober. That is what mental illness does, that is what addiction does, that is what depression does: it convinces your head that nothing matters, that this terrible moment will not pass, that nothing will get better, that you are fully, irreparably, and permanently fucked.
It doesn’t have to make sense, it doesn’t require objective proof, and it has no need for logic – you just feel it. In those moments the only thing you want is escape and the choices people make in those moments are beyond what any of us have the right to criticize from outside of it.
I’ve never battled substance abuse or addiction, but I have carried depression …that has at times been terrifyingly heavy. And despite prayer and counseling and meditation …there have been moments when the sadness became so overwhelming that nothing helped…I wouldn’t have said I was suicidal then – I just didn’t want to live.
What got me through and what gets some people through when others fall is one of the greatest mysteries of this life. Some people make it and some people don’t – and the former aren’t any wiser or stronger or better, just very fortunate.
There but for the grace of God go the critics. May you always be such strangers to the dark.
If you’re struggling with depression, addiction, desire to self-harm, or suicidal thoughts, talk to someone. You are worth fighting for.” (John Pavlovitz)
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