Not to say everyone should have it….keep it in your closet…the old reliable…the staple…No… dear god no.
It’s becoming more visible, more mainstream, more accepted, more talked about, more understood…as much as it can be.
I saw as recently as a few weeks ago that Jon Hamm of “Mad Men” (…. the irony is complimentary ) has suffered with the disease, along with, in the entertainment world… Jim Carey, Drew Barrymore, Drew Carey, Russell Brand, Jane Pauly, and Zach Braff…to name but a few…
Willaim Styron, the man responsible for the award winning “Sophie’s Choice” also wrote a powerful book about his own struggle with Depression…I have never read anything that so accurately described the constant chaos that exists in the mind, that so contradicts what is commonly misconstrued with Depression...
It is not a sedative state, it is manic, unruly and consistently various in its nature..
In a passage in the book, he details the events leading up to an award ceremony in Europe to honor him and how incapable he was of finding any joy in any of the surrounding circumstances..A wife that loved and supported him, who was there, his peers, his colleagues gathered to speak in one voice that they deemed him worthy of honor. His work was worthy, his art had affected millions and it was time to scream that love from the rooftops.
His response was one of dread, fear and utter panic. Sweating and pining at his lot in life, wishing some horror to befall him so as to excuse his own presence. He spoke to me in those passages and I finally felt heard.
He also spoke of the word’s origin and how itself, doesn’t make clear the mania that is hand in hand with the disease “noun of action from deprimere "to press down, depress" “
As an artist, I struggle with my various muses and the need to feel understood, to have my voices, whether they be print, paint or voice to be as clear as a bell when it comes to message I am sending..
To know that men and women of worth, means and no means can create art while housing this beast gives me pause, pause to say….Do I belong? ….here with them? Belong with them because I too carry the same vortex of fear and because I wish to scream my messages without actually opening my mouth.
Are my messages as worthy? As literary ? As colorful, as poetic, or am I in their room because I too lack the peace I see in so many others.
Western medicine is a relative virgin when it comes to treating depression as every single person with this disease is a virtual snowflake of specifics. Which is why no set medication can work en mass.
We are guinea pigs that must suffer the trial and error of physical chemical warfare, in tandem with talk therapy to achieve any internal balance.
I have accepted many comments in the moment, (especially in those moments of vulnerability )that infuriate me later, sometimes minutes, but most often weeks later. The frustrated unfeeling comments of uneducated so called friends. “Snap out of It” “Get over yourself” “You’re just trying to be dramatic”, all of which I have taken and barely squeaked out a reply of “ I wish I could”.
We who suffer are stronger than most, as we choose to try and live each day. Living truly living and not coping is the ultimate goal because all we want is to feel better, if we could only figure out how.
“The madness of depression is the antithesis of violence. It is a storm indeed, but a storm of murk. Soon evident are the slowed-down responses, near paralysis, psychic energy throttled back close to zero. Ultimately, the body is affected and feels sapped, drained. “
From Darkness Visible - A Memoir Of Madness
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