I loved someone with depression

[plumtreeblossom]

I woke up inexplicably remembering someone I was involved with 15 years ago who had untreated depression and chronic depressive episodes. I had never heard of clinical depression then. I thought his depressive episodes were my fault.

I've never felt depression other than in times of serious trauma, like an unwanted breakup, or if I was being abused. I've only ever experienced circumstantial depression, the kind that goes away when the wound starts healing or external situations improve. I didn't know that other people can fall into depressive episodes with no external cause. I didn't know about brain chemistry. Since there was nothing at all wrong with his life, I thought I was causing his depression.

Sometimes he would call to come pick me up and would sound fine, but when I got in his car, he had that look on his face, a look I can never forget but also can't describe. It happened many times. I would get in the car; he'd be facing forward. I'd say "Hi." He wouldn't move. Then very slowly, he would turn his face to me, and there would be an almost-visible ring of black, painful energy around it. I knew a night of dual misery was ahead; a poison brew of his mental illness and my ignorance and self-blame. Nothing, nothing, nothing I said could make him feel better. I was absolutely certain his depression was my fault, and that I was a failure for not being able to talk him back "up."

Lately, people on my friendlist have been talking about sex ed and health ed in schools and how they could be improved. I would like to add that I think every student, whether or not they have clinical depression, needs to be taught about depression in its many forms. Starting from late elementary school on up. They should be taught to know it, recognize it, understand it, and most importantly, to know that the chemical depression of someone they care about is not their fault (though circumstantial depression could be their fault if they are behaving badly toward that person). And, that if they are not a mental health professional, they can not fix it. They are not a failure when their attempts to rescue someone from depression fail.

Young people with depression, if they're being well cared for, receive education about their depression in treatment. But those without depression don't seem to ever get that same education. I don't think I know of anyone who doesn't have close contact with at least one person who has some form of non-circumstantial depression. If I could prevent just one young person who loves a person with depression from believing it's their fault and their failure because they can't fix it, I would be happy. I would wish to see school curriculii put more emphasis on this as part health education.

Comments

[oneagain.livejournal.com]

I like your thoughts. G and I both deal with depression though his is significantly worse. I have been dealing with healing my own demons for so long now that I actually can help him since I know some of the terrain despite not having much in the way of "professional training", though I am a rare bird in that case. Also helps that I do energy work. Not everyone responds the same way, but there are definitely those who it helps.

Sorry you went through the experience of thinking it is your fault. G and I can fall into that pattern but we have both figured it out so we can recognize it and nip it in the bud when it happens. It is *quite* a bit of work for me to endure this with him and can certainly affect my own moods, but that boy has poured so much love into me that he indubitably deserves the tlc in turn. We are definitely in this together, though it certainly helps us both to have lives of our own apart from one another.

[plumtreeblossom.livejournal.com]

Yes, I think in many cases it is well worth the work when the love is healthy and beneficial to both. I'm glad you have each other.

[http://users.livejournal.com/urban_faerie_/]

You are so right! Young people DO need to be taught about depression and mental illness! So much of it is still a shameful mystery in our culture. I can't help thinking that fewer kids would turn to drugs or suicide if they knew that the way they were feeling didn't make them a freak and that there are places/people they can turn to for help so that they don't have to feel this way.
Unfortunatly, instead of expanding health education they are dismantling it. The effects for the younger generation are startling. A fellow teacher of mine told me that one of her seniors asked her in all honesty how you get AIDS. The kid had no idea. I couldn't believe that. When I grew up in the middle of the AIDS epidemic that stuff was drilled into me from a very young age. I can't imagine a whole new generation of kids growing up not only not knowing how to deal with their mental health, but not knowing how to protect themselves from STDs. Welcome to public education in America. ugh.

[plumtreeblossom.livejournal.com]

I know, it just gets worse and worse. If I had a child (not that I want one, but if I did) I would make sure to cover all this material at home, early and often, since the schools current;y can't be counted on for it.

[dpolicar]

Yeah.

I find this sorta thing interesting, because my default assumption when I'm in some intense emotional state is generally that it just is what it is, and bears no particular relationship to my environment. It surprises me from time to time that changing my environment actually helps... that no, sometimes I'm angry because that person over there is doing infuriating things that piss me off, sometimes I'm depressed because this thing is happening in my life, sometimes I'm anxious because of a real threat of something bad happening.

Consequently, I am something of a puzzle to people who assume that emotional states have external causes. :-)

[plumtreeblossom.livejournal.com]

Yes, it took me a long time to learn, just though life experience, that people experience depression for a variety of reasons, not all of which are cause or triggered by external things. With me, it's only ever an outside tragedy or bad set of circumstances that causes depression in me (breakups, joblessness, etc). Learning that other people experience depression differently is something I wish I'd known back then. It would have helped us both.

[ayelle.livejournal.com]

I think you are so right. One of the biggest problems that I see is that even when people are taught about clinical depression, they aren't really taught right.

It used to be that Americans didn't really believe in "depression" -- they thought that once you knew about it, that itself was some kind of cure. ("What? I'm clinically depressed? So THAT'S the problem! Good, I'll stop now.") Now, people believe in depression, I think, but they believe in the kind of depression that you see in Zoloft commercials: simple chemical imbalance fixed by simple chemical treatment, voila! You're normal again.

If I could, I would strike the words "chemical imbalance" (or the meant-to-be-comforting phrase "it's just chemicals") from public discourse. It's such an oversimplification. After all, people who are situationally depressed have a chemical imbalance, too -- it's just that it can fix itself with time, whereas that doesn't happen with clinically depressed people. The phrase carries with it this assumption that the emotions are somehow not "real" and that they can be simply, easily, miraculously fixed with drugs. So now people think that if you're clinically depressed, all you need is a pill and then you'll be magically normal again.

And it's just NOT THAT EASY. We don't, as of yet, understand the human brain that well. Antidepressants may not entirely cure the problem, or may work for a while and then gradually stop. And episodes of clinical depression can be triggered by situation/circumstances, in which case drugs alone won't fix the problem. Improperly functioning chemical regulators tangle with real-life issues and complicated emotions and outside stressors in ways that just can't be easily unravelled. Some people need drugs and not therapy. Some people need therapy and not drugs. Many need both.

I think it would really help people to recognize the complexity of the issues at stake. You're right, friends and family can't make their clinically depressed loved ones better simply by caring, reaching out, trying to understand -- it's not enough, there's a sickness there that's going to need professional treatment. And yet, it's NOT, as some people seem to think, like a depressed person's real-life circumstances and relationships with other people are utterly irrelevant to their emotional state of mind. The worse the real-life situation, if you don't have proper emotional support, the more impossible it is to ever get better. It's just that even if your life is perfect and your relationships with others ideal, that by itself won't be enough, either.

In short, it's messy. So yeah. I really wish that people could be taught about it in schools.

[plumtreeblossom.livejournal.com]

I do too. I wish I had been taught about it in school. We had great sex education, but absolutely nothing about depression other than "If you feel depressed, talk to a friend or relative." Period. That's not sufficient, then or now.

[skygoodwill.livejournal.com]

Thank you for sharing this. How did you deal with it and how did the relationship end?

[plumtreeblossom.livejournal.com]

Well, during the relationship, I was dealing with it from a point of misunderstanding abuot depression. I would stay up with him all night during episodes saying "No, you're a good person, the world does need you..." It only made it worse. And I would feel that I was too stupid to know how to cheer him up, and that as a girlfriend I was a failure because I didn't know the right things to say to make him feel better.

We made some bad choices. His brother was a cocaine dealer, and we often got wholesale coke from him and did it together. It only increased his depression and my self-blame.

It ended when I introduced him to an acquaintence of mine from work, and over the next few months the were seeing each other behind my back. (he and I lived together). On New Years Eve he went out without me and didn't come home that night. He gave me the news the next day that they were engaged, and that I needed to move out. As before, I blamed myself and became more situationally depressed than I've ever been before or since.

I don't know what happened to him, but I heard the marriage produced one child and ended shortly after.

[oneagain.livejournal.com]

Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck. I am so sorry, even if it happened years ago. It is understandable that it would indeed take bravery from you to deal with current relationships after such an abysmal breach of trust. Did I mention *fuck!*. Aggghhhh as well. As someone who has dealt with my own depression and that of others I love and have loved before, mistreating someone like that does not automatically go with territory, just fyi. There is no excuse for that behavior and I hope you have healed from it. I am guessing this entry is part of that healing, since even though you know this in your mind it is good to speak, as many times as you need to. Aaaggghhhh. SUCH betrayal. Jeez. Mega hugs to you.

[audioboy.livejournal.com]

Thank you, Mare, for sharing this. We were both in high school at about the same time, so what you're relating here about the understanding of depression was pretty much on the same level at my school.

My father had me in therapy of one form or another off and on from 4th grade through early high school, but it wasn't for depression. He said it was to find out why I didn't get along with other kids, which is how he perceived the problem, but it was really to find out why other kids picked on me all the time. He was convinced that I was doing things to provoke them into harassing or assaulting me. In his day, kids didn't pick on you for no apparent reason, so he couldn't accept that they harassed me simply because I behaved differently from them. This lack of understanding widened into a huge gap by the time I went to college and wasn't resolved until a few years after I graduated.

Like you, I really didn't understand depression as a disease. Because of the way my father and others at the time treated my problems, I came to believe it was a failing or character flaw on my part. That all the problems I was having were my fault and that I was a bad person because of it. I had some counseling in college, but because of my school's very strict policies, people who exhibited signs of suicidal ideation were directed to off-campus treatment centers that cost money I didn't have. Once again I was treated like the problem was my fault and that I was "so far gone" the school wouldn't even treat me.

It wasn't until after I graduated and nearly lost a job because of behavioural problems that I finally saw someone who had a proper understanding of depression and how it related to my issues. That was 10 years after I graduated high school.

If the kinds of programs you're talking about had been in place in my school, I have no doubt that things would have been very different for me. I would have been spared the condescending teachers who insisted I correct my behaviour (ie: conform), rather than stepping in and admonishing the kids who picked on me. After all, it was far easier for them to humiliate me (someone who's meek and quiet most of the time anyway) into silence than to discipline a half-dozen rowdy troublemakers.

One thing I wish now is that I could have taken away the pain that the people in my life who were in your position felt at what they perceived as their failure. I'm in touch with only a tiny handful of people from H.S. and none of them are ones I was close to. I haven't heard from any of those people since graduation, but if I ever do get to talk to any of them again, the first thing I'll do is take away any of that pain they may still feel and close the book on that story. I'll make sure they know I didn't blame them for having to protect themselves.

It's way late -- I've been working on this reply off and on all day -- so I'll wrap up with something I hope will make you feel a little better: looking back, things then were just the way they were. We didn't understand depression very well at all, so I have to give you, and the people like you in my life, a lot of credit. Had the information been there, things would have been different. You and the others wouldn't have had to struggle so hard and end up feeling like you failed those of us you wanted so desperately to help. It wasn't your fault. It wasn't their fault. And now you know, as many other people now know, and you're in a position to support the people you know with depression in a way you weren't then. That knowledge and a good heart can make all the difference in the world.

[heliopsis.livejournal.com]

Yes. This is powerful testimony, and you are so right. The romantics tell us that Love is Everything, but it's just not true. Love is necessary, but not sufficient.