It happens less frequently, and I recover more quickly as time goes by, regardless of what’s going on in my life around me. It still comes, but I recognize it fairly quickly and have been able to beat it back before falling completely in and damaging my life. This is not to say that I don’t still have down days and occasional feelings of overwhelming hopelessness. I stand now on the other side, able to throw down the rope and help others crawl out. I am now grateful for my cowardice and resistance to both feeling pain and to putting other through it. I considered suicide many times in those 30 years. I understand most intimately what it’s like to get sucked down into the vortex and to feel like you will never be able to get your head up out of it. I’ve been professionally helping people who are suffering from depression for the past 13 years, but probably my greatest credential in this fight is that I personally suffered from clinical depression for nearly 30 years, and no longer do.
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