Depression ...Hurts

My father used to tell me a story.  It was something that happened in the early 1960s.  A teenager from a small farming town in Saskatchewan got scouted and invited to spring training of a major league baseball team.  This was before cable television or dedicated sports channels.  The teenager was given the opportunity of a lifetime.  He had an amazing fastball and could swing a bat as well.  But, after a week he left.  He had never been out of Saskatchewan and there he was in Florida in the big leagues.  He said it was all too much for him and he walked away to come back to Saskatchewan.  The real truth was that he couldn't stop thinking about this girl that he had just started dating.  He came back and asked her to marry him.

I liked the way my dad used to tell the story.  He used a lot of detail and my dad was a huge baseball fan and it likely was his dream to play in the major leagues, or even the minor leagues.  The best part of the story was that it was a true story and the girlfriend that the guy couldn't stop thinking about was my oldest sister.

My sister was the most strikingly beautiful woman that I have ever met.  She was my half sister and we had the same father.  She already had her first of four children before I was born.  My mom was only 7 years older than my sister and this was in the 60s but there was never any tension between them.  Actually, they were really close and had a special relationship.  It attests to the emotional strength and compassion they both had in common.

When I was a little girl, I loved visiting my sister and I used to watch her put on her make-up in the morning and to cleanse her face at night.  I remember visiting her one day and she was teaching Sunday school and I attended her class.  The lesson was someone about siblings and she introduced me to the class as her sister.  It was such a happy moment for me.  My hero, my sister, shared her spotlight with me.

As I got older, I began to wonder if she really was as beautiful as I thought or if it was her incredible confidence and presence that made her such a head-turner.  It was one of those chicken and egg kind of things.  Was she so confident because she always had every eye on the room watching her?  Or did her confidence make every eye in a room focus on her?  Whatever it was, she was gorgeous.

What I came to know was that when I was watching my sister put on her make-up, I was watching her put on her mask that she wore.  As she was putting on make-up, she was gathering her inner resolve to face the world.  My sister suffered with depression.  I never knew that from her.  I found out from my mother.  The only reason my mother told me was because she wanted me to understand why I had a difficult time connecting with my sister.  I thought there was something wrong with me.  My mother wanted me to know that my sister had no reserve energy in her tank.

My sister suffered from depression.  I live with depression.  The reason there is a difference is that we are a generation apart.  My sister suffered because there was incredible stigma associated with mental illness.  You didn't talk about it.  You didn't tell anyone.  You just suffered.  You put on your mask in the morning and did the best you could.  I am sure my sister cursed her beauty and didn't like that all eyes were on her which made things worse.

I live with depression.  I have a team of health professionals who treat me with medication and therapy.  My friends and family know and they know that when I can not do something as scheduled, it is not me that cancels, it is my depression. 

My sister passed several years ago as a result of three brain tumors.  She didn't pass because of depression but I know it was a complicating variable.  By the time, the tumors were discovered, there was nothing more that could be done for my sister other than to ensure she was comfortable and died with dignity. 

Depression makes you feel a tremendous sense of fatigue, but it often gives your mind a sense of looming catastrophe.  You spend a lot of time lying down but your mind is reluctant to shut down so sleep is often elusive.  When you don't sleep, you get headaches and you become easily irritable.  Your whole body feels heavy and it seems harder to carry around which makes you feel tired, and the loop starts.  You become numb to aches and pains.  A headache just feels normal.  You already feel worthless and helpless so you won't feel like going to the doctor, or even going out.  People with depression have accompanying physical symptoms that they do not address.  This is common.  After a while, depression hurts. 

Depression hurts everyone that is around someone suffering with depression.   They are all affected.  It is good thing that fewer people are suffering with depression and more people are living with depression. 

Some of us have a picture in our mind of what depression looks like.  My picture of depression didn't look like my gorgeous sister.  I spent a lot of my life jealous of her because she was so beautiful.  Depression is a disease like any other disease.  People don't chose to get it.  It affects all demographics in society.  And depression ... hurts.