WARNING : MAMMOTH POST!
I apologise in advance if any of this is rambling, but I figured I might as well give my account of experiencing depression.
First, if you're not sure you've ever truly been depressed : you haven't. For those previous posters (very few) who have mentioned the whole "cheer up" aspect - you obviously have no idea what depression really is. It's not logical. Sufferers can't just think for themselves and "join the dots" mentally as it's supposed to happen.
I first encountered depression in my late teens. Everything seemed hopeless. At that point, I was doing well at school and studying things I enjoyed. I had great, supportive parents and a fantastic group of friends. Suddenly everything seemed worthless. At the time I practiced guitar with my closest friends in band practice, but spent most of it writing derogatory and suicidal passages in a notebook when they weren't looking - almost as if how I was feeling was a vice against their happiness. It made me feel ashamed. I felt a constant and irrational rage and hatred. Not just towards myself, but towards humanity and "existence" itself. The more I tried to fight it logically, the stronger it became.
Shortly after that I fell heavily into drink and began carving my upper arm with razor blades. It was relatively easy to hide and I still have scars (due to the small, parallel cuts). At that time, I liked seeing the blood as it ran out and down...it felt like some sort of release to me. The pain was largely numbed by the alcohol, and I tended to sit there and stare, numbly, as I bled.
I decided one day to end it all and get life over with, so I waited until the rest of my family had gone to the holiday caravan park leaving me in charge of the house. I slept until late afternoon, got up, closed all of the curtains in the house and began weighting up belts in the house which may be suitable to hang myself from the banisters with.
While I was doing this, a couple of my friends decided to drive down for a visit. For some reason I answered the door. It took a lot of explaining, but my plans were foiled.
After this, my parents found out when I broke down in front of them. From there, I went into therapy and was prescribed Fluoxetine. The pills made me extremely nauseous and the therapy didn't seem to do much for me except make me realise this was something I needed to handle on my own. It may not have been the best way to do so, but I decided to become very apathetic. My mantra became "**** it," and I stopped caring.
It worked.
From that point, I made it through to Uni etc. where I met my now wife. Everything went swimmingly until about a year and a half ago.
After the stresses of moving home, we found (on the first night, no less) that the previous owners had lied to us and the area was a ****hole. Within 2 days we'd had multiple broken windows and no end of intimidation. The hatred came flooding in. I was filled with such a degree of rage - yet I couldn't just start making dead bodies. It felt like I was in a cage and I broke again.
The thoughts and feelings came back. Once again, everything was worthless - humanity was worthless. Why the hell should I even get out of bed? What's the point of working - it's all I do? Is this life? Is this it?
I spent half the evening crying and tried to hide it as I cried on the bus on the way to work. No specific reason - it just happened. I felt pathetic, worthless, useless. I started drinking heavily again - spent most of the days drunk or hungover.
The worst effect was at home. I became a seething mass of rage. One moment, I was fine - normal, almost serene - but the smallest provocation would set me into a flurry of destruction. Couldn't get the lid off a jar? Said jar ended up all over the room while I punched the wall, cabinets, floor, whatever the hell else I could get near. After a week or so my wife (then fiancee) dragged me to the doctors.
I scored "dangerous" on the depression chart they use, so was prescribed Citalopram and therapy. The therapy I skipped as it didn't work last time, but did read some anti-depression books. I obtained a sick line from work for a month.
For the first few weeks, I was spending approximately £80 a week on bourbon to keep myself medicated. Mentally, it felt as though my normal thoughts were hidden behind a screen full of static. Within that static read "WHY BOTHER?", yet I could see the silhouette of my normal self bouncing back and forth behind it. The more I tried to grasp "me", the stronger the static became. Alcohol helped to clear that, yet this itself was causing damage in its own usual way.
It's part of the reason today that I know my wife truly loves me - she stuck with me that entire time. The months of hell I put her through, yet she still stuck by me. I've never raised a fist to her but I've said a lot of hurtful things, and scared her almost to death with my rages, but she's still here - and she married me. Most nights she went to bed, I'd be standing in the kitchen holding a knife to my wrist, daring myself to just go ahead and ******* do it. She's since let me know that she found it hard to sleep as she would lie worrying whether that was exactly what I was up to.
Citalopram, as a medication, I find a lot better than Fluoxetine. I never felt any of the nausea, however I did feel extremely apathetic most of the time - however to me that's a lot better than feeling constant hatred. I've stopped taking them of my own volition, but it seems I've kept up the apathy. This is possibly a coping mechanism and it does make me feel quite sociopathic at times but I'd rather that than what I had before.
This does seem to be a little rambling, so I apologise, but it's not very easy to accurately convey your mind during depression. Think of it like a load of baseballs shooting out of tubes into other tubes. That's your brain neurons firing and meeting as normal.
With depression, all of those balls are missing and bouncing loose. I was perfectly aware they were, but no matter what I did I couldn't steer them home. That in turn increased the frustration, leading to anger and despair. It really is hell inside your own mind, and I don't think I'll ever be truly free of it - but I can cope.
Whatever happens, there's always help out there - and I'll be forever grateful to my wife for this too. If she'd packed her bags and left as most logical people would, I probably wouldn't be posting this right now.
