You may find the title of this blog to be a bit ironic seeing as I’m sitting in front of a screen right now, but it is the tool I choose to use to express myself through writing.   Unfortunately I, and many others I know spend an inordinate amount of time in front of a variety of screens.  In fact, chances are you heard the news about two recent celebrity suicides that happened this week from a screen of some sort. Chances are you’re disturbed by this.  And chances are you never met either of them.

I don’t want to demean any feelings you may have had towards either of these people.  After all, we get attached to the people we watch repeatedly on TV or whose products we feel represent us, but we didn’t know them.  Their deaths shock us because they seemed to have everything, very public personas who guarded  tragic personal secrets.  Even those who DID know them in a lot of cases were completely caught off guard.

I was reading something today that said @7% of people 18 and older have suffered or are suffering from major depression.  In a city the size of where I live, this translates to about 21,000 people. Chances are I do really know someone who suffers from depression.  Chances are I could be one of those people.  However, unless I am in a trusting relationship with someone who can confide in me or I can confide in them, this remains a secret, doesn’t it?

Depression is a tricky thing.  People with depression can put on a face or mask and make it look like everything is fine if not thriving.  I think people with depression work hard to make things look like they’re ok.  And after all, people don’t really want to listen to someone share their feelings of hopelessness, or how they think about ending their life all the time or how they feel others will be better off without them.  There’s a fear on the part of the depressed person that they’ll be perceived as a drama queen or someone who craves attention – someone who is “complaining” and nobody wants to listen to this kind of thing.

I think there’s a level of discomfort on the the part of the well meaning listener which I believe stems from not knowing what to do.  Maybe the depressed person just needs to do something fun.  Maybe they just need to forget and let go of things that happened in the past.  Maybe they just needs to be reminded of all the blessings they have and to just focus on them.  My question would be, if someone shared with you that they were suffering from a physical ailment, would you say the same things to them?  Of course not!  You would suggest they see someone, get a diagnosis and get help.

Depression does a number on the person suffering, making them believe things are hopeless, that things will never change, that nobody cares about you, that you’re not important, that what you do doesn’t matter.  And then there is the guilt as you try to reason with yourself, that you have no reason to feel this way.  You have great family, a great job, wonderful friends, and material blessings.  And you maybe suck it up for awhile until you can’t anymore and it rears its ugly head again.  It’s a vicious cycle and can pop up at any time.  For me it could pop up when I had a sense memory – sometimes a smell, seeing a particular item or hearing a piece of music.  No warning, just a plunge into a deep dark hole.  A deep hole that some people choose not to climb out of.

I decided I couldn’t live like this anymore and I finally sought help.  It’s a work in progress but SO much better.  But I had to see a qualified therapist and a doctor to make it happen, with that fear that they would think I was just this whiney woman who needed to get over herself and it wasn’t like that at all.  They both really listened and took me seriously and life has changed dramatically.

As I shared in another blog, I believe we’re allowed to experience things in this life, good and bad, so that we can help others. However, we can only help others if we get away from those things that keep us in our own little world, like all those device screens.  Maybe it’s time we get our heads out of our screens and develop some real relationships so that we don’t have to learn from a screen about someone who has given up.  And if you are one of those 7% who are  really suffering, PLEASE seek out help.  You are so much more important than you know.