Journey (Parts 8 & 9)

8. I don’t know.

Even though up I have given six (plus one, after this digression) convincing reasons how I got to where I am, I really can’t say whether these things were the cures or whether they were just indicators that something else had done the trick. It might be an entirely chemical thing that happened to fix itself somehow. Maybe God sorted it out. I really don’t know for sure, but there is probably some truth to both. Anyone who has experienced depression knows that there is some kind of feedback loop going on. I wish I could say I know for sure how I got out of it, but I can't be sure

9. I never really did overcome my depression.

On the day that my therapist told me that I could schedule another appointment if I wanted, but that in his opinion weekly sessions were no longer necessary, I told him that I still felt down sometimes. He gave a weird analogy about how when you pee, you can never quite get all of it out. (My least favorite thing about that therapist was the number of strange and often perverted metaphors he would come up with.)

So while I left his office feeling happy that he had basically labeled me as “CURED”, I was nervous about how easily the depression might return. And it did return. After that day, I would sometimes get sad for several days and feel like I was kidding myself if I thought that it was just regular sadness and not part of a larger condition. And that has never stopped. I still get down for days at a time sometimes and don’t know how to lift myself out of it. But it’s ok, and here’s why. For one thing, it doesn’t last as long and it is not as hopelessly intense. I don’t know when this change started taking place (or when it finished, or if it has finished). I just know that now, and for the past few years, it has been far better.

A psychologist might make a case for me having “overcome” depression, but I think it would be more accurate to say that I learned to manage it rather than get rid of it.
Since that session, I have resumed treatment twice but it has never lasted for more than about five weeks. One of the times was after a break-up when he told me, in effect: You broke up with a girl. It sucks. Its not depression. You don’t need to be seeing me unless it lasts for several months. It did last several months. Then it stopped slowly.

It might well return someday. If it does, I hope I can keep some perspective. It would be easy to see all of the time since I walked into my first session as wasted. After all, if I had learned anything, why would my depression have returned? But hopefully I would realize that in the intervening years that I was happy at times, neutral at others, that I had had lots of experiences and made some memories. Maybe I had even added some worldly accomplishments to my resume. Here’s an added bonus: I think it can give us more compassion than we would have otherwise had.

The fact is it could very easily return. I foresee at least two very stressful things in my future: A real career and my own family. It would be stupid for me to think that the pressure of maintaining either, let alone both, would not have the power to stir up clinical depression again. I worry about that quite a bit, actually. I guess I’ll find out. And I do want to find out.


TR Brooks