Child Abuse Survivor

I can’t necessarily vouch for every blog on the list, but the Depression Treatment Center has put together a list of the Best Depression Blogs over on their site. In their words:

Finding the best blogs on depression and depressive disorders can take a lot of time and can be depressing all on its own. We have compiled a list of the best blogs on depression that you can keep an eye on without having to do your own searching. Each one has been selected based on quality of information as well as how frequently it is updated. We know that you will find these quality blogs to be just as informative as we do and well worth reading.

Whether you are searching for help yourself, to help a loved one or just for more knowledge, we’ve got you covered. We have handpicked the top ten best blogs about depression on the Internet. These authors are depression survivors, physicians and therapists who want to help. The newest studies, firsthand accounts and helpful tips are just some of the great morsels you’ll find in our top ten.

I am only familiar with a couple of the blogs on the list, but if you’re on the lookout for more information about depression, and want to follow some blogs that you can continue to learn from, you could do a lot worse than starting with these 10.

What are your favorite blogs on depression?

One of the common statements I hear from survivors who are losing hope is that “things are never going to change”. They assume that because they are struggling, and have been struggling, that they always will.

Well if you feel that way, you might be reassured to know that even the general population is pretty terrible at anticipating how much change is going to occur in the next 10 years, let alone for the rest of their lifetime.

Since the human race, in general, can’t see change coming, perhaps those of us who have developed a negative outlook due to childhood events would do well to remember that we are probably even worse than the average person in anticipating how things are going to change for the better. Given that we are very likely the worst prognosticators of change, maybe we should hold off on making decisions because we don’t think things are going to change.

After all, if you think things are never going to change, and you choose to give up, you’ll be correct. Things won’t change, not because change doesn’t happen, but because you chose to stop making any positive changes in your life. Change happens all around us, and inside of us, every single day. We are just not very good at predicting it, or seeing it as it happens. Instead of giving in to that weakness and letting it define you, why not try to have a little faith, and try opening your eyes to the changes you have already seen in your life, or those around you? Let that be your guide as to whether change is possible.

A while ago, I was having a conversation about food, and trying to explain to someone why I didn’t like many foods. When I was a kid, medical studies had not yet shown, or gotten widely distributed, the link between second hand smoke and ear infections in children. Since I grew up in the 70s, when it seemed like just about everyone smoked, I was around an awful lot of second hand smoke. I also had a rather large number of infections as a child.

It wasn’t until just a few years ago that I discovered the damage that accompanied those ear infections. Oh, I’ve known for years about the hearing loss. I’m close to 50% deaf in one ear, if you even seem me in person you’ll notice that I normally overcome that by only holding the phone to my left ear, or leaning in from the left side in a crowded room to hear someone talking to me. But it was only later on that I discovered the studies showing the link between childhood ear infections and damaged taste buds. I always thought I was just a picky eater. I had no idea I had damaged taste buds until the one day my wife and I were discussing Sweet Tarts. She said something about liking one color over another, and I was utterly confused. Seriously, up until that point in time, I had absolutely no idea that the different colors had different flavors. They all taste exactly the same to me. I even made her close her eyes and tell me the color as I handed different colored candies to her, to prove that there was a difference. She did.

Anyway, fast forward a number of years and while talking about food, I had to explain that my “picky” tastes actually make perfect sense if you think about it. It’s not that I simply don’t want to try new things, or I am unsophisticated, food literally does not taste the same to me as it does to you. Think about it this way. Much of the exotic, or ethnic food that you love, you love because it has a combination of flavors and you love the way they work together. Now imagine, if you will, that you aren’t capable of tasting just one of those flavors, so the delicate balance that is designed to be part of the food, is completely unbalanced in your mouth. You might then find some of this food to be kind of disgusting as one flavor completely overwhelms the others. This is what I taste. This is why I tend to like simple foods.

Why do I blog about this here? Because depression and mental illness are a lot like my taste buds. If you’ve never had to deal with either, it’s easy for you to look at someone dealing with depression and say they should do this, or that, and generally just get over it. Much like all those well-meaning people who tell me that I just need to try this or that, without realizing that I am physically incapable of tasting what they taste. You can’t imagine what it’s like to have a mixture of flavors in your food and only be able to taste one or two of them. When I was suffering from depression, I was incapable of looking on the bright side, laughing, or enjoying the things that we all normally enjoy. I couldn’t feel contentment, or joy. I wasn’t physically capable of it. That “taste” was overwhelmed by the sadness and lethargy that dominated my mental palette.

Depression is an illness that blocks the ability to enjoy the things that normal people enjoy, or even the very same things you used to enjoy before the depression hit. Your friends and loved ones who are dealing with it are no more capable of “getting over it”, than I am of telling you the color of a Sweet Tart by taste.

Sometimes, when we are in the midst of dealing with the absolute worst of our issues, and trying to overcome the effects childhood abuse is having on our adult lives, the best thing anyone can do for us is give us one less thing to worry about.

Think about it, if someone you care about is struggling with finding the right anti-depressant, or going through an intense period in therapy, or even struggling with telling their family about the abuse, you can’t necessarily do much more than listen. You might find that frustrating, but it’s reality. Somethings we just need to go through on our own, and you really can’t get involved and protect us from them.

On the other hand, in the midst of those very stressful situations, sometimes we don’t have the energy to go grocery shopping, or get some laundry done, or we have to juggle appointments with picking up the kids at school, etc. Those are exactly the things you can help a survivor with. Look, there’s a reason why when someone dies, people bring food. They know that getting groceries and fixing dinner for the kids is the last thing on your mind, so they take care of that for you. They can’t fix what happened, but they can allow you to grieve without worrying about what’s for dinner. If you are close to a survivor, and see them struggling with their past, aside from being there to listen, and support them as much as you can, maybe simply taking a thing or two off their to-do list would do much more good than you can possibly imagine.

It certainly can’t hurt, and doing something is better than feeling helpless. Give it a try.

In honor of today being World Suicide Prevention Day, I wanted to share my own story.

Now, I realize that this may come as a shock to some of you who know me now, but I have attempted suicide. I have spent days of my life contemplating suicide, and have made very detailed plans to commit suicide. Luckily, the majority of the time I was able to come to my senses and not carry through on those plan, and the one time I did actually attempt it, I didn’t have a very good plan. You could argue that this indicates that I wasn’t all that serious about actually wanting to die, and I suppose you could make a case for that. On the other hand, if I had a sharper razor blade, we wouldn’t be having this discussion. So whether I was serious or not, I spent a large portion of my early adulthood plagued by suicidal thoughts, so the subject is very important to me.

When it comes to the subject, I consider myself to be very lucky. I know of others who were not so lucky. I once read that suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem. That has stuck with me through the years because it’s true. When I was younger, and first coming to grips with my childhood, and the very real effects it was having on me as an adult, including bouts of major depression, which lead to suicidal thoughts, I was sure that this would never end. I thought I was destined to carry around the pain of depression, and to live the life of a victim for the rest of my life. I thought that because I didn’t know anything else.

I was an idiot.

I took a look at what had happened to me, and what I had already been through, and decided that was all life had to offer. That was all I had to offer. Despite the fact that I survived everything, and had made it to adulthood without much help. and almost no support, I was not worthy to live any longer. Despite all evidence to the contrary, I thought I was alone, and that my emotional state would never change. (It did change, frequently, even then.) The truth is that I was suffering from depression, I was not thinking clearly, and had managed to get lost inside my own head, creating a self-fulfilling prophecy of failure, constantly reminding myself of all the ways I didn’t measure up.

Of course, now I can see that I was never alone. Millions of people survive childhood abuse all over the world. Millions deal with depression and other mental illnesses as well. I believed myself to be a freak, when in fact, I was just one of many who were struggling and dealing with these things every day. Now I can see that I was healing all the time. Oh it wasn’t always pretty, and it help plenty of painful moments for me, but I was changing, because life is all about change. The truth of the matter can be stated in certain, mathematical terms:

Life + Time = Change

That’s what makes suicide such an illogical choice. When I was suicidal, I saw it as the only solution because things were never going to change, not realizing that I was the one guaranteeing that things would never change, by taking away the things that always lead to change. Of course, that logic escaped me, because I was making decisions emotionally from my own warped perspective. That’s why the best thing you can do, if you’re having suicidal thoughts, is to please, please, get out of your own head and talk to someone. Get help. Call a suicide hotline, go see a therapist, whatever it takes. What is going on in your head right now is wrong. You need to get a different perspective and realize that the decision you’re about to make is not the solution. Staying alive is the only thing that gives us hope for positive change.

Looking back now, I can clearly see that the life I am living now is one I couldn’t have even imagined then. It’s completely different than the life I thought I would have in my 40s in large, and small, ways. I am also keenly aware that if I had my way back then, none of this would have ever happened. I wouldn’t have had the experiences I’ve had now, I wouldn’t have had a chance to meet and get to know all the wonderful people that have been part of my life over the years, and any positive impact I’ve had on them, or on readers here, would likewise have never happened. My story would have ended, a simple statistic, a tragic event that others would be left to deal with. I’m glad that’s not the legacy I left behind. Don’t let it be the legacy you leave behind. The people who care about you deserve more. You deserve more.

Learn more about preventing suicide and check out some resources to recognize the warning signs.

I spotted a post by Rainbow Gryphon’s blog the other day, mostly due to the fact that she linked to this blog as an example of how men can suffer emotional abuse. As I read her post, I realized that for all the years I’ve been writing here, I haven’t really gotten into the details of how emotional abuse affected me, or men in general. Obviously, when you’re talking about having been physically, and sexually, abused the fact that there was emotional abuse sort of goes without saying. In fact, in terms of my own writing, it pretty much has gone without saying. But it is interesting to consider that the emotional abuse is part of the overall impacts that we deal with as adults.

It may also be impossible to separate out the effects of the emotional abuse too. I grew up without learning how to make decisions for myself, too busy surviving what was happening to me to pick up normal adult behaviors that other kids learned. Is that an effect of emotional, physical, or sexual abuse? Really, it’s an effect of all of it.

The depression I lived with in my twenties was also an after-effect of all of it, but I think that’s where you can really see how emotional abuse plays it’s part. It’s not the fear of people hurting me, or the issues I had with relationships, especially with males, which were obvious signs of being beaten and molested. It’s looking at yourself at the age of 27 and seeing nothing worthwhile. It’s growing up without any sense of self, with no concept of the value of your own life. It occurs to me now that those were not a result, directly, of what happened to the physical me, those were the result of not having any unconditional acceptance as a child, of never being “good enough”, of having no underlying sense of being of value to anyone.

It also occurs to me that, as an adult, it may be unlikely that I will ever have to deal with being physically harmed, even less likely that I will have to deal with being raped, but even if it did happen to me now, I’d have a core sense of myself, and my position in the world, to help me deal with it. I have enough emotional health in myself, and enough sources of support, that it wouldn’t be as catastrophic as it was when I was a child. If I had been a child with a stronger self of self, a strong sense of belonging and love, I would have stood a better chance of protecting myself, possibly even being strong enough to tell someone what was happening. The emotional abuse left me without any of those things. I had to learn them myself, as an adult, and I continue to struggle to see myself in a more positive light. I’m not sure that you ever can completely recover that sense of self worth later, but I try my best to get a more realistic sense of myself little bit by little bit.

I guess it’s only appropriate that Pysch Central launch a blog named Managing Depression Skillfully on National Depression Screening Day, eh?

Actually, I think it will be quite an interesting look at dealing with depression, and recognizing all the things in our lives that contribute to, as opposed to helping with, depression. If nothing else, it will certainly give those of us who have, or are currently suffering from depression something to think about.

Apparently, it’s today. I think it’s good that we have a reminder for folks who may be wondering if they have depression, but as Dr. Grohol mentions in his article about it, it’s not like you have to wait and make an appointment with a professional to begin to get some idea of whether you might have depression or should seek help.

But in this day and age of the Internet, I’d argue there’s little need to see a professional just to get a screening for depression. Our online depression screening quiz has been available for nearly 15 years and is a reliable, instant screening tool that you can take from the comfort of your home. Join the over 3 million others who’ve already taken the test, and share it with your friends and loved ones.

And frankly, the diagnosis of depression isn’t rocket science. You can review the symptoms of clinical depression yourself and see if you or a loved one may be at risk for it.

None of these online tools or symptom lists can substitute for a real diagnosis from a trained mental health professional. However, they can act as a quick screening tool to help you understand if this is a concern that you should consider seeking out further help for.

On the other hand, since today is National Depression Screening Day, if you are wondering about yourself, take the quiz, and if you’re wondering about someone you love, check the common symptoms and encourage them to also take the quiz!

I saw this quote from Robert Frost the other day and I thought that it was one of the one-liners that really explains exactly how the healing and recovery process continues, even when it doesn’t appear to be.

In three words I can sum up everything I’ve learned about life: it goes on.

I couldn’t have seen it better myself. No matter how much today may seem to be a struggle, life will continue and tomorrow will be another day. It may be easy to get caught on the rollercoaster of struggling and healing, and struggling again, but if you can keep the big picture in mind during all of that, you’ll realize that while all of that is going on in your days, life just keeps going, and will continue to keep going, no matter what your day is like.

There’s so much hope in that, knowing that life will continue to go on, with all the changes, joys, sadness, and everything else that goes along with it. I hope you can see that as well.

We all know that, as survivors and just about anyone else, the holidays can be fraught with all sorts of bad memories, awkward time spent with family, depression, and mourning for the family we never had. I’ve seen a number of folks listing tips for surviving the holidays, and I absolutely encourage all of you to do whatever you need to do to take care of yourselves during this time, and always.

In light of that, I thought I’d share something that has helped me. I can sum up the attitude in a sentence I spoke to my wife last night regarding something outside the scope of this, but somewhat relevant too.

“You take care of the people who take care of you.”

What that means to me, is that I spend a lot of time during December trying to fine small gifts, tokens, or other things I can do that will brighten the days for the people I most care about. Instead of dreading all of the things there are to dread about the holidays, or spending my time hoping for things that I’ll probably end up being disappointed about, I try very hard to concern myself with showing appreciation to the people who deserve it. I make sure and spend time with my wife, and allow her to enjoy all the things about the holidays that she always has enjoyed. I spend time going  through the holiday cards my wife designs for us each year and figure out which one each of the people on my list would appreciate the most. I make time to have lunch with friends I need to catch up with. I buy small gifts for friends, not so much for the gift itself, but to show them that they’re important to me, and that in the midst of holiday craziness I thought about them for a few minutes.

Usually, by the time I’ve done all these things, like now as we close in on Christmas day, I’ve been so rewarded by the smiles, hugs, and appreciation of the people who are really important to me, that the rest is easy. I know where my support is, I know who’s important to me, and whatever comes from the next week or two is nothing compared to the strength I have within myself, and gather from the awesome people in my life, even those of you who I only know online.