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.

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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.

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One was a discussion with a doctor about how each case of depression is different, and has to be treated differently. He talked about how the task of finding the correct treatment, at least in terms of anti-depressants, is a bit of trial and error. There was one teen girl who went through 7 different medications before finding the one that helped her.

The other was someone from the National Institute for Mental Health, I think, who mentioned that compared to other diseases, depression takes a long time to see results. She said we feel good about something that begins to show some promise in healing the pain and anguish of depression in 6 weeks, whereas other painful ailments can be eased within minutes.

Both of these comments struck me because I’ve talked to many people who have tried to get help and gave up. Either they didn’t like the first therapist, or the first drug they tried didn’t work very well, or it had side effects, etc. Remember though, all treatment for depression is hit and miss. What worked for the last patient may not work for you, whether it was a certain drug, a certain therapist, electro-shock, etc. This isn’t a cold, you don’t just grab the over the counter cold remedy and get better a day or two later. Depression is a very complicated disease of a very complicated organ, and there are many, many different types of depression. Finding the right “thing” that will help you takes time, takes effort and takes constant, close monitoring. You have to be willing to do that, but the results of that work make it all worthwhile, there’s no debate about that!

If you’re interested in viewing the show, you can on-line, and if you beat me to watching the whole thing and want to post a review, let me know!

Technorati Tags: Depression

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I was glad to see someone writing about something that was very similar to what I experienced, shutting down during difficult or stressful times:

This was not depression. This was not workaholism. I have a fairly severe mental illness that makes it hard to do my job — in fact, makes me totally ill suited for my job. I have a form of dissociative disorder that makes the world seem like it’s not real, as if things aren’t taking place. It’s hard to explain, but you feel untethered.

I agree, it is hard to explain. If you’ve never felt like this, I’ve always described it as the difference between something happening to you, and watching it happen on TV to someone else. When you have this disorder, you don’t see any difference between those two things.

Thank you Adam, for having the courage to talk about it publicly!

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I know that I can tell by my stress level if it’s ben too long since I’ve been to the gym or gotten some other exercise. Spending some time working out is a great way to put a long stressful work day behind you, so this study really shows that I think many of us already know to some extent.

So, if you want a head start on dealing with anxiety and stress, go for a walk!

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This past Tuesday morning my colleagues and I were summoned to a 15 minute all-hands meeting within the hour.  Of course, impromptu all-hands meetings never end up with “we think you all deserve a raise!” or anything else of any good, so folks were naturally nervous.  The last meeting of this nature was an announcement of layoffs and restructuring and prior to that was the sale of the company — so folks were naturally imagining the worst.

Unfortunately, the news we received couldn’t have been any worse.  A co-worker, who occupied the cube next to mine, could no longer cope with the demons inside him and took his own life on Sunday.  It hit us all like a massive punch in the gut.  Our friend and colleague, an extremely gregarious soul who was always full of laughter and always the life of the party, had committed suicide.

He was also a person who liked to push limits.  He is one of the few individuals in my IT career that I’ve specifically taken away local administrative rights to their PC.

This afternoon, while sitting through the memorial service, I began thinking about the last four years he and I had worked together, and specifically the removal of those admin rights. After a few months of running without these rights, and much begging and pleading, I finally restored his admin rights and from that point on it was a running joke between us, “HEY Kevin…  I haven’t messed up my computer yet!”  It was always good for a little chuckle.  But it got me to thinking about it all…  I had taken away those admin rights to protect this person from himself.  To limit the access he had over his PC so that he could remain productive.  That’s when a bit of parallelism struck me…  it’s too bad that there isn’t a better way for someone to remove the administrative rights to the master computer — the brain.  Had those admin rights been removed from my colleague’s “personal” computer, he might still be around today as it would have protected him from doing harm to himself.

Rightfully so, the ability to grant or revoke that ultimate set of privileges are left to the supreme SysAdmin, nonetheless, the parallelism amused me.

So I guess my point is…  I don’t really know.  What I do know though is that 5 kids are now without a father because of a self-destructive behavior.  For those of you with kids, take some additional time this weekend, and every day onward, to spend time with your kids and other loved ones.  If you know of someone dealing with depression who also happens to have a self-destructive behavior, keep an eye on them and intervene if you can.

If I could add anything to Kevin’s story, it’d be this. If you are coping with depression and self-destructive behaviors of your own, get help. Talk to someone, now, before those are your kids without a parent, or your coworkers and friends who are left to wonder what might have been….

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On the other hand, love is a big deal. Even if you’re not lucky enough to have a spouse or partner who you will be growing old with, it’s important to have love in your life, wherever it comes from. Not necessarily romantic love, again, that’s only a small part of the love that plays such an important part in our lives. The love of family and friends is equally, if not more, crucial to survivors.

Most crucial of all, of course, is love of yourself. For survivors this is a huge struggle. We don’t often see ourselves as lovable. We don’t look in the mirror and see movie star good looks, don’t judge our character to be upstanding, know there are always smarter and more talented people around, etc. But I’m here to tell you, that’s not love at all.

One of the best definitions I’ve ever heard of real love, I heard many, many years ago in a church teaching. The speaker was talking about the classic Biblical passage about love (Love is patient, Love is kind, Love believes all things, etc….) and was specifically talking about the idea that so many people tell him they don’t love themselves. He disagreed. He finds very few people in the world don’t love themselves if you get down to the core of what love is. His response when someone talks about not loving themselves was this “Did you shower today? Brush your teeth, have some breakfast?”. If you did, you love yourself.

At the very core of love, is meeting needs. You love yourself by taking care of yourself. The only people in this world who don’t love themselves, are the people who don’t meet their own needs. I was one of those people when I was in the midst of major depression, because I didn’t believe I was worth taking care of.

By the same token, the people who truly love you, are the people who are there to help you meet your needs. Again, be they a spouse, partner, family member or friend, they show love by being there to help. Friends, and family members, who only strive to take from you, don’t love you in any deeper sense.

If you take anything away from this rambling, let it be this. Loving yourself isn’t about heaping praise on yourself, or repeating phrases. It’s about understanding that you are as worthy of being taken care of as any one else in this world. Any tool that detracts from that core goal, is useless, in my book. Taking care of yourself is the most important thing you can do in life and should be the main focus of every day. If you get up, go to work, feed yourself, clothe yourself, etc. then you are loving yourself. It’s not warm and fuzzy, but love isn’t hardly just the warm and fuzzy stuff.

Secondly, to really love someone is to look out for their needs. To be ready and willing to help them however you can. Again, it’s not about the warm and fuzzy stuff. I love my wife. I do that by taking care of myself, taking care of my work so that I have a job to help pay our bills, listening when she needs to talk, laughing when she is silly, crying when she’s in pain, just generally trying to help her be the person she wants to be in any little way that I can. Very few of those things give me a warm and fuzzy feeling. I don’t get a warm and fuzzy feeling every time I pay our rent, help one of her friends with a computer problem, straighten up around the house, or help her run errands on a weekend. I assume she doesn’t either when she comes home and starts dinner, or spends an evening ironing. Those aren’t highlight-reel moments in our relationship, but they involve just as much love as Valentine’s Day, a wedding day, anniversaries, etc. In fact, I would argue they involve even more love, because in those moments, we are doing the things we need to do to take care of us. That’s the core foundation of love. Not the gifts, cards, poems, candlelight, or other romantic tricks of the trade. The every day work and thought that goes in to meeting needs.

This month, as survivors, let’s strive to do three things, in this order. See ourselves as worthy of our having needs met, learning how to take care of ourselves, and striving to love other people, by giving them what they need from us.

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I especially agree with the first rule, “Offer your Friendship and Support”. You’d be surprised how effective you can be just by being available to listen. It may not seem like much, but it is so infrequent that someone actually takes the time to really stop their lives and listen, that it is a huge help!

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Anyway, traditionally this has been a time to stop and consider all the things that we are thankful for in our lives, which for abuse survivors, or depression sufferers, can be quite an unpleasant task. Taking stock of a life filled with pain, and suffering, might not be as pleasant as most people think it is. Sometimes it very difficult to put things in perspective and find the things you are truly thankful for.

That’s ok. Sometimes, it’s simply enough to be thankful for ice cream. I’ve gotten in the habit every year and stopping to consider all the things I’m thankful for, the love of my wife, the good friendships I have, my nieces and nephews, work that I find interesting, the ability to communicate with all of you, and on and on. I cannot express to you how thankful I am for all those things, and all the people who make my life better.

On the other hand, there was a time, not that long ago, where I was really only thankful for the small things in life that I could manage to enjoy. Life had become such a struggle and so exhausting, that if you asked me what I was truly thankful for, I might have told you a cold can of Dr. Pepper. That was something I could enjoy! It wasn’t much, but it was something. Having something I enjoyed, right there in the midst of all that pain, at least hinted at the possibility that there would be other enjoyment in my life. That I could find, and revel in, the things I truly enjoyed, eventually. That hope meant a lot.

So, if nothing else this holiday weekend, treat yourself to your version of the  “cold Dr. Pepper”, and look forward to the future, and all the things, small and large, that future will bring for you to enjoy.

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There are a number of blogs in there I haven’t read before, I’ll definitely be taking a look. Perhaps while I sit at JFK tonight waiting for my delayed flight home. At least there’s wifi!!

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