Okay, this is important

It has to be said, and I need to say it.

I suffer from depression. I am an intelligent, moderately educated person. I have always believed that mental illness was just that; an illness, a disease to be treated. And yet, when it came time for me to say “I am depressed” aloud, I was embarrassed. At first, I couldn’t do it. I would be humiliated to admit I had one of “those” illnesses. Kind of like saying you have AIDS in the 80s.

I have to fight the stigma. It is a difficult fight. As much as I know by intellection that a disease is a disease, there is an unnatural disgrace that runs deep, even in me, with regards to mental illness. I fully understand and yet I understand nothing. I remember Dr. Foster in Hood River asking me if I was depressed. I laughed it off and said “I have a right to be depressed”. She prescribed me a medicine that she said would give me more energy. I read the fine print. It was an antidepressant. I took it and pretended it was just for ‘energy’.

Maybe I deserve to be depressed, maybe I don’t

But as I said, I suffer. I have been prescribed a new drug that is lifting the defeatism of the last part of my life. I actually enjoy doing things again. Things are far from perfect, but they are getting better. Just admitting to depression, saying it out loud to a medical professional and saying it to myself is starting to revitalize my life.

If anyone who reads this is, or knows anyone who is depressed, please there are professional trained to help.

Suffering is unacceptable!