Early signs of depression ?
If it is not too much trouble, I would like
some experiences shared -- namely, what you early signs of depression
were. My current (and first) crash started about two and a half
months ago. I was going along in life, thought I was pretty happy,
and then I started to feel some abnormal anxiety begin to well up in me.
I had a panic attack or two (had no idea what the were so they pretty
much scared the shit out of me) and it seemed like the anxiety just
seemed to well up in me even more.
I have been suffering from chronic depression for so long that I
don't remember what the early signs were. I do remember as early as 7 years
old, feeling like I was standing on the outside looking in, like I really
wasn't a part of the world around me. Then, I felt like my heart was
breaking....you know that physical hurt in your chest....but never knew why
I was feeling that way. I was raised in a family that didn't recognize
depression as an illness but rather as a frame of mind that I brought on
myself. After 30 years and 4 suicide attempts, I finally told our family
doctor how I was feeling. At first, he said that anyone in my position
would be depressed (our 17 Year old son had just been diagnosed with
disorganized schizophrenia and nobody in the family would help me with him)
but I told doctor that I had felt like that forever.
I have an experience so close to what you describe that it's uncanny.
For more than forty years I have struggled with that same kind of
feeling with only occasional success. The practice of Zen mediation
has given me more relief than anything else, but it remains to this
day only a temporary solution.
Like yourself, I have always felt an unbridgeable gulf between myself
and those I have loved. Today, I have a loving wife, a wonderful
friend, four loving dogs who have done more to make me happy than
anyone else, a happy life in every measurable way, and yet I can and
do, when I allow myself to weaken, feel as distant from the world as I
could possibly be.
Because of this logical truth, I can only offer you one thing to think
about. Perhaps we were never meant to FEEL a connection between
ourselves and others so much as we are meant to FORGE these
connections. That you are loved seems to be a fact, that I am loved
is a fact. That we have somehow participated in bringing this kind of
love to pass must also be a fact. In the end, whether we feel it or
not, the love is there, the belonging is there, the connection to
others is there.
We cannot change how we feel, but we can change what we do with what
we are. Perhaps we will never feel as though we are a part of this
world and the people in it, perhaps we will always view this world
through a glass darkened with sadness, but we can also choose to
accept the facts that exist beyond our emotions. We can choose to
accept the fact that we are loved and that we do belong.