Depression and Suicide (part #2)

Major Depressive Disorder is where a person is depressed for prolonged periods of time marked by an absence and withdrawl from friends, daily activities and special activities. There are no manic or hypermanic moments. It is just a steady depression where sleeping, eating and everything else are out of whack along with threat of suicidal or harmful thoughts.

It is possible, as I have learned through experience, to be functional. I can after awhile I wrestle my butt out of bed, get a shower, get dressed and force myself to get to work or class. Often times I am a little late, but that is better than not showing up at all. Sometime the morning shower is forgone and taken the night before. Though the pressures and strife of the day piles up towards night’s arriving, it is easier to function at night. For me, this has always been the case.

Now, I know that I have yet to be treated for this horribly sustained depression. However, due to another medical issue, I sharply found out that drugs are not going to be a way to manage it. One psych drug they had me on to manage migraines had me sleeping nearly 16 hours a day with the remaining hours being a horrible haze. I was only awake for half an hour a day. To top that off, the medication was not doing what it is doing. It is important to watch how drugs interact with your system, because psych drugs can often impound suicidal thoughts and intentions causing a person to do something they would not have done off the medication. Therapy, though the best option for me, is not easily obtainable since lack health insurance. So, I have to wait.

Depression can be spawned by many different causes. The cloud starts out as tiny and just seems to grow until you can’t get out from under it. There are days where it is just partially cloudy, but there are also days when there is nothing by sunshine. However, most days tend to stay under the black, storming cloud.

Prolonged depression creates a chemical change in the brain. So, for some people who are seeking to break the depression cycle may find it incredibly difficult to do so, because of a chemical tendency in the brain. The atmosphere in the brain wants to stay in the condition it is at. This is where drugs come in. They change the chemical balance in the brain allowing for change while trying to input the chemicals that should be there. Sometimes this works, other times not. It depends on physiology of a person.

However, the brain has a capability of righting itself. The haze of depression is gone because the chemicals in the brain that keep that person in a state of depression are gone. They literally wake up. Their moods can be depressed or on the dark end of things, but their thinking is usually clear. This can last for several hours, days, weeks, or months depending on the person. For me, once my brain rights itself, I have a handful of months before I cycle back in depression.

Environment is also something that affects depression. Depending on a person’s association with certain seasons can cause the brain to cycle. I know I crash somewhere in February or March, usually in the spring semester. I don’t know why, it just happens. Once I break that cycle, I have the rest of summer and fall as a good stable time. December gets a little weird some years, but usually rights itself in January. So, since it is summer and the spring cycle has been completely broken, I am free of a large dark cloud over my head. I just have a small one from time to time.

It is a continuous battle. It is not one that I expect to win anytime soon, but I tend to win more of the scuffles than I once did. Also, if you have any signs of depression or are depressed, you should seek medical assistance. There is no reason to live life this way and there is no shame in admitting that you can’t fix the depression yourself.

Fallen Angel