What is it? It is.

I have been struggling with depression well over twenty-five years now with only very brief periods of relief. This is my documentation of a mostly silent struggle. (Clearly not that silent if I'm blogging it. I'm hoping the blogging will help me feel less isolated.)

Why silent? Because is isn't appropriate for me to be depressed. Depression is for teenagers, or a certain type of dramatic young adult (Suicide Girls or goths), or for very old men who can't get it up. It isn't for middle-aged wives and mothers. If someone like me is depressed, they are expected to take a pill and cheer up.

But what if the pills don't work? I've been on every class of anti-depressant/anti-anxiety med available at this time. Some have had no noticeable effect, but most have had serious side effects, including nausea, headaches, and acute suicidality

I used to be very open about my depression. But people around me never understood why the pills didn't work. Clearly, I just needed a different psychiatrist, a different med, and another six weeks to six months spent vomiting, being unable to get out of bed before ten a.m., feeling like there was a rusty hamster wheel in my head, or waking up at 3 a.m. certain that I must slit my wrists immediately while I try out the new med. No thanks. Depression sucks. It is exhausting to live without hope. But I am not acutely suicidal. I can get up by 8 a.m. at the latest. I only have headaches when I am very stressed or sleep deprived. And, I occasionally even have a sex drive, which is more than I had on any drug except Wellbutrin, the wonder drug that had no effect at all on me: mood-wise or otherwise.

Finally, I am silent because those around me don't want or don't need to experience my depression any more than they do while I am silently struggling. Depression is exhausting not only for the depressive, but for everyone around him. When Kurt Cobain was left alone in a house full of guns, everyone in his life knew he was suicidal. It wasn't that his community didn't care, it was that they were exhausted from dealing with his depression on a daily basis. They couldn't fix the problem. Not being able to fix the problem is frustrating, and sometimes anger-inducing. So, while every else was taking a break from dealing with his pain, he ended his pain.

I know that my depression is exhausting to my family also. Whenever the depression comes out of me verbally, different family members have different coping mechanisms, none of which are helpful to either of us. My mother-in-law tries to talk me into seeing yet another shrink. As a medical professional, she is certain I just don't have the right drug yet. My close friend tries to talk me into to finding God, and is left frustrated by both my mood and my atheism. Other friends just sit silently and feel pity for me. Most painful of all, my husband shuts me out emotionally. He is the one who has had to deal with the depression most directly, and is, like the people around Cobain at the end, through with dealing with it. He simply shuts me out, ignores me, or occasionally will react sarcastically, suggesting I kill myself. My pain is his pain, and my pain is too much for him. It is clear to me that if I want my marriage to last, and I do, I need to keep this to myself. So I'm blogging. So I don't have to keep it so much to myself that I feel like I am going to explode.