My Depression is not the Illness

I have a mental illness.

And it's a totally legit illness - honest - I have a professional diagnosis and everything. I've got a medical certificate that says I can stay home and write this rather than attend the day job that's been spiralling around the drain for months.

I've consumed my weight in pharmaceutical remedies. I've ruminated, meditated. medicated, masticated, masturbated, vascilated, hibernated, hyperventilated - I've done it all. I have Depression and not just your common garden variety blues, I have a "Major Depressive Disorder".

I know, I know, Depression, how pedestrian, how very beige, the dry-hump of mental illness, the shameful little secret that marks me “Unfit” for regular life, the one that's just about feeling sorry for myself, the one for the unworthy, the soft, weak, or effete.

Or perhaps you're more enlightened, that was the “old days” right? We're a lot more tolerant and compassionate now, science has the explanation, it's not a moral failing or a weakness of character, it's a “chemical imbalance” in my brain.

Apparently it's not on me at all, this is just some arbitrary whim of fate, a congenital defect to accept and medicate. As if my mind, the product of hundreds of millions years of evolution just sort of forgot how to run properly... and the only solution is a regular dose of medication... perhaps for the rest of my life.

I have suffered recurring bouts of this “illness” for over 20 years, each one has been calamitous, each episode has cost me something BIG and often had a huge impact on the lives of the people around me.

A marriage, numerous relationships, at least three careers, in all likelihood the job I'm supposed to be at right now, all of these things have been “ruined” by my condition.

It's taken a huge toll on my life and often on those around me. It's a curse, I wish there was a cure.

Or so I used to think.

As may already be apparent, I'm a bit unusual. And while I've come to terms with that now, my “difference” had always confounded me, I didn't understand WHY I didn't think the way most other people seemed to think, I took it to heart when people laughed at my odd suggestions or observations. I thought THEY were right when they said I was wrong, or foolish or impractical.

I came to believe that my inner voice wasn't to be listened to, that I was flawed and needed fixing. I blamed myself for my alienation and hated myself for it.

It wasn't until well into my 30's that I realised that I'd adopted the voices of my tormentors and critics as the tone of my own internal "thinking voice", at the slighest misstep or setback I harangued and abused myself mentally (and often physically). I replaced my intuition with the sneers of my critics and detractors, heckling myself at every turn.

I attached myself to other peoples values and goals because they seemed so much more sure of themselves than I did. I thought that if blended in for long enough some of that “normalness” might rub off on me and it would finally click.

But it never did.

Years of being ashamed of my awkwardness, of my strange ideas and ways, had me benchmarking myself against others and constantly falling short. I adopted other people's goals and motivations and couldn't understand why they weren't working for me. I had very little idea WHO I was other than a litany of embarrassing flaws, failures and oddities that needed to be cured or ignored.

For a long time the diagnosis of Depression didn't help, the idea that I had an “illness” that needed treatment reinforced the idea that I was maladjusted, mentally unstable and flawed. And worst of all, beyond repair.

But I've comed to realise that my illness isn't really Depression at all.

My illness is the profound and entrenched lack of faith in myself that has inhibited my ability to make good decisions or take action when I need to change course.

My illness is the learned deafness to my inner voice, the suppression of the “real” me that had left me bereft of direction or personal motivation.

And Depression is my ego's inevitable response to the repeated prolonged suppression of my intuition. It's not a separate thing in me, a tumor to be excised. It's not an illness in the way that Measles is an illness, it's not a disease or an infection, I didn't contract this sickness, I'm not host to some serotonin eating bacteria or defective gene.

All the things I've “lost” due to this “illness”, all those relationships and jobs, the careers, they weren't right for me and deep down I knew it. I'm better off without all the "things" I've lost, and I dare say they're better off without me.

I'd always settled for what was right in front of me and I made do, I ignored the voice in my head telling me I was on the wrong track. I allowed the echoes of bullies and sadists to haunt me long after I thought I'd outgrown them.

I stayed in jobs and relationships long after they'd ceased to satisfy me, for the lack of any idea what else to do, clutching on desperately as my motivation and interest inevitably waned, terrified because I had no idea what else I was supposed to do.

Until eventually the only way out of an intolerable situation was a total breakdown, when my mind just gave up and said, “Fuck this, if you're not going to listen to me, I might as well shut down”.

So the desolation and misery set in, and my "illness" resurged with a vengeance. And I destroyed myself and the world I'd built around me.

And in the wake and rubble of another "episode", I chose the path of least resistance or the the most conventional approach to rebuilding.

Setting myself up to do it all over again.

I don't need a cure for Depression I need to take responsibility for my life. To accept who I am, to believe that I am worthy. To trust that I alone can decide what I make of my life and what is important to me.