Clinical Depression: It Can Sneak Up on You

Although I don't often like to think about it, or admit it, I'm chronically ill. In fact, I am classified as medically disabled. It's not something I wanted and it has changed my life in ways I don't like to think about, but nevertheless it is true.

Because I am chronically ill, it's easy for people to say, "You've gotten used to it, haven't you?" "You know how to live with it?" "Boy, you're doing well."

I have some news for all those supposed well-wishers and deep thinkers, who know more than I do about myself -- at least they think they do -- I'm not doing as well as you think. The reason is called clinical depression. It has to do with being chronically ill 24 X 7.

This isn't something I'd planned in my life; it isn't something I want, and Lord knows it has messed up more of my life plan than I care to think about, but nevertheless, it is part of my life.

The depression, although you may not see if from the outside, is very much there. It's there on the evenings when I don't want to take my 9 or 10 pills before I go to bed; it's there when I look at the 14 pills I have to take to start my day; it's there when I feel the stomach ache and nausea of Crohn's Disease (one of my maladies). It's there when I see the double images from my eyes which I know, now, both need operations.

And, yet somehow I cope. Most people are amazed at just how well I do cope. One of my specialists, in fact -- the endocrine guy because of my pituitary tumor -- can't understand how I manage under the load of medication that I take. Many days I can't understand either.

I think it has to do with what I have described in another recent piece here what I heard the doctors telling my then very-young wife about my chances of living until morning as they believed I had a cerebral aneurysm that was going to pop and that it would likely put me down. I admit I was in-and-out of consciousness as the doctors kept me under to control the pain, but I was just aware enough to hear the doctors telling my wife the news.

It was at this point that I resolved to, if I survived, I would live each day to its fullest, but, believe me when I tell you it is tough to do when you face 14 pills to start the day; six pills at lunch; nine at dinner, and nine or 10 before bed, or sometimes more, if my pain is bad enough. Yet I try to remain as happy as possible which is a task that takes a great deal out of me.

This is where the depression wears me down. It takes lots of energy to appear to be happy and to keep yourself happy. I realize there are those out there with problems that are far worse than mine (there but for the Grace of God, go I, is the maxim), but pill-taking, constant worry about feeling sick or being sick, trying to remain as cheerful and up as possible, all take their toll.

There are those days where I'd like to rebel and not take another pill and just let nature take its course. That would be the easy way, wouldn't it? And, I will say this about my Dad, he never raised a quitter, so I won't let his memory down on that account. Yes, it would be easy to just let go, but I won't do that.

When I resolved to live my life to the fullest, including sleeping as briefly as possibly, but remaining as healthy as I can, it precluded any easy way out, even though I have "those" days, the same days everyone with a chronic disease has.

So, I will fight to stay on my feet and I will fight my constant battle with the blues. And, at the end of the day, I will have survived another one, and I know that I'll look out the window tomorrow morning when I arise in the dark and wait for the sun to rise and I'll see one of the the day's glories, and I'll know I have made the right choice, as hard as it is.