"Fear of a name increases fear of the thing itself."

Good morning, Dear Reader.

So, I wanted to share something with you. As you may have noticed, I have been slow about posting this month. This is not without a cause. You see, during the past few weeks I have been going through a really bad depressive spell. Those of you who are familiar with the disease know that it often happens this way. There are ups and downs, or cycles. Well lately I have been in a really dark place. Things in my life are fine, which (again, this will sound familiar to you other depressives out there) is one of the most frustrating things. My husband, my friends, my life, they are good. I have every reason to be happy but lately I haven't been.

I've moved through a lot of the “stages” that are familiar to me after years of dealing with this mental illness: anger, hopelessness, constant crying, and most recently apathy. Strangely, this hasn't applied to my work; I've been more productive in the past few weeks than I have been in awhile. But apart from that...it takes a lot of self-control to get up, brush my teeth, shower, eat, run, all those things. Hell, a lot of days I can barely talk to anyone who isn't a lagomorph or a feline.

It's also hard because with these feelings come the old impulses to self-harm that are just wired into my depression. Some people can have this disease without the desire to self-harm, but I think because that was my coping strategy before I ever got help it is just always going to be something that comes up when it gets bad. I won't pretend that I haven't had thoughts of taking my own life as well, though those are truly just thoughts. I am grateful for my past suicide attempt, as strange as it may sound, because it ultimately has taught me how much I do want to live. I know that I don't want to die, or even hurt myself; what I want is for the pain caused by my depression to stop. Cutting was a coping mechanism before I knew any other way to "handle" my depression. I'm proud to say that it's been four years since the last time I hurt myself in any way and I am a stubborn woman and that stubbornness has given me the strength to find better, healthier ways of managing my depression. But it is a constant battle with myself and it is exhausting. That said, please know that I am just sharing what my headspace has been. I want you to know, Dear Reader, that I have no intention of hurting myself. That isn't what this post is about. I'm sharing this with you to provide some context for the rest of what I wanted to write about.

Anyway, yesterday I called my therapist's office to make an appointment. Now, since my depression has been as “under control” as it ever could be in the past few months it has been quite awhile since I last saw my therapist. His office is fantastic and I couldn't be happier with the care that I have received from them, but it will be a month before I can get in to see him (unless someone cancels). This is no one's fault except mine, but I have a lot of trouble seeing my therapist when I am feeling basically ok. I hate to take an hour from someone who might really need it, if that makes any sense. But the fact that it is going to take me a month to get in got me thinking about the tragedy in Connecticut this past Friday.

It is going to take me a month to get in to see my therapist, but you know what? I consider myself lucky. I have insurance that will cover me seeing him and cover my meds should I ever choose to go back on them. I have bipolar depression and depression, but I've been diagnosed. I am aware of the problem, of the triggers, I've gone through rounds of therapy and have been taught healthy coping mechanisms. It may take me a month to see him but I have a therapist who I trust and feel comfortable talking to. He's someone who knows my history and my patterns and is capable of calling me out on my bullshit when necessary. My husband, friends, and family all know about my depression. It isn't something that I am trying to hide or deal with alone. I'm lucky that when it got out of hand when I was in high school my friends and teachers rallied around me. My parents found me a great therapist back in Virginia. It was still hard and before all that I dealt with it alone for years, but when I needed it most I got help. I had access to help. I had a support system.

Being a depressive sucks. There's no other way to say it. It is isolating and miserable and it's hard enough to feel like crap for “no reason” without even factoring in that society's responses tend to be along the lines of: “what do you have to be sad about?” or “you just need to buck up”. It still isn't treated as a real thing by a lot of people so depressives are often left feeling like outsiders with something “wrong” with them. Even for me, with the incredible network of love and support I have, I still have trouble allowing people to see how bad it gets. It makes me feel weak, even though I know better.

I started crying last night while talking to Husband. I was crying because...it's going to take me a month to see my therapist but all I can feel is lucky. I have support and love and I know I'm a depressive. But how many people in this country only have the awful destructive feelings but have no idea what is “wrong”? All they know is the pain, the anger, the apathy, and the eternal sense that they are broken. After Friday a lot of the discourse has been about gun regulation and yes, gun laws need to be re-evaluated. But while the statement “guns don't kill people, people kill people” is trite and used way too frequently as an excuse to close the door on talking about gun regulation, there is some truth to it. People are creative about finding ways to do harm to one another. Just addressing the issue of guns is like putting a bandaid on a deep, festering wound. There is a large portion of the country that needs help. However, they are oftentimes brushed aside, told to “man up” and “deal with it”...and that's if they can get anyone to even acknowledge that they are not ok. A lot of people aren't ever diagnosed. Depression is certainly one mental illness that can slip through the cracks easily, but there are so many others. With health care being as prohibitively expensive as it is it's no wonder that mental illness is often left to build beneath the surface until the pressure inevitably causes an explosion.

Am I saying that mental illness is an excuse to do harm to others? Hell no. Never. My depression sometimes turns me into a real, for lack of a better word, bitch. I can get really mean and really cruel. Sometimes it's like dealing with a hurt animal. Sometimes I am just hurting and not in my right mind and I lash out. Other times I am just mean. Fortunately, I tend to be fairly inwardly directed. In other words, I attack myself and I isolate myself when it's bad just to make sure that I don't say anything hurtful to anyone. My husband ends up seeing the worst of me most of the time, closely followed by the two friends who I talk to the most. I say things to them sometimes that I don't mean, that are hurtful and unkind. And they know me, they know my depression, but they also help keep me honest. They don't walk on eggshells with me and they reinforce my sense of personal accountability. My depression isn't an excuse to hurt anyone's feelings. Does the people who I love knowing about it help? Yes, because it gives them context. They know they aren't the reason. But ultimately, I know that I have this mental illness, I'm an adult, and it's on me to do what I can to keep it under control.

But what if you don't know you are a depressive? Or that you have schizophrenia? Or depersonalization disorder? If you don't know, if the people around you don't know, how can you get help? How can you learn to manage it if you are never given the tools? And what motivation do you have if society wants to pretend that the problem isn't there? There's a huge stigma on mental illness, even one as comparatively common and “manageable” as depression. It's scary to tell anyone that you have feelings of wanting to hurt yourself or that there are days when you can't make yourself care enough to eat something. And what about the people around you? I put my parents through hell my senior year of high school and I'm sure one of the hardest things for them was that they felt alone dealing with my mental illness. If it's your child you feel responsible and that is a huge burden to bear and one that most feel they have to deal with alone.

As our society continues its shift towards being more “virtual”, with people telecommuting, skyping, facebooking, and doing most of their communication via smartphone it is going to get easier and easier for mental illnesses to go unnoticed and untreated. It is going to get easier to pretend there isn't a problem. But we have to find a way to do the opposite.

*Deep breath*

This post has gotten really long, so I'm going to wrap it up. This post is not intended to remove responsibility for Friday's tragedy from its perpetrator and I hope that's clear. However, the combination of that, what I have been going through, and making my appointment with my therapist got me thinking and I wanted to share some of those thoughts.

As Dumbledore so wisely said: “Fear of a name increases fear of the thing itself.” We, as a country, treat mental illness as “that-which-must-not-be-named”. It is time for us to say the names, to acknowledge them and help those for whom those “unspeakable” things are a part of their day-to-day existence. I can tell you from experience that wishing mental illness away doesn't work and pretending that it doesn't exist has the potential to be catastrophic. We are a country that has long been characterized by bravery and a certain brassy tendency to confront things head-on. It is time for us to turn that bravery inwards and make our country safer. Let's do what we do in therapy: admit there's a problem and put our energies towards dealing with it in a healthy and sustainable way.