Depression and the Art of Relationship Semi-Maintenance

This is the hard topic. The one I think about writing about all the time, but always have trouble with. Even for someone with a history of opening wide with my emotions, talking about love not easy. I'm a guy, for crying out loud. We want to screw and screw again. Women are something to be conquered, right? It's a game to be played, and if you do it just right, you'll get what you want. uhmm, no.

The other thing that's hard about talking about relationships is that you don't want to give away the dirty laundry of past loves'. So I'll try to talk sbout my relationship style, that of a guy who has struggled with depression, without actually talking about my relationships.

One of the longest running rivers along the landscape of my own experience with depression has been my history with the opposite sex. The hardest thing for me is feeling like I'm going never going to be a stereotypical guy. I'll never be an emotional island, quite the opposite in fact. I can be quite the girl in relationships, as I'm told, which wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing except it usually leaves the part of the masculine partner unfilled in the "ideal relationship," which of course does not exist.

Here's the problem kids. My greatest strength in relationship is directly tied to my absolute worst weakness. I don't feel things without feeling deeply, which can be really awesome for connecting on a powerful emotional level. I've had girls wanting to spend their whole lives with me after a couple of months, an admission usually followed up by "I'm so glad you're not like other guys." Unfortunately, we can fastforward to a place where that same statement changes to "Why can't you just be like other guys." You see, what the wonderful women I've been involved with fail to plan for is that for every way a person is not typical in a good way, there is usually an accompanying downside. The biggest problem in my relationships with women has always seemed to be this. Early on in a relationship, many of my partners have fallen rather hard for me at some point, which of course signals to me that it is safe to get attached now. At this juncture in a relationship I've probably abandoned logic to take one more shot at something crazy special, and it is amazing for a while. I've been that couple that made other people sick at the level of lovey-doveyness involved.

But here's where depression will get you. The first time you hit any rough patch, that old monster comes a calling to remind you that you probably don't deserve the person you're with, at which point you (I.E."I") start to panic. What if they figure out they're dating a guy with serious issues. Self-sabotage time. My weapon of choice in a relationship is jealousy. See, when you have esteem issues, you're always afraid your partner is going to trade up on you for a better model. The irony here is (and guys, you should take notes, because this is a sure fire technique for screwing up a relationship) that by being jealous of every guy/friend your lady friend spends time with or gives attention to, you can eventually ensure that they will in fact, start thinking about finding someone else.

Now this isn't to say I'm totally to blame for every relationship I've had that ended badly. After all, that would fall into the category of faulty depression logic (i.e. I am the cause of everything in my world, therefore I am both totally egocentric and awful at everything) To be sure, I've had plenty of help in blowing up what looked like a promising relationship.

But the very nature of this disease, and definitely in my case, is that you have a really hard time trusting yourself to be successful with people, and when you are, you tend to think it has nothing to do with you. On the flip side, when things go badly with other people, you tend to think it has everything to do with you. So you're left not trusting yourself with other people, and especially not in intimate relationships. You're sure you will find a way to mess things up, and it infects everything, including your trust for the other person.

Now all that said, I've made a lot of progress in this area, or at least I think I have. I guess I won't know until I'm in another relationship. But the point is that there is hope for the North American Depressive Male on the prowl. Just like in anything, you should play to your strengths, which center around your ability to connect deeply on an emotional level.

The thing I want to keep pointing out about depression is that, while it can be a difficult disease, it tends to come with a array of gifts. For everything thing depression has taken away, it's given something back. Do I have times when I lack any self esteem. Sure. But I get back an uncanny knack for empathizing with other people when they're hurting. Have I ever been that guy who thought he was the biggest loser in the world. Absolutely. But I've also never been the guy who thinks he's better than everyone else and treats everyone like shit.

Anyway, long post, but I keep getting subtle encouragement to keep sharing. The main point here is that relationships are weird critters to begin with, and depression brings a whole 'nother ball of wax into the mix. It's not a death sentence, but it is something that both partners have to be aware of, and as the depressed party, you owe it to yourself and your special someone to tell them what they're getting into whenever things get serious. The truth is that if it's right, you'll both be mature enough to work together through it, and if you're not, it ain't meant to be. Now if I can only remember that all the time....

Later Gators.

Depression and Other People

At the encouragement of a friend who thinks I should keep speaking up about the subject, I'm continuing to write about depression. So if this turns out to be a terrible idea, you can blame Kevin. I know I will.

It is somewhat humorous to me to try and speak confidently about depression, mainly because a core feature of the illness is a pathological lack of self-confidence. When I was thinking about writing this blog, I tried to think about what would happen if a bunch of depressed folks decided to throw a fundraiser for depression awareness and research. I think there would be a lot of difficulty figuring out who would speak to people about the event, because no one would feel all that confident about it. Random thought for the day.

My suspicion, albeit a biased one, is that depression makes social interactions between the depressed party and other people strained on both ends to say the least. I think it is an understandable position to avoid dealing with people who have depression. I do not think people do this because they dislike depressed people, but because it is frustrating to try and have a good time with someone who is constantly at risk to have a meltdown or sink into a funk. It's just easier to hang out with people we know are going to be chill, not create drama, and take things for what they are. I try not to begrudge people who cannot deal with difficult people, but I think it is a real shame sometimes for a few reasons.

Many of the most brilliant minds the world has ever seen were depressives. Even David of biblical fame is suspected to have suffered from depression. (Just read Psalm 102, it reads like a list of symptoms from the DSM) Insight and art often come from a place of deep reflection and seriousness that, for whatever reason, seems to co-habitate with the same tendencies that cause depression. Without sounding full of myself, one of the things I am most proud of is being able to think and feel deeply about the things going on around me. I love seeing meaning in things. Unfortunately, this can be a bit overwhelming for the old synapses. It can also be difficult to converse with people when there is a lot going on in the old noggin and you don't know how to shut it down and just respond to whats in front of you. A pretty common feature in depression is that we tend not to listen very well, which I think is one of the most tragic parts of the whole disease. I really want to be able to hear and process what other people are thinking and feeling without over analyzing it and having my own thoughts interject. I love people, I really do, yet I can come off as rude sometimes because I'm in my head all the time.

This all sounds a bit weird, but what I am trying to do with posts like these is paint a picture for those of you who have never had a mental disorder of some of the make up our realities. I hope it is helpful for someone who wants to understand this disease better. For my part, I hope to continue sharing as honestly as I can about an issue I care a great deal about. I hope to have some good discussions with folks through this blog about anything you want to know about, or questions you may have, so please feel free to e-mail or comment on the posts themselves.

Peace,
Phil

philagan@gmail.com

This Mess is for Real: Thoughts on Depression

I was really hesitant to make this post for a couple of reasons, the most important of which being that I have often been accused of being too open with people, and as such spent a lot of time in the past year trying to make that less so. I quickly realized, however, that one of the ways society at large (and unfortunately the church) deals with depression is to pretend it doesn't really exist, and tell people who suffer from this debilitating disease that they need to suck it up.

The truth of the matter is that if you have had this awful disease, you would know just how frighteningly real it is. To clarify, depression is not feeling sad all the time. It is so much more than that. In truth, being depressed is nothing like being sad. When I am simply sad, I can identify what is the root of this sadness and take a reasonable view on it. (For example, if my team loses a baseball game, I can understand that this sucks and move on from it) With depression, however, there is a massive chain of unreasonable mental cluster-effing that happens internally. To illustrate, here is an example of a depressed person's train of thought in all it's glorious action.

No one has called me today, I wonder why that is.
What if all my friends actually hate me and don't want to hang out with me?
Even worse, what if none of them even thought of me while planning their evening?
Crap, either I am a jerk or so forgettable that no one cares if I am around or not.
I wonder if I should call someone to hang out.
Probably not, they either won't answer or come up with a reason not to hang out.
I suck.
It's probably good that no one is hanging out with me, I'd just drag them down.
i'm doing society a favor by not hanging out with people.
It's my own fault no one is calling me.
I am so selfish for thinking about myself.
Wow, I deserve to be unliked, look how selfish I am
Once again, I suck.
I wonder if everyone knows what a terrible person I am?
on and on like so.

The worst part about all of this is that, the entire time, you know how illogical you are being, but you cannot stop it, which only adds to the feeling of helplessness. Now, if you're wondering how to make things worse, I'll be more than happy to tell you.

Tell a person with depression to get over it. Will not make things better, will in fact make things worse.
Try to fix it. Will not only make things worse, but will also make them resent you.
Tell a person with depression that it's not a real disease. Will not only make things worse, but also shows your total misunderstanding of a medical problem. You wouldn't tell a cancer patient that cancer isn't real, and thus you should treat this the same way.
Tell a person with depression that they are using it as a excuse. This is my favorite piece of BS of all time, because it is not only ignorant, but frustrating as hell. No one, given a choice between the daily complications that come with depression and dealing with life in a "normal" way, would pick depression. It sucks knowing you feel a certain way or do a certain thing because of a mental illness, and most people who have been through it will tell you how much they would love to just be like everyone else.

Since being diangosed with anxiety/depression back in 2007, I've been on and off about talking to people about it. Truthfully, my greatest fear is that I will be labeled by it as unacceptable, and I think this is reasonable given the stigma of the disease. However, I want to be out of the closet about this, not only to help myself but to help others. This disease is a killer, just like any number of diseases that we have compassion about. It's even worse for males, because of the stigma against being emotional attached to being a man. In fact, research has shown that the stigma for male depression may be why men are four times more likely to commit suicide than women.

So I'm out. I have depression. You don't have to be afraid of me, or tiptoe around me, just be understanding. Sometimes I can be difficult, so please don't take it personally, just ask if this is a depression thing and I'll let you know. I'm one of the lucky ones when it comes to this disease. i've managed to stay pretty high functioning and have been able to at least cope without medication. I've managed to overcome a number of things that I never thought I'd overcome, and I'm proud of that fact. But our society has a lot to learn about this issue, and those of us who struggle with depression need to stop being ashamed of it. If anything, it can only help to start taking pride in continuing to wake up every morning and get out there. There are not many people who have been hit with this disease and managed to keep getting up off the mat, so we need to keep encouraging one another.

Peace. (That actually felt really good.)