Living with depression is not like living. Moving through the day, finding reason to continue the actions that one intellectually understands are necessary to sustain life, becomes a chore. Being around people who require interaction, trying to make one’s self understood, or likable, or even human-seeming is exhausting. And if, like me, one is already given to isolating and solitary activities, it does not feel bad to retreat even further into those safe places. Except that being alone feels bad. Meaninglessness seems reasonable. Your own inability to function in the world like other people do does not seem a product of shitty brain chemistry, but a fact that becomes easier to accept as the grasp of depression pulls you in.

If you like me are fortunate to have people in your life who want to try and keep you out of the hole that depression makes so comforting you may also understand how frustrating it is to know you are irrational, but feel powerless to do anything about your own behaviour. Feeling that you no longer understand how you got all these loving people in your life in the first place is one of the scary realities of being depressed. For me, in the past few months, it has also been a major factor in my seeking mental health expertise.

I titled this post “Fight or Flight” because on Thursday, July 9th at 3:48pm I was admitted to a hospital, against my will, because the help I sought for depression took an unexpected turn. That’s mild, really. I spoke with a crisis worker who was both young and perhaps inexperienced and felt that my symptoms required “more intensive therapy than [our] program can offer.” Which meant being admitted to a psych ward for evaluation by a psychiatrist. This was not explicitly stated until I was already being transported to a hospital, where I had already stated I did NOT want to go. All of my possessions were taken from me. I was held for four hours before any sort of medical professional spoke with me. Long story short (and I intend to discuss details later, but not in this post), I was held for twelve hours, given ultimatums concerning treatment in an in-patient hospital, finally allowed to speak to an actual psychiatrist, and finally released (had to take a cab back to my car, which came out of my pocket) with a promise that I would seek intensive out-patient assistance.

I have never been more afraid than I was in that miserable, locked ward. I have never been angrier than I was to find that my attempts to take care of my mental health, which is not good, led me to a place where I felt not only worse, but punished for seeking assistance. I have never been more humbled than by the realization that this experience happens to people everyday who have limited access to mental health treatment. I am fortunate to not have had this be my first experience with the mental health infrastructure. Nor will it be my last.

I am on a path to fight. Feeling afraid, punished, and feeling my rights to have a voice in my treatment and therapy being infringed upon, pushed me into a place where I felt my only option is to fight. I want to be well. I have no illusions about the unlikelihood that I will ever be “cured”; there is a great deal of who I am depression has shaped and because of that I do not expected to live without depression. I do, however, want to get to a place where I can stay ahead of depression. I want to be able to care for myself again.

During the next two months I will be part of an out-patient program that will hopefully help me gain tools to better navigate the mental health system. On my own, I will be reading and reflecting on a bunch of writings about depression, my own experiences, and the recent trauma caused by the experience I just described. I want to put into the world what this felt like to me. Perhaps someone reading this will relate, or have insight.

This is me today:

I am trying to find my way back to wanting to engage in my life. Many of you may be able to relate to that. Many may not. Either way, it is important that we talk about this experience. It is important for me. Thanks.