For those that are fortunate enough to never experience chronic depression it may be difficult to understand why people choose anti-depressants or drugs to try and cope with the experience. People that hear you suffer from depression want to help; they offer great advice, like exercise more or get out and do something with other people.
It is true; these things help, but for someone suffering from depression an act like getting out of the house is more than a point a to point b action. The idea seems simple enough. Exercise will make you feel better. It is true; but, the struggle to get one’s self out the door or to the gym can sometimes seem insurmountable. It is like a pneumonia patient that needs antibiotics, the catch is the pneumonia patient first needs to make the antibiotics on their own.
Trying to describe depression is difficult, until we find a way to directly input emotions from one person to another, our best tool is metaphor. This is my attempt to describe it.
The Depression Trap
Imagine a person that in a freezing rectangular room. There room has two doors in it one on each far end of the rectangle. There is a large chasm in the middle of the room. The person is sitting on one side of the room and next to that person is one of the doors. This door leads to a fiery room, but it has no exit. The chasm lies between the person and the second door. This door leads to the outside world. People can come and go from it as they please. This includes the person in the freezing room, except the chasm in their path. On the same side of the chasm as the person there is a large box full of tools and parts of all sorts.
The room is freezing and the person trapped on the far side of the chasm would love to get to the other side and leave the freezing room. The person can see the exit and knows that in order to get out of the room they simply have to walk out the door on the other side. The problem is the chasm. There is no obvious way to cross it. The longer the person stays in the freezing room the worse it becomes. The cold leads to painful frost bite and hypothermia. They slow down, the desire to just fall asleep becomes overwhelming.
The person so desperately wants relief and assesses their options:
· Option 1: Find a way across the chasm and leave.
· Option 2: Go into the fiery room to warm up, even though it doesn’t offer escape and too long in the room will burn them up.
· Option 3: Lie down and accept they are trapped, hoping someone comes to rescue them.
· Option 4: Dive into the chasm so as not to prolong the pain.
Any sane person would argue that option 1 is the best option. The person in the room is a sane person too and obviously wants to follow option 1, but as the freeze continues to suck the life out of the person’s body the person becomes more desperate and the other options appear more and more rational.
Let’s say the person is still desires option 1. They look around and they find the box filled with tools and assorted parts. The box is labeled “For crossing chasms”. The person looks inside. There are gloves and all the tools and parts needed to assemble a bridge that would cross the chasm. Some people might quickly grab for the gloves to help alleviate the pain and protect from frost bite. Others might avoid them thinking the gloves will restrict their ability to manipulate the small parts needed to build the bridge. It is a tough choice, but one that has to be made. In either case, the person starts to build the bridge knowing the longer it takes the tougher it becomes.
Bridge building in such conditions is frustrating, some people give up, some decide to take a break and go to the fiery room, some never return, others do return, but find it harder and harder to return to the cold. Sometimes someone will come along from the outside and see the person struggling to get across the chasm. The best help comes from those that have been in the same position and can share how they build the bridge despite the freezing cold, others shout advice to what they think is an obvious solution, and unfortunately some don’t even see the chasm and simply wonder why the person doesn’t simple walk out the door like they do.
In the end, either the person finds a way to build the bridge on their own or they succumb to one of the other options. This is the world of depression. It is a freezing room with a chasm that a person must cross on their own if they want to enter the normal world.
Clarifying The Metaphor
The gloves represent anti-depressants. I still don't know where I stand with these. I am currently taking them. Only time will tell if they give me enough relief to build the bridge or if they actually muffle the senses too much and make it impossible to build. All I know, is right now I feel I need them, but I want to take them off as soon as possible.
Option 2 represents the relief offered by drugs and alcohol. I know that alcohol is often a welcome relief to my own pains (both physical and emotional), but I recognize that it is a temporary relief and not an escape and the more I enter that room the harder it is to leave, because the contrast between the heat and the cold of depression becomes even greater.
Option 3 is a temporary option, a sort of limbo before they finally give into one of the other options.
Option 4 is of course, suicide--the most permanent option that sadly some people choose. I have experienced options 2 and 3 and intend to never experience option 4. I am fortunate, I haven’t suffered the freeze long enough that I no longer consider option 1. I want to be one of those that crosses the chasm. This blog, is my attempt at building the bridge.
If you are like me and on this side of the chasm, perhaps we can work together and you will join me on this project. If you have crossed the chasm and have advice based on experience I welcome your wisdom. If you have never been on this side of the chasm, perhaps you know someone that is and reading about our experiences can help you better understand what others experience. I hope you join me as I make my way across the chasm.
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