Photo by kevin Baquerizo on Unsplash
My personal history aside, I feel my gut saying the outcome is at best 50-50.
There have been times in my life where depression has been the driving force. And yet there have been years where depression was missing. And I spent most of my life denying that my having depression was even a possibility. I knew there were times where things were not quite right.
Labeling 1977 as my lost year is very telling.
Had I turned and faced what was going on, the options were not plentiful. Drug manufacturers were just starting to address depression and mental illness. The options at that point were limited and the outcomes somewhat random. I admit I am hearing this mostly from my Peer Advocate, but the limited research I have done confirms this.
And suspicious drugs were only part of the problem back then.
Stigma was rampant and tolerated. I was truly scared about stigma, as I wasn’t the guy who could never have depression. That was for other, less strong individuals. They could have depression, anxiety, or any other mental condition. It was ok if it was someone else. Having a relative who had nerves, it is easy to see what real depression looks like. Going to work was the most he could do. The rest of the day was spent in a darkened room, chain smoking cigarettes.
Knowing what this looked like, it just couldn’t possibly be me that would have depression.
Plus, I am competitive. I am goal oriented. My future is in my control. All I need to do is seize the day and make things turn out the way I had planned. I must say, when I make up my mind about something, there is 100% certainty that I will achieve it. In 2007 I added “Climb Mount Kilimanjaro” to my bucket list. And in January of 2023, I summited Kili at 19,431 feet.
Some of my goals and dreams take time to achieve.
For the better part of 15 years, I collected material for my first book, Good Management Is Not Firefighting.One day, almost out of the blue, I thought to myself, either start the book, or stop thinking about it. So that day I began writing. And I wrote my second book less than two years after I finished the first. It’s related to my career coaching and is titled, Write This Down, You’ll Need It Later. Once I got started, I could not turn it off.
Now I have the outline of my book about my life with depression.
But as with my first book, until I got serious, I am using all kinds of excuses to do as little as possible to finish the book. Ok, so this book is very personal. But in the past 5 years, I have written over 600 blog posts, many of them exploring very personal ideas. At first, I hid behind the moniker, Depression Is Not My Boss. Then I used just my first name, Joel.
In the past year, I have been less afraid and have included my last name, Quass.
Despite sometimes getting several hundred readers a day, only one person has contacted me guessing who I am. And he did it several years before I even added my first name. I feel sad that I wasn’t more open. The truth is, I was too embarrassed. His discovery was, for me, several years too soon. I was still learning all I could about depression and how to live with it.
Through SMART RECOVERY, I am learning to lead a balanced life with depression.
A balanced life is not all or nothing. It is not penance for every infraction, for every misstep. It is doing your best and taking time for self-care. I am getting better about saying self-care. But I am still far from comfortable with the concept. I know there are things I do that qualify as self-care.
For me, getting on the riding mower and spending 3 hours cutting 5 acres is self-care.
Does this help me beat depression? Not by itself. But being outdoors, in the sun, certainly helps. My orchard, the squirrels who go after the peaches, and my struggle with cedar trees that want to replace my apples trees are all forms of distraction. This, for me, is a type of self-care.
Right now, my depression is not that bad, but I continually find ways to know it is there.
Or perhaps I am feeling bad about my 96-year-old mother passing away at the end of March. I could be getting the two things mixed up. I have been careful not to take on any new responsibilities right now. OOO is looking for new board members. I spent most of a year, 4 years’ ago, as the treasurer of On Our Own.
Ultimately, I realized that I needed to get my own life together before I could help others.
That combined with being the executor of Mom’s estate is leaving me with a certainty that my depression is still hanging around. I tell my Peer Advocate that I am OK. But OK doesn’t mean good, or bad, it’s just ok. I am making it through each day doing what needs to be done. High-functioning, or concealed, depression is there somewhere.
It seems I asked a question that I already know the answer to.
And I am using that as an excuse to write about Mom and burying her ashes next to Dad on August 24th. It seems I need to address this more than I do my depression. Next weekend, everything becomes final. And while it will be good to have the family together, I worry that we are, lately, only getting together for funerals.
Mom was 12 years younger than her brother, and almost 20 years younger than her oldest brother.
There was a time where it seemed I was going to a funeral every other month. Mom lost many of her siblings then. I got to see the same cousins every time. And as Mom’s birthplace was a small town, we would meet at the same funeral parlor each time. And then we would drive to the same cemetery for the burial.
