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My Depression

Posted in depression, recovery, Uncategorized, writing with tags , , , , , , on May 29, 2024 by Norman Reid

On my birthday, what should have been a special day, I began a rapid descent into depression.  It took only a small event, a minor rebuff from my wife, to precipitate my decline. But what began as a momentary disappointment quickly escalated into serious thoughts of self-harm.  In the week that followed, I became increasingly anxious and thoughts of self-harm increasingly intruded on my mind. Five days later, I was too incapacitated to go to work.  Seeing the need for help, I called several psychiatrists in the hopes of being seen. One directed me to a local mental health hospital.  When I arrived there, I was at once diagnosed with major depression with the added complication of suicidality.  Thus began what was for me a new journey: from well-functioning health to near total disability and the long road to recovery that followed.

Depression turned my life upside down.  It challenged all the assumptions I’d made about myself and the business of normal living.  What I did not know at the beginning of my fall was that my depression was so severe that it masked several equally challenging complications, including post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), dissociative disorder, a schizoid personality split, and bipolar disorder.  I was a first-class mess.

Ultimately, though, with the aid of medication and a host of therapeutic treatments, I emerged from the darkness of depression and my other conditions.  I’ll take that statement a step farther.  Depression has been one of the major events of my life. And it has not been all bad, for despite its fearsome and debilitating presence, it was also highly transformative for me.  In the end, I emerged from the blackness of this affliction a stronger, wiser, and better person than I had been before it struck.

I’ve decided to write a book that tells the story of my struggle to evolve from a sense of complete worthlessness to the confident and competent whole person that I am today.  It will detail my experience of depression and the steps that helped in my recovery.  And it’ll explain what I learned along the way that aided me in helping myself to rebound from the depths of despair.  But more than that, it will put my experience of depression and the other conditions I faced into broader context and present the latest information on how depression and other mental health challenges can be successfully treated.

As I write the book, which will take many months to complete, I plan to share what I learn and what I write in this space. My hope, then, is that the book, and this blog, will serve as a guidepost for others struggling with this terrible disease to make it clear that recovery is indeed possible, that aspiring to resume a “normal” life is not unreasonable, and that what may seem at present as a never-ending hell need not consume the remainder of one’s life.

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Pain Behind the Mask

Posted in depression, writing with tags , , on February 3, 2008 by Norman Reid

I picked up a new book on depression the other day and just finished the first chapter.  The title is The Pain Behind the Mask: Overcoming Masculine Depression by John Lynch and Christopher Kilmartin.  The thesis of the book is that male depression is very often different from “classical” depression, which most frequently characterizes depressed women.  While “classical” depression is experienced as deep sadness, with crying, sleeplessness, worrying, moping and self-blaming, male depression tends to be covert, hidden behind a mask of extreme responsibility such as workaholism or acted out through substance abuse, sexual addiction, violence or risky behaviors.  The authors argue that although depression is diagnosed twice as often in women as in men, the fact that much male depression is hidden makes it greatly underdiagnosed and underrecognized.

 The authors argue that male depression has two components.  The first is dissociation from feelings.  Men are raised to suppress and hide their feelings, even from themselves, and many do an admirable job of this.  The second is engaging in behaviors that are destructive to self and others with whom men are in relationship–spouses, partners, children, co-workers.

Unlike some other books on male depression that I have read, this book is carefully prepared, thoughtful and reasoned.  I am enjoying reading it because I like intelligent books and because it is giving me new information about depression–particularly male depression.

Why am I reading it?  Two reasons.  First, I suffered a depressive “crash” about ten years ago and have been in active recovery since that time.  A part of my program for recovery has been to read practically everything I could get my hands on that would help me understand my condition and what I can do about it. 

Second, at the encouragement of my therapists, I have decided to write a book about my experience with depression.  I want to cast it in the context of male depression generally, because my depression looked like male depression often does until I had a breakdown.  It turns out, there are not many books out there about male depression, which is greatly misunderstood and, as I said, underdiagnosed and underrecognized.  So, I am hoping there will be a good market for my book.  I’ll have a lot more to say about male depression and about my book in the future.

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