Many moons ago I had a column at the Kodiak Daily Mirror with the same name as this blog. I wrote a personal account of a rather painful part of my life but the column was cut before I ever had a chance to publish it. Over the Thanksgiving break I was able to dig up some print outs of the pieces I wrote that never saw the light of day but the page on depression was the main one I was searching for. It is rather dated now so instead of retyping it I thought I’d rehash the tale of the war within myself I believe I finally won. I know this is a hard time of year for some people so I thought I'd share my experience to remind those who suffer to not give up. Things do get better.
Once upon a time I was a sad little boy. More like a big boy. But sad. Sad for no apparent reason. I had loving middle class parents (still do) , carried a B average (technically C is average so my average was above average) and was successful in sports enough to permanently fool my ego into actually believing I was all that. Life wasn’t perfect but it definitely wasn’t remotely bad.
It was good.
I’m not exactly sure when the first wheel came off. My senior year was filled with disappointments athletically from a losing season in basketball I’d spent five years working towards to breaking my foot in track which caused serious physical pain for a couple years afterward.
College. I’d say it started or at least become outwardly visible to others in college.
For the most part I enjoyed life in the dorms Year 1 & Year 2 and was back in Kodiak for summers, working for the parks department and fishing with my dad in Bristol Bay. Everything was OK. Not good. OK.
Then we took a family vacation to Hawaii for Christmas which I single handedly destroyed with my misery and inability to snap back. Taking a class on genocide that met for three hours every Wednesday night the previous semester probably didn't help. A trigger.
Year 3 & Year 4 weren’t so kind. This was the first time I recall actually being depressed but it was 1992, long before people socially understood and recognized signs of depression as is more common 15 years later in what I call today. I was taking a recreation class that worked with special needs groups, one of the few classes in my area of study not taught by Professor Cannon. I don’t remember the name of the instructor but I recall her asking me once if I was OK but I think she already knew the answer. She could tell something wasn’t right yet I couldn’t see it myself. The concern on her face is burned in my memory. Around the same time I locked myself in the bathroom with the lights out and sobbed when my roommates weren’t around but I wasn’t even sure why I felt so horrid. In fact I never even thought about it as abnormal. I just thought I was having a bad day or two. Every week. For years. Soon my boss in Kodiak recognized this as well although usually coming home would pick me up a bit. His rehiring me every summer actually kept me afloat. Looking back I don’t know how I made it through college. I really don’t know how I survived my internship in Danger Bay for a few months, removed from the world in maybe the most depressing place ever; a logging camp full of redneck mudderphutters from southern Oregon.
I’m driving on two flat tires.
But a day came when even being home for summer didn’t help. Finally at the urging of my mom I very reluctantly went to talk to someone at the mental health center. I was terrified someone I knew would see me going in the front door but this was the first time I was willing to acknowledge I might be a lil f-worded up between the ears. I only went once. After talking to the shrink for an hour I felt embarrassed and unconvinced they could help me. In fact I still wasn't even sure I needed help, it would pass, I was just having a bad day after day after day. I was introduced to anti-depressant medication. Zoloft. I took it for a week then tossed the bottle. My pride would get me out of this was my thinking .
It was my pride that kept me in the dark for years to come.
(FYI: Years later the man I spoke with took his own life)
So I kept plugging along through life drained and down on the inside but making more of an effort to be fun on the exterior. After spending a few years in Kodiak 12 months on and none off an opportunity came to live in San Diego and start a new life. This is where the third wheel came off, the jack broke, and the lug nuts rolled into the sewer.
My first few months were good until I took a job with an abusive boss, got in a car accident, and realized the grass wasn’t much greener there, just snowless. I started the 21st century in a downward spiral only Reznor could toast. I hit the all-day-in-bed stage. I hit the life-isn’t-enjoyable-anymore stage. That is a hard stage to hit in a place that is 75 and sunny everyday. I was living with my sister and to this day I credit her for saving my life that late winter and early spring of 2000. She took me to a mental hospital, one of the scariest places I’ve ever set foot. It had more security levels than TSA at Sea-Tac. The dude in the waiting area was a FREAK. I did an evaluation and was given papers to be committed to the facility but after reading them over and looking around the place it felt like self-imprisonment more than a house of healing so I snuck back to the reception area where my sister was and got the hell out of there. Part of me (a small part) thinks if I’d signed the dotted line I’d still be there today.
So instead I called a number I saw on the back of an entertainment weekly for a clinic doing research on anti-depressant drugs. I called and got an appointment. It was in a very modern office and medical building north of the city. I had the complete opposite feeling at this place. I felt safe. I felt they could help me. Plus it was free. Yes, I was cheap back then too. The doctor heading the study sat me down and gave me a 45 minute questionnaire to fill out When I was done he went over it in his office for about ten minutes, came out and told me I was borderline suicidal, as close to being to that stage without making the last step. Wonderful. Guess who got something new on the market called Paxil? If you said Nick Sandin, you are absolutely correct. And this time I took them.
After a few weeks the drugs started to work. Serotonin, mmmmmmmmmmmm. For the first time in my adult life I felt normal. Of course there are side effects but they didn’t involve rectal bleeding, chest pains, lock jaw, or eight hour boners. A tad barfy once in a while and a weird, indescribable sensation. Not light headedness, light mindedness. I couldn’t focus the same and it pacified me to an extent but if figured it was better than mistaking shot guns with lollipops.
I bought a ticket back to the island. One way. This was the flight I pretended to remove my pecker in put it in an imaginary pickle jar to put on the figurative shelf because I wasn’t going to need it anymore. I was coming back to Kodiak for good. The drugs worked so well I didn’t even find never seeing girls in bikinis on roller blades at Mission Beach again depressing. I switched to Celexa. Why? I think the other stuff was losing its effectiveness but I can’t remember.
So how did I end up on blocks without a rim in sight? I assumed I was cured. I got off meds (they were expensive). Slowly I slipped back. So slowly I didn’t see what was happening. Two years after returning to El Rocko Loco and now on the Job-I-Can’t-Talk-About I crossed paths with a young woman who reminds me of dark yeller-reddish beer (get the jar!). I credit her with helping me find the piece of the puzzle I needed to eventually conquer depression and that was to change my poopy attitude. Basically she said I was so negative about everything and although at times it’s a humor device just as often it was a true reflection of my world view. So sad. One day she came over to the house and I was in complete shut down mode, in bed at 3pm, refused to talk to or be seen by anyone. She saw me. A week later she quit seeing me permanently (there is another story that goes with this but I still think the living dead boyfriend thang was the true demise of that one). I don’t blame her at all and this was a wake-up call to once and for all take care of this….(Yes, you get to finish a sentence. Pick one.)
a. before another fall.
b. hit another wall.
c. continue to cry and bawl.
Introducing Welbutrin. We dated for eight months straight (and didn’t hang out with my 12oz friends for 13 months). But there was more to this. My doctor recommended I talk to a pro again and he pleaded with me that I go a full TEN SESSIONS. I didn’t even put up a fight and made an appointment with Solutions (486-5017). Just like the mid-nineties I was completely paranoid somebody would spy me going into the office. I didn’t even like parking near the building. My first sit down with Peter wasn’t that eventful, just going over my background and looking for things in my life that might trigger episodes of depression, blah blah blah. The second session wasn’t mind-blowing either. The third was. JC with a side of rice, a breakthrough. I learned something about myself that day that forever changed me. I looked forward to session four. And five. I did all ten.
That was over four years ago now and I’ve never relapsed. Maybe the AA one-day-@-a-time mentality is in order but I’m sure I have a handle on this now. My problem now is I lost the pickle jar. Damnit.
As we literally enter the darkest part of the year when the sun starts putting in five hour work day it can be Xtra hard in Alaska, Land of the Midday Moon. Don’t even think yer alone with a problem like I described above, millions of people deal with it, even as high as one in five ’Mericans. Some figures you may have heard of who’ve suffered a similar circumstance include Drew Carey, the late Princess Di, Lincoln, Churchill, Yeltsin, Harrison Ford, and Mike Wallace.
Depression is real. Depression is real dangerous. I see it as no different than cancer or heart disease. I can name about half a dozen Kodiakians who took their life in 2007. It needs to be zero in 2008. OK, I have a degree in recreation administration so I’m about 180 degrees from being a doctor but I would advise anyone who feels like s#!t all the time to seriously get help. Talk to yer regular physician. Today. Please. And if no one else will listen to you, I will.
Once upon a time I was a sad little boy. More like a big boy. But sad. Sad for no apparent reason. I had loving middle class parents (still do) , carried a B average (technically C is average so my average was above average) and was successful in sports enough to permanently fool my ego into actually believing I was all that. Life wasn’t perfect but it definitely wasn’t remotely bad.
It was good.
I’m not exactly sure when the first wheel came off. My senior year was filled with disappointments athletically from a losing season in basketball I’d spent five years working towards to breaking my foot in track which caused serious physical pain for a couple years afterward.
College. I’d say it started or at least become outwardly visible to others in college.
For the most part I enjoyed life in the dorms Year 1 & Year 2 and was back in Kodiak for summers, working for the parks department and fishing with my dad in Bristol Bay. Everything was OK. Not good. OK.
Then we took a family vacation to Hawaii for Christmas which I single handedly destroyed with my misery and inability to snap back. Taking a class on genocide that met for three hours every Wednesday night the previous semester probably didn't help. A trigger.
Year 3 & Year 4 weren’t so kind. This was the first time I recall actually being depressed but it was 1992, long before people socially understood and recognized signs of depression as is more common 15 years later in what I call today. I was taking a recreation class that worked with special needs groups, one of the few classes in my area of study not taught by Professor Cannon. I don’t remember the name of the instructor but I recall her asking me once if I was OK but I think she already knew the answer. She could tell something wasn’t right yet I couldn’t see it myself. The concern on her face is burned in my memory. Around the same time I locked myself in the bathroom with the lights out and sobbed when my roommates weren’t around but I wasn’t even sure why I felt so horrid. In fact I never even thought about it as abnormal. I just thought I was having a bad day or two. Every week. For years. Soon my boss in Kodiak recognized this as well although usually coming home would pick me up a bit. His rehiring me every summer actually kept me afloat. Looking back I don’t know how I made it through college. I really don’t know how I survived my internship in Danger Bay for a few months, removed from the world in maybe the most depressing place ever; a logging camp full of redneck mudderphutters from southern Oregon.
I’m driving on two flat tires.
But a day came when even being home for summer didn’t help. Finally at the urging of my mom I very reluctantly went to talk to someone at the mental health center. I was terrified someone I knew would see me going in the front door but this was the first time I was willing to acknowledge I might be a lil f-worded up between the ears. I only went once. After talking to the shrink for an hour I felt embarrassed and unconvinced they could help me. In fact I still wasn't even sure I needed help, it would pass, I was just having a bad day after day after day. I was introduced to anti-depressant medication. Zoloft. I took it for a week then tossed the bottle. My pride would get me out of this was my thinking .
It was my pride that kept me in the dark for years to come.
(FYI: Years later the man I spoke with took his own life)
So I kept plugging along through life drained and down on the inside but making more of an effort to be fun on the exterior. After spending a few years in Kodiak 12 months on and none off an opportunity came to live in San Diego and start a new life. This is where the third wheel came off, the jack broke, and the lug nuts rolled into the sewer.
My first few months were good until I took a job with an abusive boss, got in a car accident, and realized the grass wasn’t much greener there, just snowless. I started the 21st century in a downward spiral only Reznor could toast. I hit the all-day-in-bed stage. I hit the life-isn’t-enjoyable-anymore stage. That is a hard stage to hit in a place that is 75 and sunny everyday. I was living with my sister and to this day I credit her for saving my life that late winter and early spring of 2000. She took me to a mental hospital, one of the scariest places I’ve ever set foot. It had more security levels than TSA at Sea-Tac. The dude in the waiting area was a FREAK. I did an evaluation and was given papers to be committed to the facility but after reading them over and looking around the place it felt like self-imprisonment more than a house of healing so I snuck back to the reception area where my sister was and got the hell out of there. Part of me (a small part) thinks if I’d signed the dotted line I’d still be there today.
So instead I called a number I saw on the back of an entertainment weekly for a clinic doing research on anti-depressant drugs. I called and got an appointment. It was in a very modern office and medical building north of the city. I had the complete opposite feeling at this place. I felt safe. I felt they could help me. Plus it was free. Yes, I was cheap back then too. The doctor heading the study sat me down and gave me a 45 minute questionnaire to fill out When I was done he went over it in his office for about ten minutes, came out and told me I was borderline suicidal, as close to being to that stage without making the last step. Wonderful. Guess who got something new on the market called Paxil? If you said Nick Sandin, you are absolutely correct. And this time I took them.
After a few weeks the drugs started to work. Serotonin, mmmmmmmmmmmm. For the first time in my adult life I felt normal. Of course there are side effects but they didn’t involve rectal bleeding, chest pains, lock jaw, or eight hour boners. A tad barfy once in a while and a weird, indescribable sensation. Not light headedness, light mindedness. I couldn’t focus the same and it pacified me to an extent but if figured it was better than mistaking shot guns with lollipops.
I bought a ticket back to the island. One way. This was the flight I pretended to remove my pecker in put it in an imaginary pickle jar to put on the figurative shelf because I wasn’t going to need it anymore. I was coming back to Kodiak for good. The drugs worked so well I didn’t even find never seeing girls in bikinis on roller blades at Mission Beach again depressing. I switched to Celexa. Why? I think the other stuff was losing its effectiveness but I can’t remember.
So how did I end up on blocks without a rim in sight? I assumed I was cured. I got off meds (they were expensive). Slowly I slipped back. So slowly I didn’t see what was happening. Two years after returning to El Rocko Loco and now on the Job-I-Can’t-Talk-About I crossed paths with a young woman who reminds me of dark yeller-reddish beer (get the jar!). I credit her with helping me find the piece of the puzzle I needed to eventually conquer depression and that was to change my poopy attitude. Basically she said I was so negative about everything and although at times it’s a humor device just as often it was a true reflection of my world view. So sad. One day she came over to the house and I was in complete shut down mode, in bed at 3pm, refused to talk to or be seen by anyone. She saw me. A week later she quit seeing me permanently (there is another story that goes with this but I still think the living dead boyfriend thang was the true demise of that one). I don’t blame her at all and this was a wake-up call to once and for all take care of this….(Yes, you get to finish a sentence. Pick one.)
a. before another fall.
b. hit another wall.
c. continue to cry and bawl.
Introducing Welbutrin. We dated for eight months straight (and didn’t hang out with my 12oz friends for 13 months). But there was more to this. My doctor recommended I talk to a pro again and he pleaded with me that I go a full TEN SESSIONS. I didn’t even put up a fight and made an appointment with Solutions (486-5017). Just like the mid-nineties I was completely paranoid somebody would spy me going into the office. I didn’t even like parking near the building. My first sit down with Peter wasn’t that eventful, just going over my background and looking for things in my life that might trigger episodes of depression, blah blah blah. The second session wasn’t mind-blowing either. The third was. JC with a side of rice, a breakthrough. I learned something about myself that day that forever changed me. I looked forward to session four. And five. I did all ten.
That was over four years ago now and I’ve never relapsed. Maybe the AA one-day-@-a-time mentality is in order but I’m sure I have a handle on this now. My problem now is I lost the pickle jar. Damnit.
As we literally enter the darkest part of the year when the sun starts putting in five hour work day it can be Xtra hard in Alaska, Land of the Midday Moon. Don’t even think yer alone with a problem like I described above, millions of people deal with it, even as high as one in five ’Mericans. Some figures you may have heard of who’ve suffered a similar circumstance include Drew Carey, the late Princess Di, Lincoln, Churchill, Yeltsin, Harrison Ford, and Mike Wallace.
Depression is real. Depression is real dangerous. I see it as no different than cancer or heart disease. I can name about half a dozen Kodiakians who took their life in 2007. It needs to be zero in 2008. OK, I have a degree in recreation administration so I’m about 180 degrees from being a doctor but I would advise anyone who feels like s#!t all the time to seriously get help. Talk to yer regular physician. Today. Please. And if no one else will listen to you, I will.
