Okay, so I haven't had cancer. But I know what suffering is like. Suffering is when you hate yourself so much you seriously consider killing yourself...then realize if you did, the world wouldn't so much as skip a heartbeat. Suffering is raw spiritual pain, in every sense Hell, but most notably the scholastic one: separation from the Divine. For the suffering, there is no hope and no God.
Imagine a world where success does not exist. All efforts, though they may result in transitory gains, inevitably slide, entropically, to nothingness. You, too, slide down this path, every joy a false illusion of existence to a reality that wants to destroy your very essence, to erase you from all memory, to obliterate anything and everything that was ever dear, beautiful or precious to you.
Sounds a lot like being a Jew in Nazi Germany, doesn't it?
Now imagine that instead of dying in a concentration camp, you don't get to die. You just linger on and on, growing weaker and more despairing, with brief flashes of happiness that are soon shattered to bring you back to cruel reality.
But that isn't the topper. The topper is that no-one thinks you're suffering. They say it's your fault, that you're mentally weak, that you're nutty, crazy, irrational, noncomformist. And the people saying this aren't just the Nazis walking down the street, it's your friends, family, and loved ones.
Welcome to the Tenth Circle of Hell.
I've lived here since 1992.
I've gotten more or less better with drug- and other- therapies, but quite frankly, I'll never be the same person I was before. Better? Wiser, more easygoing, hopefully more compassionate. But what never fails to surprise me is the callousness and insensitivty of the general public, and even other depressed people -- including in one instance myself! -- towards depressives.
Millions of people in the United States alone suffer from some form of depression. Roughly 1 in 6 people will get the disease at some point in their lives. Only about 2% of the total population becomes bipolar, or manic-depressive, where great joy alternates with great sadness.
Personally, I think any serious form of depression makes any other form of pain look like a day at the beach. I don't fear Hell anymore, and I don't believe in sin. I became depressed for no reason in particular, and have stayed more or less that way despite all my good deeds and noble efforts. Meanwhile, I watch the corrupt and ignorant lead happy lives. Is it any wonder that Divine Justice and Karma are twisted philosophical concepts to me, and an all-loving God a divine joke?
Well, ok, since I've first wrote this I've actually experienced divine love. Scares the Hell out of me, actually. I'll write more on that sometime.
Now, for all you ignorant fools out there who see fit to scorn and degrade we 'insane' folk, let's get our facts straight.
Depression is a scientifically measurable bio-chemical disease. It isn't a choice, it isn't a reaction, it isn't the blues, it isn't something you can get over with some encouraging words from a friend (or an enemy!), or by any effort of will. It is the mental and spiritual equivalent of massive burn trauma, or near-limb-amputation. After all, you don't try and talk a man whose legs have been nearly torn off into getting on the dance floor, do you? Then why do people insist on trivializing a trauma that affects one's psyche to a like extent? Are most people just too stupid and ignorant to see the effects? Is the soul, one's very person, of no consequence? Billions of religious people disagree. I suspect most depressed people would as well.
What's more, sometimes depression happens for no good reason whatsoever. Yes, there are frequently triggers, like the death of a love one or other extreme stresses. But in my case at least, it just happened. Bam!Like a car accident.
What can you do for a depressed person?