Help me live

Depression

I bet most of you know someone or at least heard of someone who has committed suicide. Most of these people family and friends always seems surprised, shocked and in disbelief. Reactions range from anger to how could this person be so selfish. And 90% of the time the big question why did he/she not say anything, not asked for help?

Depression is complex, it’s hard to describe, it differs in reason, in intensity and finally in solution.

Quite a lot of medical professionals (especially after a suicide) try to console the family by describing depression as something out of the persons control, brain chemistry that changed an illness that no one could do anything about. Don’t get me wrong depression is an illness that I know for sure. Until you yourselves haven’t experienced the earth shattering feeling of darkness descending on you, the feeling of no hope, no way out, you will never fully comprehend depression. Something goes wrong in you and you don’t know what to do.

Most depression suffers willtell you they don’t know why they feel like they do, there is no reason.

This in my opinion is not true. Somewhere something went wrong or like in my case 1000 things went wrong. It may have started out as small things, struggling to make friends, weight issues, falling in love with the wrong person, losing someone close to you, work issues, money issues, struggling to strive.

The weight of the world can land on your shoulders very easily, and most people will say work harder on your relationships, the people you lost is in a better place, work harder, don’t be lazy, stop feeling sorry for yourself. I made a success of my life you can to, do you think I don’t have problems you don’t see me pulling the covers over my head.

Now there is where my problem comes in with the saying “why didn’t he or she tell someone”. Because people judge you the second you tell them your problems, they shy away because if they get involved they are scared it will become their problems.

What if I tell you that as I am writing this I am contemplating suicide, I have worked it out in my head a thousand times. And may I say I am quite rational, I am well aware of who will get hurt, I am well aware of how devastating it’s going to be for my family. Will you go out of your way to try and help me?

Have your heart ever constricted so much that you can’t breathe. Trying waking up every morning with that feeling and going to bed at night feeling like you are suffocating , like someone is sitting on your chest. Do you know how it feels to live from month to month worry about every little thing you need to do just keeping afloat?

And no my problems is not because I don’t try or work as hard as others, or don’t have my priorities straight. Because I can tell you I work harder than most, I work 7 days a week with one week holiday a year, I take care of my parents because no one else will, I make sure my son has everything he needs, even it means cutting every possible thing I need to the bare minimum(that’s what parents do). I go to family functions even if I hate every second, I watch people look down on me because I should have amounted to so much more. I was the bright child, the one who went to university, the one who should have conquered the world.But I was only 19 years old when everything come crashing down, my parent went insolvent, my mom develop a heart condition, my dad got Alzheimer’s, I didn’t finish my Honnors degree(money ran out) the list goes on.

I have gone through every step I took from that second, the second I had to grow up, every wrong turn, every possible thing I should have done differently. I thought about every way I can think about to get out of this mess of a life I made. And I can’t find the answer.

Life gets to be too much for some people and others cope, maybe it’s a flaw in our DNA, or maybe just maybeit’s a flaw in mankind. How many people do you know in your own immediate circle that struggles? Who struggle to get a decent job, or people who has spouses or children who is sick, struggle with illness, struggle with ADHD children, or getting their child to pass a grade. People who gets knock down no matter how hard they try to get up? What do you do? Are you secretly glad it’s not you, do you give your condolences and move on? Or even better are you one of whose people you give unwanted and useless advice? Some people rather just turns a blind eye, as the saying goes not my monkeys not my circus.

So yes every suicidal person may not go onto the roof top and shout there is something wrong with me, I am not coping! I can’t figure this thing called life out. People with depression do try to reach out to someone. In some way they try to let someone know they are drowning, society is just to numb to listen.

The people that will be attending my funeral will say they never knew it was this bad, some will be angry because some of my problems will be forced on to them, some will blame others for not doing anything. Some will try to get as far away as possible from the havoc my death brought. And same will shed a tear for what is lost.

Do I think my life is fixable?

I have spent countless nights trying to figure out my problems (believe me my life will make a bad book as most people will say so many things can’t go wrong in one person’s life). I tried to narrow down my problems into chapters.

• Job problems
• Weight loss
• Marital problems
• Trying to be a good person, or at least halfway decent. Being a good parent, is not easy, being a good parent with the weight of the world on your shoulders, not something I will recommend.
• Hating every person that has a happy life

Trying to run your own business, keeping a roof over everyone’s head, trying to plan for the future, trying to get to a point where I can grow, expand, employ more people, buy more machinery.

Eating is basically my way of consoling myself. It’s my security blanket. (Thin people will look at you in disgust because don’t you have self-control)

Believe it or not marriages can only survive so much, and depression is an almost definite marriage killer.

No that is really wrong, people can’t help that they are happy and you are not. It’s not their fault. And the thing is, it’s not their fault. But I still hate them.

I look at them and think what made you special, why were you born beautiful, smart, in to a rich family, why did your business boom in the first year, why are you healthy and full of energy, etc. Some of these people I look at has no depth, no understanding of anything meaningful and still they got the package(or at least much more of the package than I did).

So if try to connect my major problems to the root of where it went wrong the conclusion is money, (the root of all evil)

So do my family know I am struggling, yes they do, have they ever helped? No as I said not my monkeys not my circus. I know some of them can’t help and that’s ok, some turns a blind eye, and some gives unwanted useless advice. (Like my sister in law telling me her bosses stay at home wife gives this awesome classes to develop children’s motor skills at preschools, she know I love children maybe I should try that) Keep in mind I work 7 days a week with my husband manufacturing and selling furniture. I am the sales person, accounting person, stock controller, marketing person, and every person in between. So yes maybe I should try giving classes to pre-schoolers as well.

I once ask my brother to help with my parents, he answer was, I am already miserable he won’t be to. He will not give anything up for which he and his wife worked so hard for. They deserve the estate house, the weekend away every month, the holidays abroad and the golf course in their back yard. It’s not his problem. But it is mine as my heart is soft, they are my parents.

Do I think I will ever be able to make enough money to be OK? No I don’t, not before it’s too late, not before I lose my sanity, not before my health hits rock bottom. Do you think I want to leave the people I care about behind. NO. Do you think I don’t know it won’t solve any problems? Do you think I don’t cry myself to sleep every night knowing at some stage my child is going to be without me. People with depression do have feelings, they are rational, they just don’t know what to do anymore. They can’t take the pain anymore, something got to give.

So to go back to the question why did he/she not say anything, asked for help? We do ask maybe not in so many words but we do. Somewhere we showed our weak side our flaws, and society ignored, shamed, or turned their backs.

Why did I write this, I am not sure, maybe to proof a point, maybe because I don’t want to die, maybe it’s just one last attempt to proof myself wrong that people do care.

I have started this crowed funding profile to proof to myself people do care. Maybe to proof to people that are suicidal to scream louder. To keep asking.