The Funny Thing About Depression

               I have dealt with depression for most of my life.  I can’t say that anything ever started it, but there are seasons when things trigger and it is worse.  The thing that is interesting to me is that one of the things that usually raised me out of my sadness is the absolute humor of dealing with people as I deal with depression.  I really don’t think they know what they are doing.

              Two years ago, I hit one of my triggers.  It was interesting because it was one of the first times that I feel like anybody noticed naturally what I was going through.  The funny thing is that he handed me a flier about dealing with depression, said “If you need anything, please let me know,” and walked away.  I wanted to call after him, “No, I should be good.  I got this pamphlet.  Thanks!”

              A few months later, we had a short rash of suicides at the school that I work at.  Two of the students were from my classes.  (Again, one of my colleagues recognized that this might be affecting me specifically – so I did get a huge bucket of cookie dough out of it.)  Since the whole school was on heightened awareness, we got a district booklet.  There were lots of ideas in the booklet of warning signs to look for in depressed individuals.  I tried a few of them to see if anybody would actually notice:  For example I didn’t brush my hair or do any maintenance on my beard for 3 months.  When nobody seemed to notice, I decided to call it a failed experiment and went back to life as normal.

One of the other suggestions in the booklet that I thought was interesting was not to try to befriend a depressed person, but instead to inform social services personnel – I guess friendship with depressed people should be left to paid professionals.  We can’t allow depressed people to have unsupervised friendships.  Who knows what disastrous things could happen?

            Around this same time, Melinda Kathleen Reese started her beautiful mistranslation series called Google Translate Sings.  Her first song came at a very timely moment.  She took the lyrics of "Let It Go" and translated them into other languages and back to English, the result became the theme song of my life for at least a month - "Give Up."  Horrible timing for the message of the song, but it gave me more reasons to laugh.

              I think my favorite story from this particular period of my life is when I came across a spare length of rope.  It was pretty obvious who the rope belonged to, so I thought I would do him a favor and return the rope to him.  He said that he no longer had any need for the rope.  “You can keep it and use it for whatever you may need.”  Since he didn’t need it, I decided the best thing to do would be to throw it away.

              A few weeks later, Robin Williams died (suicide by belt - an option that I'd never before considered - thanks to the national news for adding that little detail).  It was interesting to see how people around me handled the situation and especially the things they said.  “How is it that somebody that is so happy and constantly bringing joy to other people could consider killing themselves?”  Sometimes depressed people use humor to keep themselves sane.  There are humorous things that happen every day.  Sometimes it’s the humor of depression that keeps us going.  Thanks for the laughs.

Why was I affected?

It has been a month since the shooting at Arapahoe.  I am still pretty heartbroken over it.  And I’ve tried over and over to figure out why.  I have many of the same connections as other people:  I went there, I student taught there, I applied to work there, I know people who were there, I work in a school, it happened so close to home, etc.  But I wasn’t there that day.  Why is it still affecting me?

One reason is that I had hope.  When I was a junior in high school, I had a friend die.  I went on a trip and when I came back on Tuesday, I received the news that she was gone.  This gave me something to pray for when I heard about Claire.  There was hope that the ending wouldn’t be the same this time; that these students wouldn’t have to deal with the death of a friend and a fellow student.  It is tough to watch hope die.

A second reason is that I was too busy to care.  When Columbine happened, I was unemployed.  I could drop everything for those who needed to talk; those who needed to hang out.  On September 11th, I was employed very part time and that Tuesday was one of my days off.  I could process and be with others as they processed.  This time, I was committed both Friday night and all day Saturday.  I had work the whole next week.  I didn’t have time to process.  I’m glad that there were a few I got to see, but I didn’t have time to be with many of the others who I would have liked to have been with.

A third reason is because I knew the regrets and hurt that Tracy Murphy was faced with.  About 8 years ago, we had a student at my school who committed suicide in the school parking lot.  Although he did not go on a rampage beforehand, I dealt with all sorts of personal regrets of how I had treated him in the weeks before his death.  In my situation, I wasn’t sure of exactly why the student did what he did.  Mr. Murphy was not given conjecture.  I cannot imagine the sorrow in that heart and I pray for him often.

Finally, I understand the heart of Kyle Pierson.  By all counts, he was a great kid and had a lot going for him.  I too held a grudge against a teacher at Arapahoe.  Although the path I took was very different, I have held bitterness in my heart for over 25 years.  My teacher had no idea of how his words affected me.  He had no idea how alone I felt that day and how his words isolated me even further.  When I consider Kyle, I see significant echoes of my own depressed heart.  Schools around the state are filled with students with emptiness and/or bitterness.  What are we going to do to help them feel connected before they feel that nobody is there with them or for them?

Everybody has processed this incident in their own way, with their own reasons, and in their own time.  Let’s be patient with those who are still hurting.  Let’s be understanding of those who aren’t. Let’s hold out hope to those who need it.  Let’s offer an ear to those who feel isolated and alone.  Let’s make an actual effort – one heart at a time – to make sure that this doesn’t happen again.

Still waiting...

So, my last post was about my Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Week.... It's turned into a month or two.

I noticed today that there is still snow in my parking spot from 3 months ago....

My last week has been particularly awful....

Next week is break - so I get to spend time "relaxing" (aka cleaning the basement, fixing cars, fixing computers, writing computer programs and installing servers - all while being attacked by a 20 mo. and an almost 4 year old kid). My break is over and I don't even remember having it yet....

Oh - and there's a birthday in there somewhere too I guess....

Hoping for a good few days in there somewhere....

Australia here I come...

I know this is a reference that not everybody's going to get, but: Alexander's daddy has had a terrible, horrible, no-good, very-bad week.

Anonymous confessions of a lunatic friend...

This is for a friend of mine: Sunday night my friend had a baby dedication for his 4-month old son. During the dedication, he read a letter of dedication that he and his wife (mostly his wife) wrote together. Now he is getting all sorts of compliments for the things he shared - his wife is getting nothing. Please pray for her that she would realize that the compliments are about the letter and not the horribly sappy way in which the letter was read.