Depression

Depression

By

Gary Primo

August 29, 2011

Depression is something that is difficult for anyone who has not experienced it to fathom. Although I took classes in psychology in college, I can in no way classify myself as an expert on the subject. There are many different types of depression and I believe the so-called experts are still struggling to understand it all themselves. I can only speak from my personal experience with the phenomenon. For many it is only a temporary state, such as after losing a loved one. But for many others it is a lifetime ordeal that is as crippling as being a quadriplegic.

My ex-wife was manic depressive. This is also known as bi-polar depression. This is one of the more severe, life-long types I mentioned above. I had no understanding of the disorder at all before I met Beth. Naturally it caused a certain degree of tension between us in the beginning. I thought she was just being lazy and would often lose my temper with her. Eventually I found that losing my temper only made matters worse. Then one day the truth suddenly occurred to me that she was not lazy, but mentally crippled by the disease, and I asked her, “It’s not laziness, is it? You are really that depressed.” It was after that that she sought help for the illness. Unfortunately she did not stick to the program and ended supplementing her meds with massive doses of codeine and eventually crack cocaine. The end result was that she died at the age of 47 from lung and brain cancer.

There is usually some sort of traumatic event that triggers depression. In Beth’s case it was early childhood sexual abuse. As far as she could remember it began around the age of 5. However, she had repressed much of what happened to her and we will never know the full degree of abuse she suffered. Beth died of cancer in May of 2010 and took those repressed memories to the grave with her. Although many doctors may not recognize multiple personality disorder, I do. I witnessed it with Beth. I recognized at least 3 different personalities in her. Scripturally it may be what is referred to as demon possession. She was at her worst when she drank alcohol, and since most of her family seemed to be genetically disposed to lean towards alcoholism, it was a constant struggle to keep her off of it. I would often find empty liquor bottles and six-packs of beer hidden away in the strangest places. Beth was on lithium for her depression, but was also prescribed 100 Tylenol 3s a month for pain from other ailments. On top of all that she took about 200 Tylenol 1s a week. That’s right, a week. After we divorced this number shot up to 600 a week at one point and then leveled off to 400. These pills contained codeine, which is a heroin derivative and turns back into heroin once it enters the body. So it can be truthfully said that she was a heroin addict. Neither of us realized that fact until late in her life.

Beth would be on and off her therapy and medication all the time. She attempted suicide too many times to remember the count. She experienced all the highs and lows that bi-polar disease is known for. Looking back now, I suspect that this was due to her different personalities warring with one another. When I was in college I was in charge of the Peer Helper Program and one mature student I was helping was a woman who had 13 different personalities. That was really freaky. Looking into her eyes was like looking into a deep, dark abyss. Her disorder also stemmed from severe sexual abuse as a child. After meeting her, I felt fortunate that Beth only had 3 personalities that we had to deal with.

These two cases were samples of severe depression. More general depression is easier to deal with and treat. My depression began after Beth and I separated for the final time. I had found out that she had been meeting other men through the internet and was meeting them at motels for sexual escapades. One of my daughters, who was 15 at the time, got into her email somehow and read some of the exchanges, which were pretty graphic. My 15 year old told my oldest daughter (from a previous marriage) who confronted Beth and let her know that the jig was up. Beth told her that she would tell me about it, but Jennifer came to me first anyway. Naturally I was angry and called an end to the marriage. She was already prepared for that and had already arranged for a girlfriend from Toronto to pick her up and move her to the city. That friend happened to be a crack head and soon Beth was into that too. For all I know she could have been into it before she left.

Beth showed no interest in taking our 2 girls with her at any time afterward. That told me that it was not only me she wanted to escape from, but her life in general. Of course I have no idea what was going on in her mind after that. Personally, I believe that a fourth personality may have emerged at that time. And what I mean by "personality" Yahushua would have referred to as a demon. She never saw the guy again that she cheated on me with but eventually found a nice fellow who would support her, feel sorry for her and turn a blind eye to everything she was doing on the side. If he had of known that she was still on the crack he would have left her. However, he worked out of town all the time and Beth had a free reign while he was gone. She managed to keep it from him till the day she died.

After Beth left all I felt at first was anger. I was attending college at the time training in home and business automation. One day soon after Beth’s departure, I was driving to the college and suddenly it hit me that she was gone for good. I started crying and couldn't stop for the rest of that day. I tried as hard as I could to pull myself together and attend my first class but that turned out to be a bad idea. I walked out of class and went to the instructor’s office to let him know what was going on and cried in his office as well. I just couldn’t stop the tears. I went home and pretty much cried for the rest of the day. I e-mailed Beth the same day and told her that I could forgive what she had done and was willing to take her back, but she wanted none of it. She had already put her past life behind her and wanted to move on. It took me a while, but I finally accepted it and moved on myself.

The next traumatic event in my life was the house fire that left my two daughters and I with just the clothes on our backs. We had been in the house 22 years. Both of my youngest two girls were raised there. It was just a 1,000 square foot winterized cottage on ¾ of an acre of land with water access to the lake, but I loved it there. Shortly before the fire, the insurance company had sent an inspector around and he had marked off a number of deficiencies. At the time I was off work awaiting knee surgery. Since I was self employed I had very limited income coming in and could not afford the repairs. They cancelled my insurance and before I could get more I would have had to complete the repairs. It was during this time that the fire happened. The cause was never determined. I suspect our 5 month old Rotti puppy was the culprit; that she must have dragged something combustible over against the glass door of the propane stove and it ignited. The only thing the fire marshal could determine was that it started in the area of the stove.

Fortunately none of the family was home at the time. A neighbor got our older dog out but the pup did not respond to his calls and the smoke was too intense for him to enter the house. I was left with $90,000 in debt between my mortgage and a line of credit. On top of that I had to rent a place to live with my two girls and had a whole new set of payments to deal with. I had to walk away from the $90,000 debt. I couldn’t even afford to declare bankruptcy. On top of all that, the house I rented turned out to be very costly for heating. It used oil and during the colder winter months was costing $800 a month. I had to borrow money from friends and relatives to keep the place in oil. That, of course put me further in debt with all the other utilities. We then had to move out of that place and into an apartment where we are now living.

Although I did not suffer as much as Job did, I certainly understood what he had gone through. We received a lot of help from friends and neighbors in getting set up with new furniture and other household needs, for which I am eternally grateful. The one thing I can say to True Believers is not to count non-believers out when it comes to charity. If I ever find myself in the position to give back to the town that opened their arms up to me I certainly will.

The third and finally trauma that effected my depression was when Beth died of cancer last May. We had remained friends and I really did still love her. Her death hit me as hard as it would have if we were still married. Naturally, it was up to her new boyfriend to take care of the cremation details and costs. I felt like I was on the sidelines looking in which felt weird after sharing 24 years of our lives together. A new form of grieving began. I really didn’t care about much of anything besides my children after that and it was my children that held me together. Mainly I just sat around the house watching TV all day. I seldom visited or talked to anyone by phone. I threw all the collection notices unopened into the garbage and ignored their phone calls. The only thing that I did not ignore was maintaining my website for YHVH. I believe that is what kept me sane (if you want to call it that).

Between then and now I discovered simple ways of dealing with my depression without going to doctors or taking their drugs. The first and simplest thing is not to turn on the TV as soon as you get up in the morning. Usually I work on my articles as soon as I get up. Believe it or not, walking my dog helps my depression. It forces me to have to get out of the house at least 4-5 times a day, get some exercise and fresh air and stop and chat with the neibours.

Maintaining social interaction is also important for relieving depression. With the help of one of my customers who was a professional singer, I became interested in singing and started going to Karaoke once a week. It turned out that singing is one more talent that I have and receive compliments regularly. Many people could not believe that I had never sung professionally. However, at the age of 60 I do not believe that it is a realistic goal for me to pursue. Yet I find singing is an excellent way to release what is pent up inside of me and to get back the normal emotions I felt that had permanently left me.

Besides singing and writing for my web site, I also have several other writing projects on the go which I hope to get published some day. I never really analyzed my natural methods for dealing with my depression until I saw a movie recently called “The Beaver” with Mel Gibson and Jody Foster. Jody Foster directed the movie and I highly recommend watching it. I don’t know if this movie was based on a true story or not but Gibson plays a man who inherits a toy manufacturing company from his father but sinks into a deep depression (apparently a hereditary thing) and the company is looming on financial collapse. Gibson had not seen his psychiatrist in over a year and was not taking his prescribed medications and, of course was getting steadily worse, to the point where he could barely get out of bed. Gibson’s wife (Jodie Foster) finally had enough and asks him to leave the family home to live on his own. While getting rid of some unwanted items, Gibson finds a beaver hand puppet in the dumpster and for whatever reason decides to keep it. He was firmly committed to committing suicide that night but just as he was about to jump off his 10^th floor balcony, he thinks he hears the puppet, which is on his hand, speak to him and falls backwards into the apartment and is knocked unconscious when the television set falls on his head. When he wakes up he finds that his mind has created an entirely new personality where he can only function normally through the puppet. He even speaks with an Australian accent instead of his former American accent. His wife and children are totally confused at first and except for his eldest son, come to accept and embrace his new personality. I won’t tell you anymore because I don’t want to ruin the movie for you.

The character in this movie was extremely depressed and used extreme measures to deal with it. The point was that by creating this new personality he buried the old depressed personality and was able to move on. After I finished watching the movie, I realized that I was striving to do basically the same thing that Gibson did. One thing I did not want to do was go back to doing drywall. My physical afflictions are too severe to handle the work anymore and after sanding, I am sick for days. I have been looking for at-home work that I can do on the computer instead – such as proof reading and editing. Currently I am known locally as Gary Primo the dry-waller. I am striving to change that to Gary Primo the writer (i.e. change my personality in a similar way that Gibson did). I have even considered using my birth name, Ian Michael Wyse, as a pen name if I publish any of my work. It is interesting just how the mind works. Therefore, I have created my own list for combating depression. They are as follows.

1 – Turn on the radio, instead of the TV in the morning when you get up. The saying is quite true that “idyll hands are the devil’s helper”.

2 – Get out of your pajamas, into the shower and into some clean clothes every day. That will make you want to get out of the house, since you are already to go out anyway. Get into a regular exercise program – walk, jog or ride a bicycle. Having an exercise “buddy” is helpful for those who can’t stick to a regulated exercise program on their own.

3 – Get busy by setting goals and working at achieving them. Start with small goals at first – daily ones like doing house work, yard work, any of those little projects around the house that you have been promising yourself you were going to get around to someday. Once that starts going well, begin setting more long term goals such as a career change (if you are not happy with what you are doing now).

4 - If you do not have a job to go to, find some volunteer work in the community to get involved in. This will not only help you to meet and get to know people in your community, but might lead to paid work.

5 – Find a hobby or activity to involve yourself in. Perhaps you have had ideas or talents you have suppressed all these years. Pursue them aggressively.

6 – If you are taking drugs (including alcohol) for you depression, prescribed or otherwise, try to wean yourself off of them. They only mask the symptoms and create a dependency that will eventually heighten the depression and lead to more problems.

7 – Seek out YHWH and pray to Him for strength in pursuing healthy methods of dealing with your depression.

The human mind is really a marvelous thing. The medical profession has only touched on truly understanding it and focuses more on band-aid solutions rather than getting to the root of the problem and fixing it. Try making a check list of your strengths and weaknesses and check it every day to see what progress you are making or not making. Push yourself to make the necessary changes in your life. Try you best to detach yourself from the old depressed person that you were and become a new person who is seeking healthy alternatives and exciting goals.

Always remember that Yahushua opened a door to all Believers so that they have free and open access to the Father 24/7. That means that we are all like high priests who have no need of a mediator between themselves and our Creator. YHWH desires for all of us to succeed. He hears our prayers and even though He does not always answer in the way we would like Him to, He does often lead us in a different direction that usually ends up being better for us that what we desired. If we truly open up our hearts and allow YHWH to fully indwell us, we will see life altering changes and know the joy that being of one mind with YHWH brings.

YHWH Bless

Gary Primo