Early last Monday morning I fell into a fitful sleep on my couch watching the Weather Channel. I had been talking to Sights on Yahoo most of the night, and posting here in preparation for Hurricane Wilma. I nodded off around 2:30 am with hard cold rain, and gusty winds.

At about 6:45 am I was awakened by the phone ringing. The phone service disconnected before I could answer. The first sensation at that point was the sound. 120mph winds sound nothing like a freight train, but no other description applies. The vertical blinds on our door wall were dancing and bouncing around, and I could feel gusts of wind on my feet. I looked outside but could see nothing because of the dark. My work Nextell was still working so I called my boss and had him call my wife and tell her I was OK, and to stay at work. By now it was 7:15 or so and a weak dawn was coming. I looked out the sliders again and saw a 12 foot or so section of palm tree trunk go torpedoing past at waist height. It hit 2 other trees farther down, taking them out.

At this point I noticed that the glass on the sliders was moving in and out about an inch. Fear set in, and rather deep at that. I spent 7 months in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Iraq in Gulf War I. I have, as they say, "seen the elephant", but I have never in my life been more scared than I was Monday morning. I locked up, standing there at the sliding glass doors looking out into hell. My dog was next to me barking his head off, but I couldn't really hear it over the nothing like a freight train noise. What broke the spell was a tree falling on my neighbor's Volvo.

At this point I did the only sensible thing: Downed half a bottle of NyQuil and went to bed.

When I next awoke it was around 10:30. The sun was shining and the wind gusting. It was a pleasant 70 degrees. I harnessed the dog, and we went walking around the complex to survey the damage. About 85% of the trees were down. The 2 lakes on property were semi-flooded. A motorcycle had been blown through the back window of an SUV. Roof tiles were broken on the ground. The radio was playing a litinay of the destruction. The eye had made landfall 22 miles from us, between Everglades City and Marco Island. Roads were flooded and undermined.

I was able to borrow a neighbors cell phone and call my wife at work, and let her know it was safe to come home. We had no water, no power and no phone. My wife got home around noon. She went to bed after we talked for a bit, and I napped on the couch. After a bit I called my boss on my Nextel, and was told I had to be at work Tuesday. I borrowed a neighbor's cell and called my mom and let her know I was OK. It got dark. I read for a bit, switched off the flashlight and cried myself to sleep.

I woke up, took a cold bucket bath and went to work. Power was out, so we just shared stories. The phones at work were still on, so we were able to contact some of our customers. We left at 5 because of the curfew. The water was back on, but there was a boil order in effect. The fridge reminded me that I should have cooked that Salmon fillet. Wednesday: Another Bucket bath, more standing around at work. I got ahold of friends to let them know I was OK. Power came back on around 4am at home. Power came back on at work Thursday. The weekend was a fair imitation of normal. And today, one week later it all seems a vivid nightmare. Except for the dreams...

The blare of the trumpet, the peal of the bell. Peeling the belle after the ball. Words are strange, funny, easily manipulated, and often bent beyond the point of breaking by our devious little minds.

There are always words we do not want to hear, words we do, and words that scare and thrill us. The word “Alone” brings instantly to mind what it means. “Desolate” the same. 

Emotionally things have been very rough lately. There are several reasons, which for the moment I will keep to myself and I have control of most of them. However, some random ones are still rattling around my head, taking longer for me to capture, longer for me to subdue them, trace them back to the source, and interrogate to find their source. In many ways this is the hardest part of overcoming depression, as sometimes these thoughts are coming from external sources —static, if you will—that confuses your own processes.

“2 Corinthians 10:5

English Standard Version (ESV)

⁵ We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ”

So says St. Paul. The concept of capturing thought is crucial to recovery. In the context of the quoted passage it is the recovery of the sinner, saved by Grace, to move toward the goal of living in Glory with Christ (highly simplified, there is a lot of meat there, and not where I wanted to spend this particular love letter to myself…). For me today it is these four words: Take Every Thought Captive. As one who is recovering from depression those words are a key to freedom, for me anyway.

Random thoughts are always popping into my head, they have since I was a child. Perhaps I am not alone in this, can’t say though as I am me, not someone else. For a vast majority of the time these thoughts are harmless and pass right through without stopping anywhere else. Then there are the ones that rattle around a bit then go off to explore other spots. The sticky ones are the most interesting. Sometimes they are good thoughts, sometimes bad. Regardless, the thoughts need to be captured so you can either refute them if bad, or reinforce if they are good. I’m going to get snooty now and use a big complex word. The bad thoughts need exegesis to see where they came from, have they caused any damage, and were you in a thought trap (the beginning of negative circular thinking) when it struck. (From our always correct friends at Wikipedia:  Exegesis (from the Greek ἐξήγησις from ἐξηγεῖσθαι 'to lead out') is a critical explanation or interpretation of a text, especially a religious text. Traditionally the term was used primarily for exegesis of the Bible; however, in contemporary usage it has broadened to mean a critical explanation of any text, and the term "Biblical exegesis" is used for greater specificity.)

So a bad thought comes in, you recognize it as such (hopefully before it causes any damage), you chase it down, and discover the cause. You then apply the lesson learned to catch them earlier, and ultimately not have them anymore. So, again using the language of recovery, you need to begin to recognize triggers to certain behaviors. Recognize how you react, what they are, and most importantly how to avoid them. Some of these triggers are deeply implanted and will take a lot of time to root out, but again recognition of them, and changing your behavior when they go off is the important bit.

Baby steps

Trying to get healthy is not much fun. At the age of 42, with mounting health concerns I have decided to make an effort at doing all the things I should have done at 25 or so but didn’t as I was (am to be honest) lazy.

Eating right has not been a struggle, as because of my circumstances I am living back with my mother. Since she buys the food, there is not a lot of crap. Also I find that being perpetually broke makes the temptation of McTacoFood easy to ignore. The difficult bits have been pop (or soda if you are reading this anywhere but Michigan) and exercise.

Recently I have made myself start walking. This has been an effort, as inertia has kept me motionless for longer than I care to remember. I have taken the lessons learned from a class I took at the VA regarding depression and applied them to this circumstance. The specific lesson was on just getting up and doing something, anything, because just sitting there makes things worse. You may not want to do it, but if you force yourself to start it gets easier and easier, and next thing you know it becomes a habit and you start to enjoy it.

I applied this to another aspect of my life to great success. As a teenager I was into fantasy role-playing and tabletop war gaming. Part of this entailed painting the pieces involved in playing the games. In January of this year, pushed by my desire to no longer be depressed, I started back with the war gaming. I rediscovered how much I enjoyed working on the intricate models, and that I was actually good at it. Not great, but good. And that is enough for me. Plus I enjoy the game immensely, and I have met some wonderful people that I am glad to call friends now.

So I have taken that theory (just move!) and applied it to walking every day. I put my headphones in, turn on the Internet radio station on my smart phone, and go. Currently I am living near a lake, so I walk there and back in a loop. I have a few different loops that I use with distances that vary from one and a half miles to two and a half miles. As I get better and stronger I will add distance. Come the cold, I may have to adjust things, but that is months away, I can come up with a plan later.

Dancing on the edge of the shadows is where I am most comfortable. At the edge of the crowd, almost fitting in but yet somehow apart. The beginnings are always great, but near the middle something goes wrong, and the end is never what I thought it would be. I wander off into the night, alone. Behind me is a wasteland of memories, jumbled and confused. If I go back I get lost. Ahead is uncertainty and doubt. If I go forward I get confused.

I spent 20 some years in a hole, lost to depression. Sometimes it wasn't bad; sometimes it was Hell on Earth. Everything I did was colored by the fact I was sad, and the colors were always dark.

Now I am not depressed, all the time anyway. I have moments, but the moments are exactly that, not a year, or a decade, or my whole adult life. Trying to describe that feeling to someone who doesn't know is an exercise in futility. I have the words to tell you about it, and you hear what I am saying, but you can’t comprehend, as words can’t do it justice. If we could talk with color and sound and a background, maybe, just maybe you would grasp the edge of understanding.

I am not trying to make myself more important, or mysterious. Unless you have been there, you can’t know. Even, I suppose, if you have been there you may not get it, as your there is not my there. I have learned that there are some constants with depression, but the abstracts, the way you feel, the sensations, are different as you and I are different. It has been described as a hole, a ball and chain, an abyss, a well, a small room, darkness, a weight, apathy. All are correct, all have similar color, similar feel, but the execution is different in every case. We all have different mothers.

For me depression was selfish. I cared about others in the abstract, but I was more focused on myself and how awful I was, how miserable my existence was, how my was wasn't  I could make the right noises, parrot phrases, think on my feet to adapt and react to situations. But inside I cared only about my misery.

Medication works, and it works well. If prescribed correctly, if taken properly, if backed up by good care meds can literally change your life. If just taken, haphazardly, with no back up, they work for a while. Then when you feel better, you stop. And fall back down, faster, harder and deeper that where you were before.

I have been the center of attention, and at the same time felt lonelier than I have ever felt. I joined the Army Reserves out of High School. I became an MP, started ROTC, quit ROTC, and got sent to war. In November of 1990 I was activated. December of 1990 I was sent to Saudi Arabia. In April of 1991 I came home after being sent to a hospital in Germany because of a giant lump on my neck. It was removed and was benign. I was a hero in my hometown. I went to schools and spoke. I was the keynote speaker at Grosse Pointe’s 4^th of July parade (their one and only if I recall correctly). My name is on the wall at the War Memorial. I felt like a fraud. I still do to some extent.

What scared me the most was that I would be discovered and denounced. What happened was worse. Everyone just forgot.

So now, 20 some years on… I have gotten help, I am better, and I continue to feel better every day. I am learning to live instead of just exist. I have hurt a lot of people in my depression, and I apologize to you all. Tomorrow is a new day, and I feel better about moving forward into uncertainty and doubt.