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robotech_masterOn Father's Day, someone close to me lost a lifelong battle with depression and ended their own life. (Pardon my using the not-necessarily-grammatical-by-old-school-rules plural pronoun in referring to this person, but it's come to be accepted as gender-neutral and I don't want to keep saying "this person" all through this post.)
I'm not going to say who just now, because there are other people closer to them than I, and I'm not sure I have the right to say out in the open who it is without them deciding to do so first.
That being said, recently I saw on a Facebook post discussing this person's passage, another person close to this person simply said that said person "passed away." It makes me worry that the people close to them may have decided to try to whitewash their reason for passage, perhaps out of concern for that person's reputation post-mortem. And that just doesn't sit well with me.
There's still a lot of stigma associated with depression, and depression-caused suicide. It reflects badly on the person who killed themselves—that they simply weren't "strong enough" to live with these feelings. How many times do depressed people get told to "cheer up" or treated as if they were just having a bad mood that they could choose to disregard?
Folks, depression isn't like that. I know, because I've struggled with it myself. Between feeling like there's something somehow wrong with me because my life hasn't been successful as my younger brothers' (families, high-paying careers, generally successful lives…sometimes I think that Paul and Storm song "A Better Version of You" is my own personal anthem), and my trouble holding onto a steady job, I've spent my share of time feeling like a worthless person.
I'm just thankful that I've never seriously contemplated ending it all, even at my lowest point of wishing it would all just stop and go away. But on the other hand, I don't ever intend to own a gun despite enjoying shooting and at one time having applied for and successfully received a Missouri concealed carry permit—I'm afraid that if I had that means too close by, it would only take feeling that bad for a very short time for me then no longer to be capable of feeling anything else ever again.
But even though I mention possible reasons there—folks, it doesn't take reasons for feeling that bad. Or if there are reasons, they're just an excuse you latch onto because you feel that bad. What depression is, at the root, is a chemical imbalance in your brain. There are medications for that, though they're not perfect. But fundamentally, being depressed isn't somebody's fault. It doesn't make them a bad person, or a weak person. (Indeed, many people suffering from depression are actually rather strong, because they've been able to go on under that burden for years without killing themselves. But it only takes faltering one time…) What it makes them is a person who needs help and understanding. And we all need help and understanding from time to time, whether depressed or not.
I wish I'd known this person suffered from depression. Maybe there's something I could have done. Maybe I could just have asked them to open up and talk to someone about what they were feeling. I've had counselling for it myself, and it did help. I've even been trying out some medication recently—mild stuff, as my own depression is of a mild flavor, but it seemed to help.
I have a lot of friends online who also suffer from depression—including friends I would never have expected it of until I mentioned my own depression and they said, "Yeah, me too." I've even known people in real life who were so depressed they were seriously considering ending it all. (One time one of them told me frankly that it was only the fact I was in the car with him at the time that prevented him from running it at full speed into an underpass.) I've always done my best to be understanding and help them as much as I could, because that's what you do if you're a decent person.
Even some celebrities I've followed for ages have had it, such as Wil Wheaton. (Wheaton has some great words for depressives that, really, everybody needs to read.) Depression is like that. People suffering from it get good at putting up a brave front and not letting anybody know they've got it. That's why it's such a terrible thing. And that's why other people need to be told about it.
If you're depressed, the best thing you can do is let your friends and family know. Don't hide it. It's not something to be ashamed of. Talk to them about what you're feeling, and let them help give you reasons to keep going on. And if you're one of those friends or family, treat such a confidence with the respect it deserves. These aren't bad people, or weak people, or people who "just need to cheer up." They're people who are suffering under a damned heavy load that they had no part in making for themselves. They have problems. They need help. And it's no weakness to acknowledge that they need it.
I've had a family member kill himself before, and as I said at the time, it was a terrible tragedy. This person's death is another terrible tragedy, though not one as spur-of-the-moment sudden as Jacob Meadows's death. We'll never know if it might have been prevented if that person had been more open with those close to them, or those close to them had been more proactive in reaching out to them, in light of their depression. I'm sure those closer to this person than I are already beating themselves up and wondering if there was something else they might have done, and I don't mean to add to their burdens by seeming like I'm placing blame.
But it does no one any service to whitewash over it and just say that this person "passed away." People need to know that depression is a terrible thing, and that it can cost lives if it's allowed to go far enough. They need to know that the people close to them won't reject them for admitting it, and that they should try to go the extra mile to people who have it. I hope the people close to this person who died won't continue to insist that they just "passed away." They're gone now, and beyond any potential harm to their reputation or memory from the fact that they suffered from the same disease so many people in today's world do, through no fault of their own.
But other people who continue suffering under this disease are still out there, and it could make a difference to them to know that they won't be rejected for what they're feeling, or swept under the carpet if they lose their own battle.
I hope the people closer to this person than I will bear that in mind.
I'm not going to say who just now, because there are other people closer to them than I, and I'm not sure I have the right to say out in the open who it is without them deciding to do so first.
That being said, recently I saw on a Facebook post discussing this person's passage, another person close to this person simply said that said person "passed away." It makes me worry that the people close to them may have decided to try to whitewash their reason for passage, perhaps out of concern for that person's reputation post-mortem. And that just doesn't sit well with me.
There's still a lot of stigma associated with depression, and depression-caused suicide. It reflects badly on the person who killed themselves—that they simply weren't "strong enough" to live with these feelings. How many times do depressed people get told to "cheer up" or treated as if they were just having a bad mood that they could choose to disregard?
Folks, depression isn't like that. I know, because I've struggled with it myself. Between feeling like there's something somehow wrong with me because my life hasn't been successful as my younger brothers' (families, high-paying careers, generally successful lives…sometimes I think that Paul and Storm song "A Better Version of You" is my own personal anthem), and my trouble holding onto a steady job, I've spent my share of time feeling like a worthless person.
I'm just thankful that I've never seriously contemplated ending it all, even at my lowest point of wishing it would all just stop and go away. But on the other hand, I don't ever intend to own a gun despite enjoying shooting and at one time having applied for and successfully received a Missouri concealed carry permit—I'm afraid that if I had that means too close by, it would only take feeling that bad for a very short time for me then no longer to be capable of feeling anything else ever again.
But even though I mention possible reasons there—folks, it doesn't take reasons for feeling that bad. Or if there are reasons, they're just an excuse you latch onto because you feel that bad. What depression is, at the root, is a chemical imbalance in your brain. There are medications for that, though they're not perfect. But fundamentally, being depressed isn't somebody's fault. It doesn't make them a bad person, or a weak person. (Indeed, many people suffering from depression are actually rather strong, because they've been able to go on under that burden for years without killing themselves. But it only takes faltering one time…) What it makes them is a person who needs help and understanding. And we all need help and understanding from time to time, whether depressed or not.
I wish I'd known this person suffered from depression. Maybe there's something I could have done. Maybe I could just have asked them to open up and talk to someone about what they were feeling. I've had counselling for it myself, and it did help. I've even been trying out some medication recently—mild stuff, as my own depression is of a mild flavor, but it seemed to help.
I have a lot of friends online who also suffer from depression—including friends I would never have expected it of until I mentioned my own depression and they said, "Yeah, me too." I've even known people in real life who were so depressed they were seriously considering ending it all. (One time one of them told me frankly that it was only the fact I was in the car with him at the time that prevented him from running it at full speed into an underpass.) I've always done my best to be understanding and help them as much as I could, because that's what you do if you're a decent person.
Even some celebrities I've followed for ages have had it, such as Wil Wheaton. (Wheaton has some great words for depressives that, really, everybody needs to read.) Depression is like that. People suffering from it get good at putting up a brave front and not letting anybody know they've got it. That's why it's such a terrible thing. And that's why other people need to be told about it.
If you're depressed, the best thing you can do is let your friends and family know. Don't hide it. It's not something to be ashamed of. Talk to them about what you're feeling, and let them help give you reasons to keep going on. And if you're one of those friends or family, treat such a confidence with the respect it deserves. These aren't bad people, or weak people, or people who "just need to cheer up." They're people who are suffering under a damned heavy load that they had no part in making for themselves. They have problems. They need help. And it's no weakness to acknowledge that they need it.
I've had a family member kill himself before, and as I said at the time, it was a terrible tragedy. This person's death is another terrible tragedy, though not one as spur-of-the-moment sudden as Jacob Meadows's death. We'll never know if it might have been prevented if that person had been more open with those close to them, or those close to them had been more proactive in reaching out to them, in light of their depression. I'm sure those closer to this person than I are already beating themselves up and wondering if there was something else they might have done, and I don't mean to add to their burdens by seeming like I'm placing blame.
But it does no one any service to whitewash over it and just say that this person "passed away." People need to know that depression is a terrible thing, and that it can cost lives if it's allowed to go far enough. They need to know that the people close to them won't reject them for admitting it, and that they should try to go the extra mile to people who have it. I hope the people close to this person who died won't continue to insist that they just "passed away." They're gone now, and beyond any potential harm to their reputation or memory from the fact that they suffered from the same disease so many people in today's world do, through no fault of their own.
But other people who continue suffering under this disease are still out there, and it could make a difference to them to know that they won't be rejected for what they're feeling, or swept under the carpet if they lose their own battle.
I hope the people closer to this person than I will bear that in mind.
