What the fuck is going on? Playing air guitar hero is like standing in line and pretending to play Halo on your 360 controller. It made me think. Is there some disconnect between the guitar and the game guitar hero? Are kids not sure what an actual guitarist looks like when he/she is playing guitar? If not, that’s sad. And really, playing air guitar OR air guitar hero ain’t going to get you nothing but funny looks. And if you hope to ever get laid, you better keep the fake playing of a video-game controller to your bedroom.

With luck, I’ll be back on my feet soon. I’m not pressuring myself to get better too fast, since I know that’s only going to cause me grief, but I’m hopeful, which is a new feeling for me. In any case, the posts will be a little scarce this week as a result. I’m sure you’re used to the occasional dearth of posts around here, so thanks for putting up with it again.

For me, this battle began long before I even knew there was an enemy to fight. I started changing. Losing focus. Getting irritated with people. Becoming less the positive person I had always been and more the negative person I had never imagined I could become. Finding myself angry at small things that never bothered me before. I found myself no longer to be the person that I knew I was, but someone foreign. Foreign and abhorrent. I started to become someone I didn’t like. Someone I hated. And I didn’t know why. Was this who I always was, but had kept hidden inside?

As I changed more and more, it began to affect my life. I was rude to my wife, the one person I cherished above all others. I was distant from my family. I started to drop the ball at work. And I didn’t know why.

Some background: About 5 years ago, give or take, I sustained a head injury that caused minor brain-damage. Shortly after that, I was diagnosed with epilepsy as a result. If that was it, there wouldn’t be much more to tell. The epilepsy was of a minor type and was eventually controlled with medication. There were other things caused by the damage, but none were enough that I couldn’t live with them. Things like an inability to call up a certain word at times, stuttering and other language-related issues. They weren’t fun to deal with, but I managed fine. Unfortunately, as I was to find out later, my injury made me more vulnerable to becoming clinically depressed. Not because of what I was going through, but because of the chemical interactions in the brain. This is not to say that depression is always the result of such accidents. In most cases, it has no such distinct cause. But this is what happened to me, and it seems worth noting.

Once my wife started to put the pieces together, and realized I was suffering from text-book depression, I began seeing someone. Unfortunately, my depression continued to get worse and worse, to the point where I was fired from my job for an inability to complete my work. As someone who has always been extremely successful in the working world, this was crushing. And yet, I knew it wasn’t the wrong decision for my employers to make. I had been sliding for a long time, faking it and knowing it. Always promising myself that I would get better and make up for it, yet never doing it.

Even now, as I go through intensive therapy and medical management, it’s hard for me to believe that the depression is real. Invisible foes are hard to deal with, even if you’re told by medical professionals that they exist. It’s easier for me to think that I’ve just become a loser. Lazy, shiftless and miserable. No matter how many times I’m told otherwise, it’s hard to reconcile this.

My doctor once asked me if this would be easier to deal with if I had an obvious physical problem, such as a spinal-cord injury. I considered this and answered truthfully, “Yes.” Does this mean I’d rather suffer from such an injury? No. Of course not. But at least then I wouldn’t be dealing with something that I can’t see or touch. Something that I can’t just whip out and show people.

It becomes more difficult when you have to deal with people who refuse to see you have a problem. For example, my sister will no longer talk to me. Knowing every step of the way that I was diagnosed with clinical depression, reading email after email explaining my condition and apologizing for any rude behavior I might have, she still has chosen to sever ties with me. Some of her last words to me were used accusing me of being an asshole who treated her like shit, telling me that my issues shouldn’t change how I deal with my family and telling me it was better if she didn’t talk to me anymore. I guess she’s not too concerned about it, as she also felt the need to tell me that we would never have been friends in the first place if we weren’t related.

Even people who want to help are often unable to quite understand what depression is. I’m often told, “Cheer up,” or “Look at the bright side of life,” or “It could be much worse.” Things you tell people who are down in the dumps. People who are having a rough week. Not someone suffering from depression. I can’t control most of these things. Putting things in perspective doesn’t help. Knowing that there are people out there that are worse off than me doesn’t help.

I’m not unappreciative of such comments. I see the thought and good intentions behind them. But, to me, all such things do is reinforce to me how much I feel like a loser. So I think, If all it takes to get better is a change of attitude, what’s wrong with me for being unable to implement such change?

Depression is so much more than a case of the blues. The terminology is certainly confusing, because one can BE depressed without suffering from clinical depression. That’s unfortunate, as it only makes it harder to understand.

I can’t speak about what depression is for everyone, though there are certain things in common across the board. But I can speak about what depression is for me.

I have an extremely poor memory. I remember incidents from my youth, but most of my past is a giant blur. Worse than that, though, is my inability to remember something I was just told. I will forget the answer my wife just gave me to a question I asked. I will often open the web browser to go to a website and, in the seconds this takes, I will forget where I wanted to go. Sometimes, in the middle of a task, I forget what it was I was doing. I sit there and think and think, wondering what I was doing and wanting to cry because I can’t remember it.

I’m irritable. I snap at people for no reason. I’m testy. I make jokes that aren’t funny, but more cynical and mean. I try to immediately apologize whenever I behave this way, but I don’t always recognize it.

I’ve lost almost all ability to concentrate. I can’t pay attention to movies or tv shows without my mind wandering. I can’t participate in long conversations or finish projects. I’ll not only forget what I am doing, I will have such concentration issues that I have to sit and think and think and think in order to figure out what it is I need to do next.

I can’t keep track of appointments. I never remember to take my pills, even though they are in a pill case designed to help me. My desk is a mess. I can clean it one day, organize the shit out of it, and it will be a mess by the end of the night. I can’t organize a project. I can’t keep track of my to do list. This makes dealing with money or a job almost impossible. I can’t juggle the details and tasks that I used to have no problem with. I can no longer solve problems like I used to. My thought process is confusing and jumbled. I have a hard time figuring things out in general.

I have a lot of trouble following instructions or following stories that I am being told. When someone is telling me a story, I have to stop them and ask them to clarify every little detail. Over and over again. My wife can be telling me about a show, and I will stop her every minute or so and ask her again about this detail or that. Or I’ll just get to the point where I tell her not to bother. I know how annoying it must be for her to deal with this, but she never complains.

I can read and write, obviously. But my speech is greatly affected. Sometimes, I will try to talk and just stutter, freezing on a syllable until I think of the word I’m looking for. Often, I will use a word like giraffe or orange when I mean to say car or door. Those were random examples. It happens all of the time. Thankfully, my wife understands what it is I am trying to say and doesn’t acknowledge that I am using the wrong word. Because I know I am using the wrong word. And the right one won’t come out. I have a lot of difficulty sometimes distinguishing one word from another when people are talking. So I ask people to repeat things a lot. Believe me, it gets old pretty quickly. For me, and for them.

I am always tired. Mentally and physically. A lot of this has to do with not getting enough sleep. I have issues with sleeping. But a lot of it has to do with dealing with all of these issues on a daily basis. Daily anxiety and depression weighing on me can be so damn exhausting.

I can’t wait in places. I can’t just sit and do nothing. I can’t do a damn thing without needing to do something else. If I sit in one place too long, I start to get irritated and need to leave. And I don’t disguise it well. This isn’t just waiting rooms. It can be at a friend’s house or family gathering. It doesn’t matter if it’s my in-laws, my brother’s, my mother’s, etc… I get uncomfortable when I am not at home. I feel uncomfortable after making too much small talk. In general, I just feel uncomfortable in foreign situations. Foreign being anything that is not home.

On most days, I spend a good portion of the day wishing I was dead. Do I really want to die? Of course not. But that’s the thought that goes through my head. My life is a wreck right now, all because of my condition. So I sit and blame myself for ruining our lives. I feel worthless and unable to support my loved ones. I feel like the world would be better off without me. I feel like my wife would be better off without me – I well know how difficult this has all been on her, though she never shows it. I feel like dying would be better than continuing this way. All I can think of is how I’ve fucked my life up because I am a lazy, selfish, worthless asshole. I know it’s the depression talking, but does it matter? It’s how I feel.

I’m usually anxious a good portion of every day. When this happens, I can’t even breathe right. I can breathe, but can never get a full breath. This is one of the worst feelings in the world. This can last for hours or even days. I get anxiety that is largely unfocused. Meaning, it’s not always because of something external going on. Sometimes it is. I also get anxious over things like leaving the dogs at home, going on long trips, going to other people’s houses, having people over, etc.

I am quick to anger. Never to the point of physical aggression, thankfully. I get angry at the littlest things. Things that I used to take in stride with a smile. Like trying to fix something that doesn’t go the way I want it to. Or seeing people treat other people unfairly or poorly. Or any number of things.

There’s more, but that’s enough. I’m not writing this to garner sympathy. I’m not writing this to complain. I’m writing this because it’s cathartic, but more than that. I’m writing it because one of you, reading this post, may be suffering from depression. Or someone you love may be suffering from depression. It’s something I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy, but someone you care about might be going through it right now. Maybe you know someone who has told you they suffer from depression, but you didn’t quite understand what that meant.

I’m in the system. I’m slowly, but surely, getting the treatment I need. I’m taking steps to get better. But not everyone is as lucky as I am. Not everyone has a wife as understanding as mine. It’s hard to see the bright side, but I know there’s one there. Many people with depression don’t. They don’t have a support system. They haven’t started treatment. They may know something is wrong, but not what.

If it weren’t for the support of my loved ones, both emotionally and financially, I’d be far worse off than I am now. The people out there that might be going through this with neither emotional nor financial support are suffering more than I can imagine.

Hopefully, this post will reach the eyes of one of those people. Or the eyes of one of their loved ones. Hopefully, it might make someone’s fight with depression just a little easier to deal with. In a just world, people would always get the care and attention they needed for their medical problems, whether depression or otherwise. But this isn’t always a just world. People go without care or treatment far too often. If what I wrote can make a difference, if only for one person, I’ve done what I set out to do.

I know this was not as fun as the usual content here at Honest Ape, but I thought it important enough to break format. Thanks for taking the time to read it.