It Doesn’t Only Affect You

I wanted to expand a bit on something I spoke about in my last post.  Mainly that depression does not solely affect the person experiencing it.  It can have some seriously detrimental effects on a relationship, no matter how strong it may have been initially.  The worst part of the whole thing is that much of the problem stems from the fact that the person who is depressed is having a negative effect on the people around him, and if you are any sort of introspective and perceptive at all, you will notice these things which will only make you feel worse about yourself.  And the odd thing is, the more the other person loves you, the worse it will likely be.

Recently, I’ve been going through these difficulties myself.  My relationship with my wife has been rough lately, to put it kindly.  We’re frequently sniping at each other, biting each other’s head off, and all for inconsequential things.  Much of the problem stems from me, and I know this, which makes it suck that much worse.  Because of how I’ve been feeling, I tend to be a bit more aggressive and snippy about things.  Due to my general feelings of worthlessness, everything becomes incredibly important, even when it’s really not, and it leads to a fight.  Unfortunately, after a while, only so much of this can be taken by my wife, and after some time, she hit her breaking point.  Well, maybe not breaking, but she’s definitely fed up, and now she also has a much shorter fuse than she did. 

It’s a ridiculous situation to be in.  On one hand, you need this other person to be supportive, because you love them, and you would hope that they could understand what a difficult place you’re in.  On the other, because they are the person you interact with the most, they are the ones who have to endure your constant mood swings, and that can wear anyone’s patience thin.  This in turn causes the other person to start exhibiting similar symptoms to you because they’ve been pushed to that point, and you end up not wanting to be around each other.  Every comment is taken the wrong way, every action is analyzed to death, and they all have negative outcomes.  To pile on to that, whereas I used to have friends I could blow off steam with, there really isn’t much opportunity for that here.  It’s only been making me feel worse about myself, because I know I’m the catalyst for all of this, and I can’t figure out how to break the cycle.

Anyone who knows my wife and I know that we love each other deeply.  Despite all of the anger, hurtful words, and careless actions we have put towards each other in recent months, we do still really love each other.  The only problem is I can’t bring myself to try to talk these things through with her because it just ends up in a fight.  Either I get too touchy or she does, and there never seems to be a moment where we are capable of just stepping back and resetting ourselves so that we can talk like people who actually love each other, instead of what we are now.  There are moments where we can, but they always seem to be sad moments, where it just feels like we’re both tired, and don’t really want to keep going. 

For the most part, I know we’re just going through a rough patch now, and I know much of the blame can be put on me.  I’ve been resistant to any sort of real outside help because I have a very specific way of dealing with things, and right now, I don’t have access to any of those ways.  I have been slowly trying to make adjustments, but it’s a long process, and because of that, I’m afraid things may happen that may cause irreparable damage.  The stupid thing is that while I can calmly make these observations now, in the heat of the moment, and in my day to day dealings, it just doesn’t seem to be so clear.  I just hope that the changes that I need to make can happen at a pace that will give me time to fix some of the damage that has already been wrought, but I honestly don’t know. 

There is also the case that I may be seeing things as being much more bleak than they really are, but I would rather err on the side of caution.  Changes do have to be made, and they have to start with me.  I’ve always said that you can’t properly love someone else unless you love yourself, and unfortunately, I am far from loving myself right now.

More than Being Down

Depression is a tricky thing.  The term is thrown around somewhat loosely when describing feelings of just being sad, or when you’ve been in a sour mood for a while.  We’ve all heard at one time or another someone saying, “Don’t worry about me, I’m just depressed.”  To be honest, if someone were truly depressed, you should definitely be worried. In all actuality, someone who is really depressed would find it hard to say the words out loud.  That’s because one of the hardest things about being depressed is to talk about it.  The stupid part is that talking about it is really the only way to get yourself out of it.

The difficulty lies in the fact that most people don’t want to be seen as complainers.  They want to keep with the status quo, and many people out there would prefer to suffer in silence than be seen as a complainer.  It doesn’t help that a lot of times, the advice offered to people who are depressed tends to be, “Well, why don’t you go and do something about it?”  Or the more combative version, “Well, if you’re not going to do anything about it, then stop complaining.”  There’s a general belief that depression is something that can be shaken off if someone just has enough willpower and determination.  This mindset only serves to make coming out of depression even harder.

The problem with that way of thinking is that if you are depressed, and you believe that all it should take is willpower, then the moment you find that you can’t just “shrug it off,” you find yourself getting driven deeper into the depression because you have “failed.”  The longer you stay depressed, the more you feel as if you aren’t trying hard enough, but no matter how hard you try, depression will not just be shaken off like raindrops off of an umbrella, which just leaves you with more feelings of despair.  It’s a self-defeating cycle to believe that you can beat depression through sheer willpower.  You may be able to distract yourself for a fair amount of time, but the depression will never just magically go away if it’s not honestly dealt with.

Of course, that’s if there is a logical and obvious reason for the depression.  If someone dies, or you suffer some form of great loss, then you have a simpler task of pinpointing a reason for the depression.  It doesn’t mean it will disappear instantaneously because you acknowledged the cause, but it does help to speed the process.  But what do you do if you just generally have feelings of sadness, malaise, being lost, or of being worthless?  What if you honestly don’t know what the cause of the depression is?  How do you approach it?  Where do you begin?

These are questions I ask myself on an almost daily basis.  For some time now, I’ve been feeling more and more lost, more directionless, in my life.  I’ve had numerous theories, and many attempts at getting myself out of my “funk” as I call it, but with little to no success.  I’ve been especially hit with it hard recently, ever since I’ve been living in Japan, but I’m beginning to think that this latest episode is just a continuation of what has been a lifelong struggle with depression.  For much of the time, I feel utterly worthless, and that my value as a person is pretty low at the moment.

For the most part, I’m a functional person.  I manage to take care of my daughter, since my wife is the one who works, and I don’t speak the language here, so it makes sense for me to be the stay at home dad.  I get the chores done around the house, although to be honest, it tends to be the bare minimum.  I manage to feed myself and my daughter, although I know I could be doing that a lot better.  I don’t have a particularly active social life, but when I get the chance, I participate when I can, and I think I can be pretty pleasant company. 

The problem lies in the fact that I do much of this mechanically.  I know which motions I have to go through in order to get things done.  I know how much I need to do in order to get by, so that I’m not living in squalor, or subjecting my daughter to those kinds of living conditions.  I know what to say in social situations to get a laugh, so that I’m not just a static presence in the room.  However, I honestly don’t know how much, if any, pleasure I derive from any of this.  Much of the time, I feel tired, sometimes too exhausted to participate.  However, I still force myself, because I know that if I don’t, I’ll just fall further into this negative state.  This is purely an intellectual choice, because I know if I don’t do something, anything, then I’ll likely just end up in bed all day, and my daughter can’t afford to have me be immobilized.

The thing is though, despite these symptoms being more prevalent in recent history, they aren’t anything new.  It may just be my state of mind currently, but I can’t remember the last time getting through the day wasn’t some form of a struggle.  Yes, there have been times where it was less so, but I can’t truly say with any clarity of mind that I haven’t had a day where I didn’t feel as if I had to fight my way to make it through the entire day. 

The worst thing about all of this is that, as I mentioned before, I have no idea where this stems from.  I’ve been to therapists, I’ve spoken to friends, I’ve done a lot of reading on the subject, but I can’t seem to find an answer.  I’m not sure if it’s because something is missing from my life, there’s something in it that shouldn’t be, or some other option that isn’t within my realm of consciousness that is affecting me this way.  The easy way out of this would be to get some pills and call it a day, but I don’t think that’s realistically a solution.  It may serve as a bandage, but I doubt it will actually solve anything.  Not to say that I haven’t sought them out.  There was a point where it was a consideration, but the psychiatrist felt that it wasn’t necessary, and that therapy would be enough at the time, and really, as time has gone on, I’ve come to the conclusion that a drug-induced apathy would be less preferable to what I’m going through now,  I’ve heard too many horror stories of people who have felt nothing while on anti-depressants for me to even consider it anymore.

Not to say I haven’t experienced true, unbridled joy in my life.  There are moments in my life that I would never give away, never trade in.  Meeting my wife and eventually getting married, the birth of my daughter, and my friends are all points in my life that have a significant positive effect.  However, as much as I hate to say it, they have not taken away this persistent feeling that something is wrong with either me or my life. 

My latest struggle has to do with being the stay at home parent.  I feel inept and at times, downright detrimental to the health of my daughter.  I feel it would be better for my daughter if I wasn’t the stay at home parent sometimes, but as it stands right now, I’m who she’s stuck with, and I’ve got to make the best of the situation.  The hard part is that because of my general feelings of ineptitude and worthlessness, it leads to a massive inferiority complex which leads to a lot of short fuses, bad tempers, and cranky moments that is having some very negative effects on my relationship with my wife.  At times to the point where I feel as if they’d be better off without me.  Non-sensical, yes, but no one ever said depression made a lot of sense.

Like I said before, the hardest part about depression is talking about it.  Much of it has to do with not wanting to complain.  People look at my life, and they see a beautiful wife, an adorable daughter, me not having to work, and yet still having a nice place to live, and they would think that I have nothing to complain about.  Hell, that’s what I think to myself, but that only tends to feed into the self-loathing that comes with depression.  I think “I have all these amazing things, what do I have to be depressed about?” and I beat myself up because I don’t have an answer.  Well, this is my attempt at talking about it, even if it’s not the clearest thing.  I worry that I’ll never break out of this, even after all the different attempts I’ve already made, and it has made me hesitant to try anything else in fear of just failing some more.  But just talking about it helps, and while I don’t really have much opportunity to do that, being so far away from my closest friends, I can still at least put it out there.  Who knows… maybe this will be the start of something better.

The Long Slog

We recently went through the last of the presidential debates, and now are just a couple of weeks away from election day.  All I can say is THANK GOODNESS!  At no point in my life have I been as involved in politics as I have been this year, which is strange because I don’t even live in the country anymore, but for some reason, I just felt like I had to get involved, enough so that I finally registered to vote this year, despite having believed (and honestly I still do) that it’s utterly pointless.

Whomever you ultimately decide to vote for, I’m sure that you are sick to death of all the negative ads, the constant coverage, and the doomsday rhetoric that seems to be coming from both sides if the other side is elected.  Not to mention the annoyance that there are only two sides!  There hasn’t been a legitimate third party contender since Ross Perot (you can maybe include Ralph Nader, but seriously… no).

If you actually listened to the venom being spewed by either side, you would instantly believe that as soon as the other side’s candidate steps into office as the next elected president, Armageddon will happen, the US will completely implode, and life as we know it will end in a fiery explosion.  In truth, unless the US were to be actually taken over by a fascist regime, they are likely to run it at least moderately competently, and within two years, if you didn’t like it, you could always swap over to another set of politicians who will pander to their constituents.  The president as an individual only has so much power, which is actually the beauty of the American governmental system.  No single branch of government can have that large an effect without another one getting in its way. 

But aside from how the government actually works, the election is lame for another reason.  Out of the 50 states that can vote, in any given election, only 8 ever really matter.  Unless you happen to live in one of those 8 states, your state will vote for either the Democrat or the Republican, and by such a wide margin, any individual vote won’t matter.  So 42 states out of 50 are pretty much ignored during the entire campaign process, their concerns falling by the wayside.  Party politics have congealed in such a way that they are diametrically opposed, so unless there is a literal 180 by one party or the other, these 42 states will continue to vote as they always have.  The remaining 8 states are inundated with so many campaign ads, I’m surprised there haven’t been any campaign related riots.  People just sick to death of hearing “This message approved by so-and-so candidate” and deciding to take to the streets, burning candidates in effigy. 

Every 4 years, we are forced to sit through political campaigns that pander to the lowest common denominator, because that’s how they get votes.  You can’t have high minded ideas, because then you’ll be labeled an elitist, and will be hammered by the media, who are trying to push their own agenda.  Also, don’t ask anyone to sacrifice, because the country in general wants to have everything and give up nothing.  The stereotype that Americans feel entitled to things seem to bear out if you were to base it on the campaigns the candidates run.  Everyone wants something, but ask them to give something else up, and there’s an uproar saying the person who said that is “un-American.”  People seem to forget that the US is a nation of immigrants, and first generation immigrants had to sacrifice just to get there.  They didn’t kill themselves so their kids could whine about having to give up their toys.  They did it to give them a chance at a better opportunity for a better life.  What you do with that opportunity is up to you.  So far, it’s beginning to look like a wasted opportunity.

I’m rambling, but trying to keep up with everything that’s being said by the campaigns and trying to keep the facts straight has taken a toll on my mind.  They throw a ton of information, much of it either outside of our realm of understanding, or such a blatant lie, that you have to research like mad in order to make sense of any of it.  I have the time to do much of that now because I’m a stay at home dad, but your average working individual will be way too busy to do that, and will just trust whatever media they choose to view, which is why Fox News is so popular.  It could be utter bull, but who has the time to fact check?  As important as it is to the US to have an informed electorate, the media in general, and the parties in particular are doing everything they can to muddy the picture to make their guy seem better. 

The feeling that I can’t seem to shake is that no matter who the president is going to be, how big of an effect will it ultimately have on my life?  I’ve lived through Reagan, Bush, Clinton, Bush II, and Obama, and honestly, it hasn’t been much different from one to the next.  Maybe it’s just the way I live (within my means, not relying on credit, and working to earn my money) but prices always fluctuate, the bills always seem to be too high, there never seems to be enough money, and ultimately, you do everything you can to take care of yourself and your family.  Granted, I’ve been fortunate in that we haven’t had any major medical emergencies in the family, or any investments that are subject to the whims of the market, but I think the majority of the country lives like that.  We all struggle in our lives, but most of us find a way.  Has it ever changed drastically from one president to the next?

In closing, do I think this election is important?  Yes, but maybe not for the same reasons that a lot of others think so.  I believe that Obama is the best chance for a proper recovery of the two candidates, but I don’t think he’s the best person for the job.  He’s just the better of the two candidates, because Romney has shown himself to have no backbone, and will do whatever is most popular at the moment, and unfortunately, populist rule will only lead to a clusterfuck of epic proportions.  A proper leader is someone who has a vision, has strong and supportable reasons for the actions he wants to take towards that vision, tries his or her best to convince people to work with them towards that vision, but will find ways to do what they have to do in order to see their vision through.  Obama has been too soft in that regard, as he let the Republicans block him at every turn, instead of bulling his way through at points, but I’m convinced that if Romney gets into office, he will basically be a puppet for the more extreme elements of his party.  Of course, the fact that politicians are a part of this process at all is the problem.  A really great leader is someone who doesn’t seek out leadership, they are people who are put in that position by others because they are seen to have the qualities that people want to lead them.  Unfortunately, there’s no way to have that happen on such a large scale.