Courage Not Shame

So I am new at this blogging and so you must bear with me and because of that I promise not to waste your time but make your visits here worthwhile by being as authentic and transparent about living with depression. Sometimes I will share from my personal experience and at other times the experiences of others. And the style of my blog will be of potpourri---if I am blogging authentically, it will not be contrived and rehearsed but will be of whatever the day brings me. Some days I will bring you---a poem, story, a prayer, a spiritual passage or verse from the Christian or non-Christian Faith Traditions, an inspirational message or a reflection. What I do know is that depression is bad enough on its own without needing any further help from me to downcast your spirit. Your visits here count for me and your time is valuable and I shall endeavor to make your visit worthwhile and hopefully instill a desire to return often.

Today my thoughts are on the shame of depression. I know that shame well because I hid my depression for many of my years living with it. Imagine I didn’t mind being thought of and described as “selfish with my time” when I isolated or “prideful” when I didn’t socialize or selectively did so, or worst, once I was called “a part-time misanthrope.” That was hurtful but still rather that than depressed.

That all changed in one of my last jobs where I had to interview veterans who were returning from the war in Iraq and Afghanistan to determine their eligibility for benefits. So many of them carry hidden wounds and as a result of living with PTSD they are unable to express themselves in a manner that will argue for their own benefits. I really got it. To get the benefits they would have to talk about the very things that were wounding and that had traumatized them. And they got it that I got it. Quite often I would move from behind my desk to sit next to those who were really struggling to even look up at me; the ones that would take forever to answer my questions or give me a blank stare. I am in no way equating my experience to theirs; what they have endured and sacrificed is beyond my imagination. But what I shared with them was I knew what it was like to live in that dark place day in and day out. I knew what it was like to feel the pressure of an inflated balloon in my head ever increasing and fearing that it would grow so huge from the pressure that it would explode. We shared the experience of the words swirling in our head and becoming so intertwined that we couldn’t vocalize them. It was because of these brave and courageous men and women that sat in my office that was the catalyst behind my coming out about my past. I felt like I was a betrayer of all they had done and sacrificed. I was hiding and they were struggling to carve out a life daily, dealing with being ostracized of society and sometimes family. They were the courageous ones.

So one day, almost 23 years after my diagnosis, I got up and walked into my boss’s office. The staff had started to wonder why I was the one who was always willing to argue and fight for approval for their benefits even when sometimes it appeared that I was making an argument for approval where there was none. I had already decided that I didn’t need more than a few minutes to say what I wanted to because I would say it later. I stood in the door to make it clear I wasn’t going to sit or elaborate on what next I would tell him. I asked him whether he would permit me to make a presentation at the next staff meeting. “Sure, Lilly, how much time do you need.” He didn’t ask on what, because we all made presentations on difficult cases so he assumed I had one. I corrected his assumption, "I want you to know my presentation will be on me.” He rested the paperwork he had in his hands down on his desk to focus his attention fully. I continued, “I want to share my history of depression. I want to explain why I fight so hard for the veterans to the point of frustrating some of you.” The look on his face was complete amazement. He replied, “Who could have known that? You gave no signs, you are always upbeat; always positive and happy. Who could have known Lilly?” I replied, “That’s why I wish to do the presentation so that I may share what it is like for the veterans walking in this door and why the benefits they seek may one day bring them to that place where like you, someone will say to them, ‘who could have known?’”

That was the day that my shame was transformed into courage. That was the day I started to share my history with those whom I thought would be helped by my sharing and with those who are worthy of my story---not everyone is worthy of our stories, depression or otherwise.