I guess I must be a 'second rate' citizen

I've been reading some of the posts that went up while I was away...I wasn't impressed guys.

I suffer from major clinical depression. I am on disability because of it. Does that make me some sorta second rate citizen? Hmmm...I don't FEEL second rate.

I do bless the intent of the posts, for I am sure they were written with positive and loving intent, but frankly, some folks are just talking outta their...umm...hats. With no personal experience.

Depression is an illness...you know, like diabetes is a illness. Depression is when your brain chemicals don't function properly. I could go into an explanation of seritonin and snapses and such like, but frankly, it doesn't really matter. If you suffer depression you SUFFER.

Clinical depression is not feeling sad or unhappy because your relationship ended, or someone dies, or you don't have a job or enough money. That's situational depression. That's more like measles or chicken pox, you get it, you get past it, and it goes away. Sometimes you may need meds for a period, sometimes not.

Clinical depression is a lifer guys...a life sentence that you have to deal with and work around every single moment of your life. It doesn't go away when things get 'better'.

I know folks make personal judgments about those of us who depend on physchiatric drugs. We are considered 'weak'. We are often told to 'just get ourselves together'. I wonder how many folks with diabetes or cancer or some other affliction get told to 'just pull their socks up'? 'See the light...let go, let God'? I can't even count the times someone has 'confided' in me that someone they knew who was 'taking antidepressants'. Sorta the same way you might say someone has an alchocol or drug problem. Implying that they are somehow weak or ineffective. HOGWASH!

Until you have experienced depression, real depression, the sort that never gives you one moment's peace of mind, you really oughtta not make judgments about those of us who live with this horrible condition every day of our lives. Think of the saddest, most rotten, downest time you have ever experienced. Clinical depression is ten thousand times worse than that. You can't even get your head around it unless you've been there.

Living with depression is like living at the bottom of a dark well. No light reaches you. Nothing in life shines or feel glorious. Pain is constant. And if you think mental illness pain is less, or different, than the pain of other illness...think again. Pain is Pain.

Oh, you learn to live with it. You achieve a level of existence and can perform, for the most part, in the 3D world, most of the time. Until something happens that triggers you off into an even deeper darker part of your well. Then you fall off the edge of the world and there is nothing BUT darkness and pain. Not just once in awhile, but often. You just fall down a hole, and bang, right back on the mossy bottom of that dark well. Proper medication takes you off that merry go round.

I don't like the well. There are some things about being medicated that I don't like as well. It is due to my medication that I had to retire from a career I loved. The dosage I am required to take to feel 'level' is more than I can handle and function in the work environment. It makes me a bit 'stupid' and 'slow'. I went back to work a few months ago, with the highest of hopes. But my brain simply doesn't work properly anymore. I am not sharp. It takes me longer to learn...I lost the job because I couldn't perform. I told my doc it was the medication that was affecting things like my sharpness, memory and such. But she told me it isn't the meds at all, it's the depresison itself that does that. So now, at the tender age of 61, I am having troubles with memory. Sorta scary actually, but there ya go.

I'm ranting. I guess this is a rant that has been building up for years. Nobody can possibly deny that there is a prejudice against those of us with mental illness. We are the butt of jokes...prozac jokes, for instance, run rampant around the place.

I was first diagnosed clinical depressive in the 1960's. In those days they didn't have the wonderful drugs they do today. In those days you either went around like a zombie, or went unmedicated and fought with it 24/7. I battled for thirty years, until some blessed scientist invented the modern anti-depressants.

Anti-depressants are my life line. Anti-depressants give me ME. Without them I am so far lost in darkness and pain I cannot function. Now I may not be the most spiritually advanced person on the planet, but I don't feel that my illness has in any way kept me from seriously working my spiritual path, and establishing the relationships I have with Mother and Father God. When it comes time for the ascension, I don't think those of us with mental illnesses are gonna be 'culled out' of the ascending ones.

Be kind guys. Mental illness is no joke. It is not something you can 'snap out of'. Years ago we woulda either been locked away in some funny farm, or would have just killed ourselves out of desire to end the pain and sorrow. Thank GOD for modern medicine.

If you think that a well and healthy life has its challenges, imagine how much faster those of us with mental illnesses have to run, just to keep up.

Love, understanding, patience...that's all we ask for. And respect. The same respect each and every human being deserves from his fellow humans.

For anyone who is thinking of giving up their meds, thinking that their spiritual path will 'save them', forget it.

Giving up your meds simply means a huge, and extremely painful backslide, and a really hard fought battle to get back to a livable level. I know, because I let the 'stigma' get to me many, many times, and got off my meds. NEVER, EVER, Again. I love myself way too much to let myself slip back into that black hell, and have to fight that long and painful battle back to being me.

And, as long as I'm ranting, here's something else you may not know. Anti-depressants come with a cost of their own. You live life on a level. You miss out on some of the magical highs and lows that life presents. Sometimes I miss that intense excitement or happiness, or even sadness, that I used to experience...but not enough to exchange my mental health and wellbeing for.

Let's just love each other, completely and unconditionally, and get on with the important business of life...the ascension and our spiritual growth.

yarra