On the internet there are hundreds of stories of what life is like with depression but what happens after the clouds have parted?
My life has for the longest time had two distinct eras; the first 12 years of my life when things weren’t ideal but were ok and then the following when I distinctly felt depression move in and change my life. Now I have moved into a third era of post depression.
Let me set the scene.
My childhood wasn’t what you would call a perfect picture of family. My parents fought a lot. Each one had their own separate issues that got in the way of always being there for either of their kids and to top that off I didn’t have the words for it, but I had a sense I was not living in the right gender.
I would work very hard in school and was a budding perfectionist. My grades were good and I had a few friends. By all accounts I was a good kid who was usually far more composed than the other kids.
However, by the time I made it to 6th grade things were changing. I was discovering things about myself that I was not ready to share. Puberty was in it’s early stages and was starting to make changes that I never really wanted.
It was also the summer my parents got divorced. July 1997, a month I’ll never really forget. Puff Daddy, ska music, and an announcement on my parents anniversary that they were no longer going to be married.
At first it hit me like a punch to the face. Not because they were perfect around us but because I had always known my parents as being together. The following weeks before school started were rough.
I had been so full of life even if I had been a little bit nerdy. But as the weeks went on and I was alone often (my dad usually went to bed really early since he worked at 5 am) I could feel the sadness moving in.
The years went by and while I put a good face forward. I had learned to use humor as a deflection for both people’s insults and my own feelings.
I had graduated college, traveled around the United States, and even gotten married. But as the years wore on, the darkness was still there. In many ways the darkness was the most reliable thing in my life.
It took an abusive relationship with my ex-wife for me to finally start getting help. It’s so funny because I’m pretty sure her idea was that therapy would “fix me” and we could live a life together. However, my trips to therapy were a key factor in me actually leaving her.
The following months were really hard and I thought about the last thing my ex said to me which was that she hoped I died on the street. Some nights I didn’t have anywhere to go so I would sleep in my car at an overlook in the foothills outside of Denver.
While times were tough, two things happened, I had started doing hormone replacement therapy and I also realized that I wanted to live. I can remember it clearly as I had been driving south of Denver and there was open prairie around me. I had thought something along the lines of “I’ll probably be here awhile.” Which at the time was a revelation.
The next few years were this weird pattern of not being as depressed but still being sad. My hrt would not actually be correct for the first 4 years of my transition. The antidepressants I took at first caused me to sleep a lot and then I switched prescriptions but slept a little. I socially transitioned and was disowned by many people. My back went out, I was robbed 3 times, and worst of all my life once again started to feel like it had little value.
In the fall of 2019 I switched to taking a shot for hormone replacement instead of the pills I was taking. The difference was almost immediate. I was calmer. In addition to that I was finally diagnosed with having post traumatic stress disorder.
Having a diagnosis isn’t a fix for anything. But knowing that has allowed me to better understand myself. I’ve found compassion in my experiences, good and bad. I’ve been challenged to face all of these things and learned that I’m very tough. 6 months after starting the shot and 4 months after starting trauma informed therapy I can finally say that I’m on the other side of the great sadness, 23 years after it set in.
Life is different now. I laugh more. I act sillier. My humor is more about making my partner laugh than it is about being a defense mechanism. In the worst of things with my ex-wife I used to remind her that hard times have made us. Hard times have made me but they no longer define me. I do.