tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5821348.post7870701776932591199..comments2019-06-07T08:53:39.737-04:00Comments on Looking Through the Windshield: This Present Darkness: Depression, Hope, and the Struggle Between ThemUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5821348.post-30677367974892544252014-08-13T15:02:48.426-04:002014-08-13T15:02:48.426-04:00sonny. this one got me, vibrating way down deep wh...sonny. this one got me, vibrating way down deep where things are secret and lonely. i was staring with incredulous &quot;you too?&quot; eyes as you described me in high school. exactly. and college. i&#39;ve always waffled about my depression, looking around at my family and saying, surely what i felt/feel is depression since there is so much evidence throughout my family that it must exist in our ranks. it was intellectual acknowledgement without real belief or understanding (we didn&#39;t do the whole &quot;mental health thing&quot; in my family).<br /><br />i take medicine for it, which has helped me immeasurably, but beat myself up for years never allowing for a diagnosis of depression to be anything other than an exaggeration of my feelings and a justification for my less favorable actions. i always feel like &quot;other people have it worse&quot; and &quot;maybe mine doesn&#39;t really count as depression,&quot; or &quot;it&#39;s only because of event A or B, not real depression&quot; or &quot;it&#39;s my fault, this is all stuff i&#39;ve done to my own brain.&quot; then i think about those high school and college nights, before i corrupted myself with adult things and guilt...i&#39;ve always wondered if that was pretty normal behavior or evidence of the onset of this illness. i do know that when i describe those nights, no one really jumps in with, &quot;yeah, me too! weren&#39;t those teen years crazy?&quot; no therapist has ever dismissed them either. reading this helps me be more accepting of my own judgement about my condition without judging myself for having it (er....and still my brain echos &quot;or thinking you have it...or whatever&quot;). i&#39;ll be thinking about this one for a while. sorry for the rambling comment, and thank you for this post.Patricia J Mastersonnoreply@blogger.com