Depression Sucks

First off the disclaimer: This is not a desperate cry for help. I already got some help. I may need some again in the future but for right now, I'm good. My point to writing this is that I hope to save a life. It would be better if no one needed this, but I did and I know others have suffered and died because of this and now it's my time to do two things:

One:  I want to let all of you out there who are suffering know that it's possible to get help.
Two: I want to let all of you out there who have lost someone that it's not your fault. There is literally nothing you could have done.

I see you wondering out there. Suffering from what? Lost someone to what?

What I'm talking about here is depression and suicide. Why am I the one writing this? Because I just got out of inpatient treatment for depression and suicidal thoughts on Tuesday. Yes, I really mean that. Your whacky, zany SF/F loving weirdo blogger was stuck on the couch trying to figure out how to off himself two weeks ago yesterday.

Yeah that was me. I was watching my Rudy DVD and going through options. I didn't have my guns anymore. I had heard that you could overdose on Tylenol, but I googled that and it was horrifying. Something I wanted to have done in seconds or minutes at worst would have taken days or maybe weeks. I didn't have the stomach for that. I thought about slitting my wrists but that doesn't always work. I remembered reading a newspaper article a long time ago about a couple that had gone on a crime spree and had murdered people by injecting them with bleach, but I didn't have a needle. I thought about getting some kind of street drug and overdosing with it but I've never used street drugs ever and didn't know where to get them. If I still had my guns I probably wouldn't be here.

No, I'm not making that up. That all actually happened. I was done. I was at a place where things were going badly and I was absolutely, positively one hundred percent certain that it wasn't going to get better and that it was my fault. My sister had offered help. Amy did her best to get me back to working on myself and doing what I needed to do. It didn't work. That wasn't because she had done anything wrong but because I wasn't in a place where I could accept the help. If you've lost someone, read that part again.

I couldn't accept the help. It didn't matter how much sense she made or how right she was. I was not mentally capable of getting myself over that hump.

I've read a lot about addiction and how someone who is hooked on a substance needs to want the help, that nothing someone else says or does can save the addict if they don't want to get better. I'm not sure if I believed that a month ago, but I damn sure do now. Why? Because depression is the same way.

Seriously. The mess that led to my depression was self made. Amy was trying to get me moving forward. She wanted me to work on the issues that had caused my frustration. It was good advice. I just couldn't bring myself to act the way I had acted for literally my entire life.

When you're in the pit though (and it feels how I always thought the Pit of Hell would feel like) common sense doesn't matter. Someone else's intelligence doesn't matter and yu're not really capable of using your own.

This whole thing kind of caught me off guard. Physically and mentally I've always thought of myself as being pretty tough. I'm the guy who had surgery on one foot and then went to karate practice the next day. I got  chewed out by my doctor for doing it. When I had surgery on my other foot for the exact same thing, I didn't go to karate practice the next day. I went to the park and played football. I got chewed out again. I know quite a few people with gout, but I'm the only person I know that has gone to work with an active flare up. I've been in fist fights. I've won some and I've lost some. I've been homeless and living in a motel and made it through. I watched my life fall apart when I split up with my ex-wife and I came out smiling. I've been through all the ups and downs: Got jobs, lost jobs, got put on academic probation and graduated with honors. I've had times where it felt like I could do whatever I wanted and I've been to jail. After all of it I kept the memories and moved on. Sometimes I celebrated, sometimes I've mourned but I've always been okay. Okay, that is, until depression came knocking.

I am here to tell you that depression made me its bitch. It beat me to the ground. I wasn't begging for my life because I wasn't sure I wanted to be alive anymore. I was done. I had gone through what I needed to deal with mentally. I had forced myself to live to reach certain things: My family Christmas party that I ended up skipping because I couldn't get off the couch. My kid dancing the Nutcracker with the Moscow Ballet. I couldn't be the guy who killed himself on Christmas right? And I promised work I'd be there for New Year's Eve. I better show up for that.

But then it was January. The holidays were over. I was really proud of my kid, but the performance was over. I didn't have to worry abour her crying because Daddy hadn't been there because he had been. As sad as it sounds, all of the reasons that I had created to live were gone. I couldn't find a reason that I still needed to be here. I was sure that I didn't want to be here. And if you don't or want need something then there's no reason to have it.

Thank God for my kids. I was laying on my couch. The house was silent. I was trapped, once again, in the loop of how to do it. As I lay there feeling hopeless, I looked up. I have an old-school entertainment center. I could see a picture of my daughters through the window on one side of. My oldest was kneeling next to my youngest. It was obviously a pose, but they looked so happy. Was losing their father going to take that from them? Was my killing myself going to put them in the same place I was in now? I'll never know the answer to that question for sure, but it definitely could have been yes. I know how bad it hurt when I lost my dad and he didn't do it on purpose.

I looked back at the movie. The crowd was chanting Rudy. He got into the game. They carried him off of the field. On the screen was a guy who had achieved his dream. A man who had never let anyone tell him he couldn't. On the couch was a guy who was about to do something that would damage two little girls who had done nothing to deserve it. A guy who was about to give up because he didn't see a way out. A guy whose kids were staring at him through the glass, watching him about to take his own life. The situation was bleak.

At that moment though, it occurred to me that I could make it... maybe. My kids needed me to not give up. I've often told them that I would do anything for them. So, I decided to do the unthinkable for them: I decided to live. Being a Christian man, I prayed for strength. I prayed for life. I prayed for wisdom in where to find help because I knew I wasn't strong enough to make it on my own. Then I got into my car and I drove to the hospital.

I want to take a second and explain part of the philosophy of One James Ricky McCoy, Jr. I am a Christian. I believe in the healing power of Christ. I believe that God can make things right with mercy and power alone. I also believe that when you pray for healing (or anything else for that matter) God has the authority to grant your prayer using whatever method He decides to and for His own reasons. Personally, if God had miracled my depression away, I'd have been grateful. That's not what happened.
God, in His infinite wisdom and mercy, decided to send me to get help from medical professionals and counsellors instead. I am not a bad Christian because I sought help on a secular level. God granted my prayer by sending me the help that I needed. Oh and, for the record, as a Christian I also believe that all affliction comes from Satan. Anything that opposes the works of Satan is a good thing. Doctors are doing the Lord's work whether they know it or not.

At any rate, other than having kids, getting help was the smartest thing I  have ever done. I'll be honest here: The Emergency Room staff was polite but not very helpful. I spent four days waiting for a bed in the facility that I was supposed to be in. They put me on some medicine and fed me and that's about it. After four days, I got to a place called Common Ground.

Life got much better once I arrived there. They put me in the Crisis Residential Unit (CRU). I got some counseling. I got to talk to some people who were dealing with the same stuff I was. I continued on the medicine. After the hell of depression, the CRU was probably the closest I'm going to get to heaven while I still have a heartbeat. And, thanks to them, I plan on continuing to have one.

I knew that I had turned a corner one day when, from one of the computers in the CRU, I posted a request on my Facebook page (where I get my comments about my blog than I ever dreamed of getting on my blog) for people to suggest books for my Memorial Day event here at Jimbo's. Instead of staying home from work because “Who cares? Dead people don't need money.” I was actually planning for the future. Thanks to all who responded to that. Once I realized what I had done and what it meant, I realized that I really was going to make it. God had brought me out of the fire. He must have had his reasons.

I also regained the ability to write fiction while I was in there. I hadn't committed a single word to the page since Mid-November. I did somewhere in the neighborhood of six thousand words while I was in there on top of a couple of blog posts.  My brain was functioning again! I felt so much better. If you haven't been through it you don't know but trying to push out content when you don't have the energy to stand up and walk across the room is hard. It was easy while I was living there. When my time was up, I was almost sad to go. I'm doing much better.

Before I end this, I need to recognize one spectacular individual. My oldest daughter Riley was my rock through this. She listened to me cry every day while I drove her home from school. It blows my mind that I acted like that. I spent about ten years dating/married to her mother who saw me cry twice. Riley saw me cry five times in a week.


To Riley:

I'm sorry, baby. Daddy shouldn't have put you through that. But honey, you were my strength at a time in life when I should have been yours. Your ability to listen and take in what I was  saying amazes me. Most adults couldn't have done what you did. I love you with all my heart, kid. I always will. I live for you and your sister. I hope that everyone out there reading this can have one person in their life that is as amazing as my daughter.

There will never be a time in my life as amazing as the first time someone handed me a burrito wrapped baby and spoke the words, “Congratulations, Dad.” It may be my honor to give you away at a wedding someday, but I will never give you up. Thank you so much for what you did. I'll never be able to make it up to you but I'll never forget it and I'll never stop being grateful for it. There's a reason I've called you and Sealy “Daddy's Special Girls” from the day you were born, but even I didn't realize how special you really were. I love you.

And I love all of you reading this as well. You'll be hearing from me again soon and for the foreseeable future.