Zatera Ul

I was depressed for many years, mostly at mild to moderate levels. A quote within a quote, that I found here, sums the worst of it up well:

Ignatius Loyola, the 16th century founder of the Jesuit order, spoke of “desolations” — a better word than depression, in my mind — that “lead one toward lack of faith and leave one without hope and without love. One is completely listless, tepid, and unhappy, and feels separated from our Creator and Lord.” For me, depression was not so much about being without faith or hope or love; it was, rather, not being able to remember knowing those things, not being able to imagine ever experiencing them again.

My lowest point was in my senior year of high school. One day during that time, I was in the psychology classroom for a meeting, and saw a suicide prevention/awareness poster. The picture on the poster was of a person teetering on the edge of a cliff. I remember thinking, “No, that’s not it. I feel like I’ve already fallen over the edge, I’ve been falling for weeks, and I’m ready to be smashed to pieces at the bottom, because I’m so tired of falling.” I didn’t have the energy to kill myself, and thought that I didn’t really need to, because I would be winding down to a stop and dropping dead in a week or so, anyway. Somehow I kept up in school, and even played in the pit orchestra for the school play–the practices gave me something almost enjoyable to do, and the performances were something to look forward to. After that, the depression lifted quite a bit.