Treacherous ground... alone.

I was called by a friend today who lost a relative to suicide…. I feel like I’m being pulled to do some work on depression. I believe that this is a topic that a lot of people need to talk more about. For me, it was tough to talk to people about it for a number of reasons. One thing that stopped me was that I didn’t want to bother people with my problems… (I told a buddy a while ago about a close call I had when I was at my worst and he asked why I didn’t call… I said that it was 2 am and I didn’t want to wake anyone up… It’s a ridiculous thing to think but it made perfect sense at the time) I didn’t want to involve people I cared about and drag them down with me. Because of the state I was in, part of me believed that I didn’t deserve their help either… which is ridiculous. I figured that most of the problems I was facing could be handled by myself and this may have been partially true… if I was thinking clearly – but I wasn’t. Every day was like my own private battle… an up-hill battle that I thought I could win when in reality I was losing… badly. It’s OK to ask for help… we all need some from time to time and there’s no shame in admitting that you need a hand. I may expand on it all later once I have some art to talk about but I could not have made it through without family, friends and a good therapist. The friend that called me today was a huge inspiration… he was going through a fight with cancer while I was dealing with my depression. His strength of character and sense of humor were a huge encouragement to me.