What is Wrong with Me?

Depression profoundly affects people throughout the world. A February 2017 report from the World Health Organization stated that depression is the leading cause of disability in the world, affecting more than 300 million people worldwide. 

It also showed an 18 percent increase between 2005 and 2015 in the number of people living with depression, the majority of whom are young people, elderly people, and women.

January 2019 I am at the beach on vacation. We visited the Pat Conroy center.
Life was good.

None of us are the same as we were in 2019.

We went through the most trying time of our lives when the pandemic hit us. I was flying high in January and February of 2020 until I fell victim to the coronavirus, COVID 19 before anyone knew there was a name for this sickness that would spread all over the entire planet, killing so many people.

For two weeks I was very sick and almost called 911 one night at the beginning of the illness. My breathing was shallow and I began to wheeze. I thought I was having a bad allergy attack at first, but when I didn't get better, the next day I went to the Urgent Care center where I was diagnosed with a fever and an upper respiratory infection.

I was so sick that my neighbors would only come as far as my front door and hand me food. They were afraid they would catch what I had. A week later I went to see my primary care doctor. She said I didn't have an upper respiratory infection and antibiotics would do me no good. "You have a virus," she said.

The next month we knew what that virus was and how dangerous it was. I had the same symptoms we all heard were attributed to COVID -- loss of taste and smell, heaviness in my chest, and extreme fatigue and fever. 

Around that same time, my brother, who lived hundreds of miles away, was admitted to the hospital and diagnosed with pneumonia. He was on a ventilator for several days. I was told he also had a heart attack, but that was never verified to me. As months passed we learned his tests showed he had recovered from COVID. But his health was ruined for good. In and out of the hospital, this man who had walked for two miles every day at the age of 90, could barely make it to the mailbox and back. All during 2020 and 2021, I listened to him and wanted so much to help him. I felt helpless since I was so far from him. In February his wife died. I could not go to the funeral but it was live-streamed and I wrote some words about Salita that were read at the service. Now my dear brother was grieving as well as doing all he could to help improve his health.

I worried about him, as I sat at home in isolation for fear of catching the virus again. I lost interest in my writing but found that teaching was good for my mental state.  I didn't see my friends and the days were empty and lonely. I felt my moods grow darker and my body grow weaker. The healthy person I once was a couple of years ago, the person who was always positive and energized, found she wanted to just stay in bed and watch movies. I forced myself to teach because the interaction with my wonderful students gave me a reason to get up every day. 

I was excited as my apartment at my sister's house became real and I could leave my isolation in the mountains and move into the lovely place in Roswell. I could have meals with my family, go out to restaurants with them and eat outside. Just the interaction with other people helped me come alive again. 

Meanwhile, my brother continued to be in and out of the hospital. I fretted because I could not be there to help take care of him. His phone calls became sadder and sadder. I almost dreaded picking up the phone when I knew it was my sweet brother because I felt so helpless.

But the worst was yet to come. In January of 2022, I caught COVID again. I had taken my shots and felt that I was not going to get sick, but this horrible virus had other plans. I was afraid. I felt really sick and I knew it was worse than the normal issues I dealt with. With the help of my sister, my niece, and my BIL, I made it through and in three days I was out of bed.

While still recovering, I heard the bad news. My brother had died only one month away from his 93rd birthday.

I am still grieving his passing and miss him more than my sister does because I talked with him so often and I knew his struggles and his sorrow. When I am alone and think about him and how much he wanted to live, I can't hold back the tears. 

I am not the same person I was a couple of years ago and guess I never will be again. You would not be able to tell just by looking at me, that I am depressed and in mourning. Since that first bout with COVID, my physical health has declined. I have heard this same complaint from others in my generation. My calendar is now filled with doctor appointments not writing events or classes. 

Still, I plan to make a deck garden here in Roswell. I look forward to having some flowering plants outside along with hummingbird feeders hanging overhead. Right now the pollen is covering everything and when I swept it away, I began sneezing like crazy. My car sits outside here and it is wrapped in a coat of yellow.

I am slowly furnishing my apartment with little things and today I bought a bookcase. That will help with my clutter here. At present, my stuff is all over every surface to be found. I can't find anything unless I go through piles of paper on my desk. I am grateful to be with my sister and Stu, her husband. They are thoughtful and kind, but I am sometimes too irritable and unpleasant. I don't mean to be, but I have a reason, I learned. Depression and mourning the loss of a loved one, struggling with chronic pain every day, it just sometimes becomes too much. 

Now you know what is wrong with me. How about you? Are you the same as you were in 2019? How has your life changed? Is it better in some ways and worse in others? Do you ever feel depressed? Leave a comment or email me at glendabeall@msn.com. 

Here are a few symptoms of depression:

A depression diagnosis is made when at least five of the following symptoms occur nearly every day for at least two weeks:

• Depressed mood
• Loss of pleasure in all or most activities
• Significant weight change or change in appetite
• Change in sleep
• Change in activity
• Fatigue or loss of energy
• Diminished concentration
• Feelings of guilt or worthlessness
• Thoughts of suicide

To diagnose major depression, either depressed mood or loss of pleasure in activities must be one of the symptoms.

 

September is Suicide Awareness Month

Depression is a disease, not a weakness, and suicide is its tragic consequence. 
Having come from a family in which depression lurks, I can recognize most of the symptoms. 

My father became depressed when he was in his early forties, about the time my little sister was born. Throughout my life and hers, we knew a father totally different from the man my older brothers and older sister had known. He worked hard every day on the farm. He paid his bills. He managed to overcome physical illness most of the time and lived a quiet life. But depression changed him, and he was not the happy man who teased and played ball with my older siblings. His emotions were always right on the surface. The slightest little thing could make him lose his temper. 
As a result, my little sister and I stayed as far from him as we could, not knowing when he would blow up. Mother was the calm presence in our lives, the only one who could settle him down. Looking back, I think his depression caused him to worry abut everything. He would not go anywhere except to the doctor. He voluntarily gave up the keys to his truck when he didn't feel capable of driving. He did enjoy watching sports on TV. Perhaps that was his escape from reality. And he planted and harvested a big garden, which seemed to bring him joy.

As far as I know, my father never thought about taking his own life, although he had a beloved family member who did. Mother said my father almost had a “nervous breakdown” in the 1950s, which was what people said when someone became so emotionally distraught they could not function. 

Looking back, we are fortunate that he did not give up on himself and us. I give my mother and my older brother much of the credit for pulling him through those dark days. 

Suicide is no stranger to me. My first experience with someone taking their own life was when I was sixteen years old. A teenage girl I had seen many times at the local skating rink, killed herself with a shotgun. No one ever explained it. That shook me to the core. She had everything she could have wanted—money, looks, prestige, and a nice family. At least that is what outsiders saw. Who knows what went on behind that family’s doors?  (see poem below)

I was older when the suicide of a dear friend broke my heart and left me feeling terrific guilt. She and I rode horses together when we were kids, and we had stayed in contact. She had been the happiest, devil-may-care kind of girl, bordering on being a rebel, but not quite. Although we lived distances from each other over the years, we always kept in touch and loved to be together. When she visited, we sat up till the wee hours discussing everything from books, to plays, to religion and relationships.

I knew she fought demons even when she seemed happily married to her high school sweetheart. Once she told me she had flown to NYC to see a doctor she hoped could help her. But she was disappointed when she did not get better.

She continued to fight those awful feelings as much as possible. She sought counseling several times and was given prescription drugs. Like many with depression, she turned to alcohol to blot out the desperation. Nightmares, fears she could not explain to me, left her asking questions about an afterlife. I had no idea how the mental anguish stripped her of energy, of happiness, of the desire to get out of bed each morning.

Her husband asked for a divorce after twenty years of marriage. That must have been the tipping point. Her health spiraled down. She found a job in a factory where she stood all day and used her arthritic hands. They swelled so badly and hurt so much, she came home each day and buried them in a pan of ice. Her mental and physical illness drove her to withdraw into a shell, isolated from friends and family.

My only contact with her at the time was by telephone, and often she didn’t answer the phone. Although I was concerned about my friend, I had no idea her situation had become so hopeless. When I heard she had taken her life, I cried for days wondering if I could have helped. I think that is what everyone does when this kind of tragedy happens. 

In the poem below you will recognize the first girl I mentioned above.

Anne’s One Flaw

Her mother heard it from the kitchen.
Her brother heard it above the radio
playing in his room.

The night before, she skated at the roller rink,
blond hair flying 'round her shoulders,
tanned legs clad in short white shorts.

She was sixteen; a cheerleader, and a perfect student.
All American girl with eternal promise.
Thomas loved her and he thought she loved him, too.

She dressed in a powder blue blouse
and navy skirt for their seven-thirty date.
She combed and curled her shiny hair,
and pinked her lovely lips.

Then she sat down upon her bed,
and pulled the trigger on the gun that splattered red
her white bedspread, and left her family stunned.


This poem was first published in Wild Goose Poetry Review

https://wildgoosepoetryreview.wordpress.com/2012/05/15/one-flaw-by-glenda-beall/