By Bob Marrone
Several years ago, I endured a lengthy bout of clinical depression. What follows is a moment in the decent into the horror when I realized something was terribly wrong. It is intended for those who may not understand how serious and devastating it can be, and how it can lead to suicide.
The words on the page never changed, although I wanted them to. “Maybe you are a coward?” they read. It couldn’t be, I thought. So I read them again and again, still, several more times, over and over and over. This was damning, as was the previous sentence that read, “Maybe you are somewhat childlike.” I continued to read both statements now, over and over and over. Each time, the fear and self-hate grew deeper, building into a terror and panic born of a guilt that told me again and again that I was the most unworthy of beings and had done something so horrible, so damnable, I did not deserve to have peace.
Soon the muscles in my limbs cramped from the massive anxiety coursing through my body. My bladder became intensely inflamed, the reflex to vacate urgent. Still, I read, again and again, the same two sentences trying to interpret them in a way that would stop the pain. As time moved forward, one hour, then a second hour, my body involuntarily coiled into a near fetal position. Still, I could not take my eyes off those words. Again, again and again, I read, hoping to interpret a different meaning. By now I was sweating profusely, my mouth as dry as sandpaper and my heart raced. But, still, I read, again, again and again. My panic grew, along with the obsession that I was guilty of being the most terrible of human beings, deserving of endless pain and terror. I continued to read the two sentences, hoping for redemption.
My body began to shake. I could not put the book down, I could not stop. I likewise could not stop my mind from racing 100 miles an hour with persistent thoughts of damnation. Everything I had ever done in my life that I felt bad or guilty about, or was ashamed of, came rising up from some deep place. My mind was not my own. Yet I read, and read and read again, those same two sentences. Still no reprieve.
Four hours later, finally, I realized, this was not normal. Worse still, this was to be one of the better days of the next three years. Those days to come were to be filled with unimaginable terror, obsessions, phobias and self-loathing, all day, every day. And they were filled with a certain hopelessness that this would never end; a sadness so profound that no outside influence could lift it.
In Dante’s masterpiece “The Devine Comedy,” the first poem “The Inferno” describes the signage over the gates of hell as: “All hope who enter here abandon ye.” He could not have known the depth of that realization.
Depression is not the blues. It is not a simple, singular reaction to a life evet. Nor is it a failure to cope with life’s vissisetudes. It is an illness that, when severe, filters everything you will think, do, see or experience. Moreover, it is ever present, toxic, malevolent and devastatingly sad. There is no escape from one’s own addled mind.
So, please, when someone takes their own life, as two well-known persons did recently and some 18 veterans do every day, don’t judge them. Rather, say a prayer, and know they died from something unspeakable, and deserve your compassion.
God bless them all.
Bob Marrone is the host of Good Morning Westchester on 1460 WVOX Radio. He is also the author of “No Guarantees,” his memoir about his struggle with depression. He can be reached at Bob@wvox.com.
