Sunday, January 28, 2018

Depression is like a car wreck

There are days you are just driving along in life looking at the scenery, thinking about all kinds of different things, maybe singing to the radio then WHAM someone hits your car.  Instantaneously that moment changes through no fault of your own.  You had control of you and your vehicle.  You were minding your own business.  Then out of the blue one thing that took a couple of seconds to happen has now caused your day and the future days to change.  Depression can be like a car wreck. 

I have had a couple of car wrecks in my life time; one was a fender-bender and one totaled my car.  The fender-bender happened because someone wasn’t paying attention and didn’t stop at a red light and ran into me.  This accident did not cause harm to anyone, but it did damage my vehicle.  I was able to drive home and we had to get an estimate and then get it fixed.  It made things a little inconvenient but not major.  

Sometimes, depression can be similar to a fender-bender.  It can be a trigger which can throw you off balance just a little.  Things like someone hurt your feelings, you made a mistake at work which drops your self-esteem, someone you love disappointed you, etc.

The second wreck I was on the highway slowing down for construction and the person who hit me was coming over a hill and did not see me.  They did not slow down and they were going about 60-65 mph.  I remember looking in the lane beside me, looking directly in front of me and then was hit…… 1-2-3.  It happened that fast.  This altered my life a lot for quite some time.  This caused injuries, surgery, time of work, no vehicle, and a lot of paper issues for months afterwards.

And sometimes depression can be similar to a major crash.  This is similar to a major depressive shift.  It can be caused from not setting boundaries and allowing hurts to come back into your life that you cannot control.  Your body can change causing your medication to not work like it has previously.  Sometimes there is no answer to why this happens, but it does and it is a big deal to someone who is depressed and working so hard to manage life.  You could have a car wreck, death of a loved one, loss of a job, etc.  

Those of us who have been through car wrecks know that things can change in an instant.  Depression is no different.  You can go from being excited about something and the next day you are crying and angry.  It is a challenge for those of us who deal with these unexpected situations to understand what’s going on.  But it is really confusing for those around us who have never personally dealt with depression.  

I would like to encourage you to have the people in your life read this blog to see if it can help them understand what it feels like for us when these things happen which in turn may help them to understand what it feels like for us.  

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