"This Too Shall Pass." Depression.

44 years ago, in my senior year in high school, I fell into a deep clinical depression.  I didn't really come out of it for another 10 years.

Just as it can be hard to remember when you're depressed how it felt when you weren't depressed, it can  be hard when you are healthy to remember what it was like not to be.

But...well, if I wanted to delve back into that, I'm sure I could summon a sense of it.

I'd prefer not to, thank you very much.

"This too will pass," my shrink at the time said, when I asked in for one piece of advice.

I don't know that I was ready to hear then, but even so I always tried to remember (even if it was an intellectual impression) that there was a life outside the bottom of the well.  That even though I couldn't see it or feel it myself, there was sunlight.

I've been thankful and grateful that my depression hasn't returned over the last 35 years.  I kind of expected it to, because that's how this disease works, apparently.

But not so far.  Knock wood.  A whole bunch of wood.

I think my depression was somewhat situationally induced -- but there is little doubt that I have a genetic predisposition.

It runs in the family.

I've made a couple of vows to myself.  That I would immediately seek help if I felt it coming on.  I'd take whatever pills they gave me, no matter how unpleasant. It took over 2 years the first time it happened to me to seek help. 

Anyway, it was ten years of my life.  The depression, and in some ways worse, the wreckage in the aftermath.

I was never suicidal, even at my worse.  For some reason, I had a faith that I would come out of it.

I also just buried myself in books and media, and I for some reason kept a intellectual curiosity, which I don't think happens to most people.

In many ways, I have a great life.  A truly wonderful wife, and great kids, a successful business, a writing career, financial security, good health.  I'm a bit of a loner and that always concerns me.  During those ten years, I was often completely alone and isolated.  That's what happens to me.  I get completely isolated and weird and the the weirder I get, the more isolated.  Kind of downward spiral.

But part of the health is recognizing and forgiving myself for my weirdness.

 But I'm not daring fate.

 I'm just counting each day as a bonus.