Depression Breaks You Down. How Will You Rebuild?

“Depression is feeling like you’ve lost something but having no clue when or where you last had it. Then one day you realize what you lost is yourself.” — Anonymous

I was in the garden with a hosepipe, desperately trying to figure out how to wrap it around a tree so I could hang myself. It was a pathetic gesture that didn’t work, and I had no idea about the logistics of setting it up.

I was writhing in the pit of Depression. I’d tried everything — meds, therapy, exercise, talking — and none of it worked.

Years later, I realized Depression occurs when something dies inside you. You try to mourn the death, but the pain is too great. So instead, you try to go on with a hole in your soul where every breath hurts.

The thing that died isn’t coming back. I needed to discover what it was and how to live with it.

Depression is a form of mourning. Something in you died.

“There are wounds that never show on the body that are deeper and more hurtful than anything that bleeds.” ― Laurell K. Hamilton, Mistral’s Kiss

I’d lost who I was. On the surface, I’d been a police officer, now forced into retirement due to PTSD. I’d lost a secure, important job, and that hurt.

But what hurt more was the loss of my identity, which was tied up with being an officer.

I saw myself as a tough guy, and I was proud of it. I’d come a long way since the days of schoolyard abuse. I’d earned respect from my colleagues and even some criminals.

I’d won a commendation for talking someone out of killing himself on top of a multi-story parking lot.

I had friends based on mutual respect. Friends that came to my aid and me to theirs. I wasn’t a social butterfly, but these people cared.

I had plans. I was studying for promotion.

Everything in my life was based around being a police officer. I would still be scanning for crime or danger while off duty. I even had to step in and help a lone officer a few times.

Photos of me as a young recruit, naive and high on anticipation, looked back at me with a haunting glaze.

I was important! I was the person who would be dispatched to you on the worst day of your life. I knew the dirty secrets of my city — where blood had been spilled, and people had been devastated.

Driving through the city was like a movie playing in my mind. No one knows what goes on when all the regular people are tucked up in bed like a police officer.

And now here I was, prepared to die slowly by my own hand to end the misery of being alive.

I had nothing. I’d become a sad, overweight recluse who now folded up clothes at a charity shop as police drove by with flashing blue lights attending emergencies.

I’d gone from a part of the thin blue line between the monsters and the weak to being the equivalent of someone’s nan.

Mental health professionals — the same kind I would help when they were in danger — now looked down their noses at me scornfully.

I was worse than a nobody. I was a nobody with a mental illness who was shunned or cooed at as if I were a small child.

I had to sit in waiting rooms for mental health appointments alongside other mentally ill people, many of which I had arrested before.

My God, how the mighty had fallen.

Survival and finding yourself.

“I am bent, but not broken. I am scarred, but not disfigured. I am sad, but not hopeless. I am tired, but not powerless. I am angry, but not bitter. I am depressed, but not giving up.” — Anonymous

It took me years of suffering and painful self-analysis to realize a vital life truth:

My Depression occurred because I lost myself, but in surviving, I found something new…except this self was different.

I’d grieved the loss of characteristics that weren’t real. They didn’t matter. Real strength comes from within. Strength of character is much better than physical dominance displayed by fighting with criminals, like a peacock showing off its feathers.

Yes, I sometimes made a difference to people as a police officer, which made me feel on top of the world. Now I had to find a new way to make a difference. So I started writing and discovered I loved it. It’s a passion I never knew I had, and already I’ve reached more people who tell me I’ve impacted their lives than in my entire police career. My only regret is that I didn’t start writing decades ago.

I had to make new friends (if I wanted them) and pursue new goals.

My ego was given a severe reality check. I’d looked down on people working in certain jobs — those some people might consider “low-skilled.” I felt more important than them and that their jobs were mundane and trivial.

But I wasn’t any better than them. In many ways, I’d been much worse. While judging bad people for doing bad things remains essential, I learned to stop judging good people just because I preferred a different path.

Sometimes we need the most painful shocks.

Through painstaking work and medication, I overcame my Depression and became a whole new person. My new self was a writer, patient enough to invest in the stock market and make six figures.

I became less angry, tired, and bitter. I became kinder, and my new priorities in life revolve around making a difference. Without mental illness, I’d still be a police officer. Hard and calloused, and never discovering the joy of writing.

PTSD highlighted how unsuitable policing was for me, and Depression broke me down to my core, giving me a chance to reassemble. Although it’s one of the worst experiences a person can have, nothing but the most painful of shocks could have jolted me into my best life.

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This post was previously published on MEDIUM.COM.

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