What does depression feel like?

Okay, so I can only say this from my perspective, but this is what depression feels like for me.

I don’t feel like I am good at anything. If someone as stupid as I am can figure something out, then everyone else should be able to as well, right?

Yes, I have a very low self esteem. And what makes it worse is when people congratulate me for my accomplishments as they’re obviously just saying nice things to make me shut up, right?

There are a lot of projects that I don’t undertake at work as I know that I am too stupid to get them done. And if they do by some miracle get done, my mind tells me that they won’t be liked, or that they will fail.

Sleeping. I sleep a lot. I always have. I’m sure that constantly waking up with night terrors or in a panic doesn’t help. But even in periods when I am able to sleep without these interruptions I still don’t like waking up or getting out of bed. I get home from work, I sleep. I hate getting out of bed in the morning. It’s not that my bed is nice and warm and I find it too seductive to get out of. I just don’t have any reason to get out of bed. There is no drive.

The most I’ve slept was on a vacation a few years ago. I spent almost 14 days in bed getting out just for food and the bathroom. No movies, mo music, no nothing. Just sleeping and going off to dream land.

I am habitually late for work. I always have been. Being late for work is nothing new. But most employers I’ve worked for have been more than willing to overlook my tardiness as the skills I bring are valuable to them.

Even when I was a kid, getting up and out of bed was a fucking chore.

And that didn’t change at all. into adulthood.

In the early years just after I moved out of the house in 1987, I would often sleep for days.

And just this past weekend I slept through Saturday and Sunday.

Making and keeping friends with untreated depression and untreated anxiety if fucking hopeless. You don’t feel the need to call your friends because you just know that you’re going to bother them or disturb them. And when they call you, they’re often calling in the middle of a depression cycle. And then when no one calls the anxiety kicks in and convinces you that no one likes you and they’re all avoiding you because you’re beyond worthless and they’re only being your “friend” because they’re either using you for a skill that you have, or they just feel sorry for you.

Why didn’t I get help instead of letting my depression progress for so long without treatment?

For starters, I didn’t know that I had been diagnosed with Major Depression in November of 1980 until I received my social service paperwork in August of 2011. When I was having issues with my depression between age 9 and age 16, my father’s way of helping me with my “piss poor fucking attitude” was backhands, slaps, spankings, etc.

I received my first medical card and medical insurance when I started working for the Elashi family in East Richmond in 1994. There was a Carepoint medical clinic in the plaza that the Elashi’s owned. I would go to the clinic to get help with my inability to sleep. Remember, I didn’t know that 14 years prior I had been diagnosed with Major Depression. The doctor and I were certain that I only had a sleep disorder. Looking back, the pills that I had been prescribed could also used for treating depression.

And at that point in time I would never have considered myself to be depressed. My father had drilled into my head that I was just a fucking lazy arsehole that often acted up for fucking attention and who often pretended to be smarter than he actually was.

So no, there was no seeking help for depression. My father, and even “Terry” had suggested that I was just suffering from a mental illness called homosexuality.

And at this time I was nowhere near ready to deal with my implied “homosexuality”. I wasn’t really ready to consider myself a homosexual. It’s just that both Terry and my father insisted that I was one and that why I messed around with the babysitter on Canadian Forces Base Namao.

I couldn’t dare be open with the doctor. What if I said something to him that allowed him to figure out that I was a homosexual that had sex with his babysitter? Or worse ye, what if the doctor discovered that because of my homosexuality I had allowed the babysitter to molest my younger brother.

So no, there was no getting help with my depression, or my anxiety, or my haphephobia. Or my sexual identity / gender confusion.

If both Terry and my father said that I was a homosexual, then surely I must be a homosexual. Yes, my brother swears that he never heard my father refer to me as “gay”, but it’s not like Richard and Terry needed my brother’s permission.

This assignment of my sexual orientation by my father and by Terry as a result of my 1-1/2 years of sexual abuse on Canadian Forces Base Namao by Captain Father Angus McRae and his teenaged accomplice probably did nothing to help me deal with my depression.

And being confused about my orientation didn’t help my depression either.

What else didn’t help with my depression? Haphephobia. The fear of being touched. Fuck do I ever hate being touched, especially unexpectedly. I really hate being touched in a sexual manner. One of the guys at work one put his hand on my shoulder from behind. I twisted away from him. He thought that this was funny so he tried it again. I did not think that this was funny. And I’ve had this haphephobia since the days of CFB Namao. How can a person have relationships if they don’t know their orientation, and they don’t like being touched. This in and of itself will feed depression.

My brain is often numb. It’s a weird sensation. It feels like my brain is stuffed with cotton. It’s very hard to concentrate. I often lose my train of thought if someone says something to me when I am not expecting interruptions.

Oh, and did I mention to you that I was diagnosed as having a notable “Auditory Memory” problem? Yeah, I’ve got tricks to work around this. First is don’t fucking call me on the telephone. Text me, email me, don’t call me. Want me to order something for you, fill out one of these handy dandy parts request forms. Auditory memory issues also ensure great fun with depression.

The funny thing about the auditory memory issue is that when Alberta Social Services wanted to remove me from the home and place me into foster care or residential care as a means to force my father to comply with the family counselling program, Richard himself pulled out the paperwork detailing this auditory memory issue as a cause of my problems in school. Yet in 2011 he didn’t tell the CFNIS about this auditory memory issue nor our involvement with Alberta Social Services or the fact that I was in the foster care system. And, he used to get pissed off and physical with me on CFB Griesbach and CFB Downsview if I forgot to do something that he told me to do or if I didn’t understand what he had told me.

So, as you can see, I’ve had my fair share of mental health issues that were diagnosed, but that were left untreated, hidden, and ignored.

I suffered with these matters all of my life.

And these issues are part of the reason I want MAiD.

MAiD is the only way for me to finally be freed from these issues.

My desire for MAiD isn’t a rash decision.

It’s the result of a very slow moving train that’s been gathering speed for the last 40+ years.