We don't talk about Depression enough.

Robin Williams basically raised me through his movies: Aladdin, Jack, Flubber, Jumanji, Patch Adams, Hook, Mrs. Doubtfire... the list goes on and on. He brought so much joy into my life that i considered him to be an honorary family member. 

When I found out in August 2014 that he had committed suicide, I spent the whole day in bed sobbing. The kind that's so deep you actually feel the pain in your gut. 

Everyone was so shocked and upset that such a wonderfully funny and happy man could have hung himself. I felt like it was only "news" to the world that the man suffered from devastating depression which usually results in self-medicating through alcohol after his death. It turns out, this wasn't "news" - Robin Williams openly talked about his struggles with depression and alcoholism long before his death. 

Here's a nice CNN compilation (posthumous) of Robin being open about his struggles:  

And here he is in a 2006 interview with Diane Sawyer.


Diane starts "Was there one moment that you fell into it again, was there one day..?" 

Robin interrupts: "Well usually its very gradual. Youre standing at a precipice and you look down. There's a voice, and its a little quiet voice, that goes 'jump'. This is same voice,  the same voice that goes, 'just one.' … And the idea of 'just one' for someone who has no tolerance for it, that's not the possibility."

Robin: "It's not caused by anything its just there. It's latent, it waits. It lays in wait for the time you think 'youre fine now', 'i'm okay and then - beep - and then the next thing you know its not okay."

What is it like to have Depression?

Robin William's interview with Diane Sawyer really struck a chord with me. 

I have suffered from depression since I could remember. As a child, it manifested as guilt. There was one incident at the age of 7 where I kicked a boy in the shin. It was a result of some silly game we had been playing in the schoolyard. I dont think I realized that I hurt him, until his mother came marching into the school and demanded to know why her son had bruising on his calves. I was marched out of the class into a room where the 7yo version of demi-gods surrounded me: an angry mother, the principal, vice principal, a nun. I felt like a convict on death row. After my sentence was over (I had bravely cried, apologized, and then proceeded to throw blame on someone else) I wasn't the same. This incident was so big to be that I just didn't know how to tell my parents. How do you tell someone that loves you and thinks so highly of you that you are secretly a terrible person? I thought that if my mom knew, she'd never look the same way at me again. 

So I didn't tell. Hell, decades later she still doesn't know. 

Lucky for me, I was the same school with the same kids for 6 more years. I was always nervous that someone would let my crime slip to my mom. There were several incidents where my mother volunteered at school functions, working closely with the mother whose boy I had hurt. Guilt overcame me and I slowly began to think that I was a terrible person for what I had done. All of my childhood mistakes defined me as a person as a slowly grew. Instead of going away, severe bouts of guilt actually grew over time. It became less about singular incidents in which i had misbehaved out of mistake or ignorance. It grew into a little voice in my head whispering that I was a piece of shit over and over again, continuously focusing its lens on each small error I made. It got so bad that I felt like I didn't deserve to have fun anymore. At the age of eleven, I declined offers from my family to go to the playground on my days off from school because I felt like I didn't deserve to be treated so well. 

This is all very strange, I know. 

I've come to learn that children who suffer from overwhelming guilt during their childhood are more likely to suffer from depression as an adult. 

A surprising amount of people don't realize that depression and addiction go hand-in-hand. 

I've been prone to bouts of depression and extreme anxiety since childhood. Its only recently that I've gone to therapy to address these issues. For the longest time, therapy and even medication did not seem to work for me. That's when I started self-medicating with alcohol. 

It started innocently enough at first. I'd have a glass of wine before bed to treat my insomnia and worrisome thoughts. I've had insomnia since I was a baby and, on average, it takes me an hour to fall asleep. The glass of wine really seemed to help. It made me more tired and I fell asleep much faster. 

This quick-fix slowly and gradually became a problem for me. I really don't even know when it began - but I started to consume more and more alcohol during times that i was depressed or anxious - usually at bedtime. I never got 'drunk'. I drank for the slight euphoria it gave me. It was complete self-medication, and at the time, I thought it was wonderfully helpful. 

It was only after taking the bar exam that it spiraled out of control. The months and days of high anxiety had beaten me to a pulp. I was completely raw. Worse, I had to wait four months to see if I even passed the exam. During my free time (there was quite a bit of that as I was still scraping by on loans), I started having a drink during the day. That slowly turned into a couple days. Then it slowly turned into me waking up and drinking all day every day. I never drove my car when I knew I had a few in me, which turned into self-isolating myself in my apartment so that I could continue my "break from the world". 

As a person who is trying to grow, I regret this. I regret not living the past year of my life and giving in to depression and self medication. I always come back to the habit of self-blame and anxietizing because I cannot fulfill the high standards I have set for myself. The hardest lesson I have ever tried to learn is to love myself and give myself a break. 

If you feel the same way, please message me.