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It seems phenomenal to me to see news stories written about ordinary people facing extraordinary challenges and succeeding in everything. A recent Tuesday morning was no exception.

One of my favorite college football players went through some serious hard times last year and has come out ok, thanks to friends, family, coaches and health professionals helping him when he needed it most. He was depressed, something that the article claims one in six American’s faces at some point during their life. That means, when you’re standing in line at the grocery store, one of the people around you has been depressed, is depressed or will be depressed enough for them to have it affect every aspect of their life. To maybe have moments where they wish they weren’t here.
At one point in my life, I was one of those people, I was one in six.

After my daughter was born, a horrendous case of post partum depression hit and I was fortunate enough to have a doctor that demanded I seek help - and I did. Let’s be clear here – this was not a minor case of melancholy, the result of a little less sleep than I was used to. I could hardly get out of bed in the morning, was frequently unable to take care of my daughter. I received very little support or sympathy from my family. Because after all; depression is a sign of weakness, something to be embarrassed by and never to be admitted to in public. I was very, very lucky to pull out of it quickly and be able to resume a normal life. But I’m always watchful in case it returns. Once you’ve lived in the dark pit of depression, it’s hard to believe it won’t come back.

In the article I read that Tuesday morning, the most telling sentence was one that I am amazed made it in. You see, until recently, his family didn’t want it disclosed that he had been depressed; especially that he was and still is taking medication to counteract the depression. What would people think? Besides, my family has experienced firsthand the consequences of other people’s opinions.

My daughter has an anxiety disorder. She can’t shake it off, tough it out, just get over it. This stupid misfire in her brain has shaped her into who she is and how she handles everything in her world. It causes acute stress, difficulty going to school, awful battles to get homework done and even made her incapable of leaving the house for months when she was in junior high school. But she’s doing better sometime – because of medication, an antidepressant that she tolerates well and that takes the edge off. There are other medications she takes, as well, when she feels an anxiety attack coming on. Some of the adults in her life – including people at the school and family and friends – would like to see her off medication, mention it frequently. They truly don’t understand that these medications have saved her life, but also cause us side effects that can be just as debilitating. Migraines. Dizziness. Hands that shake like a druggie. She may never be able to function without them, of function normally with them, and who cares? Why does it matter? If she had a leg that didn’t work right, I’d give her crutches. If she broke her am, I’d get her a cast. If she had cancer, we’d try every cure available to make her well. If these pills make her somewhat better, some of the time, it’s worth it to us.

Her medications don’t fix everything, but they add a sense of normalcy to a large part of her life that she needs more than anything else. So lay off, folks, and be more understanding that we, as parents, have a hard enough time fighting the battles for our daughter to get the help she needs. What was she like without them? She couldn’t walk to her own mailbox. She would cry every morning. And, just as I feel confident that we’ve found the correct mix, the right doses, the proper solution, everything changes and she gets sick. From her pills.

I remember a little girl in mortal terror, threatening to throw herself down the stairs because she couldn’t imagine going on. She is a teenager who cries herself to sleep on more than one occasion because “It’s not fair – other people don’t have to feel like I do. Everything I do is so HARD!” She just wants to be like everyone else who can get excited about a slumber party, not terrified.
And, most awful, is the fact that her anxiety can mask real, honest to goodness medical symptoms that need immediate medical attention. She has been complaining about headaches, dizziness and stomach aches for weeks, even months. She is truly ill, in need of antibiotics or other treatment and, as her dad said it best, “We assumed she was crying wolf.” We didn’t know, chalked it up to more anxiety, because the symptoms are the same. You can bet the apologies were flowing freely for the rest of that day.

She hasn’t fully recovered. An additional complication for people with depression and anxiety is that they don’t recover quickly from illness, sometimes they’ll be going along just swimmingly in life and a common cold will set them back to a place where they can’t function. We seem to be there, mired in the next attack on her anxiety, to get things back to a sense of normalcy – just in time for school to be out for the summer. In September, we start all over again.

Can you imagine loving to do something, like running a football down a field, and being so deeply depressed or anxious that you just can’t? Really, physically can’t. Think of the things in life that you love and imagine your life without them, where sitting silently in a dark room, all by yourself, is more comfortable that going to a party, eating at a restaurant – or playing football.

I am so proud of my daughter for never giving up. And I’m so proud of that player who didn’t give up, either. I wish people had known what to do when I was depressed – when you’re in the middle of it you have no idea how to help yourself, let alone what others might do to help you.

Look around you. Is there someone that may be one in six? What will you do to help?