Turn on the Light: Finding the Way Forward from Depression

By David Vert

David Vert was six years old when the government whisked him and brother and sister away from their mother and stuck them in foster care. From that point on, he subconsciously searched for her, and by his late teens, he had forgotten what it was he was trying to find. He desperately wanted something to believe in, and so he chose to believe in the goodness of humanity.

But later in the life, the black dog of depression began to plague his life, and he found himself once again searching for something. He came to realize that depression had been following him foreverand it had finally caught up with him.

Thoughts that had once been clear became clouded with confusion and despair, and he felt as though hed lost control over his life. He thought he could push the bad aside and suck it up until he was diagnosed. Having dealt with depression for fourteen years, hes been through its ups and downs, and in sharing his story, he provides tips on battling the condition in Turn on the Light.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Balboa Press AU
• Release date: Jan 5, 2016
• ISBN: 9781504300827

David Vert

David Vert spent his career at a variety of jobs, including as a nurse’s aide, postman, trench digger, fruit picker, and taxi driver. He worked with various organizations, including The Salvation Army, Microsoft, and Kentucky Fried Chicken. He retired as a network administrator.

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Copyright © 2016 David Vert.

Cover design by Author

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

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Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

The author of this book does not dispense medical advice or prescribe the use of any technique as a form of treatment for physical, emotional, or medical problems without the advice of a physician, either directly or indirectly. The intent of the author is only to offer information of a general nature to help you in your quest for emotional and spiritual well-being. In the event you use any of the information in this book for yourself, which is your constitutional right, the author and the publisher assume no responsibility for your actions.

ISBN: 978-1-5043-0083-4 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5043-0082-7 (e)

Balboa Press rev. date: 01/05/2016

Contents

Introduction

Chapter 1   Embrace the New

Chapter 2   A New Direction

Chapter 3   Work Smarter Not Harder

Chapter 4   To Bump and Fall

Chapter 5   Work, Work, Work

Chapter 6   Missing Empathy

Chapter 7   One Step at a Time

Chapter 8   The Wedding

Chapter 9   A New Direction

Chapter 10   Where’s My Mum

Chapter 11   Stepping Out

Chapter 12   Break Down the Wall

Wherever you go in life, whatever you say and do, may your intentions be good and true so when you look back into the past, you’ll see the vibrant eyes of your friends.

Introduction

Through it all, we keep going. We stand up, shrug off the worry and readjust our load. We think we have the strength to make it to wherever it is we’re going, that is until we break, then in a bewildered state we turn to what we know not realizing it was our very lives that broke us.

Alongside cancer, HIV, domestic violence and mental illness, depression is another proverbial elephant in the room. All need more understanding, empathy and compassion yet sometimes this can only be realized through personal experience with a sufferer.

Depression can totally change a life from busy contentment to only knowing loneliness and deep sadness. Sure, we all have times when we feel disappointed and pushed down and wonder if it’s all worth it but after a few days of rest or contemplation we pick ourselves up and get on with it.

With determination and hope in something for the future we motivate ourselves to continually look forward and willing to take the next step. We step into the world and hope we have enough confidence and strength to find the opportunities to realize our goals and dreams. We use what we are; our abilities, our talents and what we wrongly or rightly know and hope we will be accepted enough for our opinions to matter.

When we walked through the door towards adulthood, we had some idea of our meaning, purpose and potential. We were taught to get an education, find a good job, have the perfect family, believe this or that and through our experiences, we would find ourselves. In our first naive steps, we hung onto the familiar until an experience taught us different and every choice we’ve made since has brought us to where we are today.

If we don’t understand depression we may see lazy, sick people with distant, indifferent glazed eyes. Of course, they may be lazy and not all sufferers exhibit such behaviour. Most smile and have good intentions yet if we were to look underneath we would see sadness.

We may think depression is all in the head, a matter of mindset. We are what we think. Therefore if we think we are depressed, we shall be. This is what I thought until I was diagnosed and realized I had been suffering most of my life.

We the long term sufferer can say with certainty depression is real and if it catches you it will either take you into the obscurity of your own darkness, or you will learn to cope, hide it and smile at the world. Most sufferers do not have low self-esteem and quite often, in appearance, live full lives.

Even though we may be surrounded by loved ones, most of the time we feel lost and confused with no place to call home. We love life and we love to have a good talk yet we find our minds are on the problems of the world mixed with our own insignificance.

We cover ourselves with a mask and coat to interact with the world but when we are still or alone, we are overwhelmed by chaotic thoughts and sadness for the emptiness in our hearts. Everything around us may tell us we belong, but our senses tell us otherwise. Our thoughts and emotions manipulate us into thinking we should be somewhere else doing something else, although we don’t know what. So we fight. Every day we fight for control, control of our mental faculties and psychosis. We fight for we know losing the battle will destroy our life and the lives of those around us.

Somewhere along the way something happened. The zest for life, the motivation to overcome the challenges of the day and finding joy in the little things were snatched from us and taken. Whatever was taken we need them back. Without them, our world is joyless with an emotional and mental distance between where we stand and the human reality of connection.

We live in the shadows of the person we once were desperately searching and trying to find our way back. Underneath all the doubt and despair we grasp the things that will bring us a step closer to an understanding of what and why. We try again and again to remain positive and use what zest for life remains to somehow find the motivation to face the challenges of our own limitations with the intent of one day being well.

Ever bought a new car thinking it was unique then suddenly they were there, all over the place? If you suffer long enough, you recognise other sufferers. Spending fourteen years constantly fighting a slowly dissipating dark cloud caused some sought of internal change so after awhile it became easy to recognise other sufferers. It’s a pity it was one of those things I had to go through before I understood. I wish I knew for there were so many I could’ve helped.

In the late seventies, I lived in Armidale holding two part-time jobs and a participating Christian visiting Parishioners unable to get to church. One Sunday afternoon we visited a couple in their sixties and over time I noticed the husband move out of their room and into a spare room off the back veranda.

The cold climate caused me to wonder about his comfort so I asked his wife and was told she didn’t know or understand what was happening. Once a busy and joyful man was lazy and distant and didn’t want to talk about it. Instead, he isolated himself to spend his time sleeping or drinking.

She didn’t understand her man somehow lost his purpose and meaning so she roused on him and pushed him further away and into the back room. I wish I knew. Unfortunately, he continued to fall into depression until it wore him out and died only to have her follow with a broken heart. What a waste.

Each one of us is on some kind of twisted or winding path through life subject to the will of an unknown wind and we all have times when we’re faced with choices that in the end will bring us either happiness or sorrow. In the most difficult way some experiences will cause us to climb mountains in the hope we’ll stand in the sunshine and others will force us to walk through the valleys of despair to find our strength.

When we trip and fall we learn to pick ourselves up, find our footing and stand firm, then keep on going not knowing or understanding that the burdens and misconceptions we already carry weigh us down. Through it all, we keep going. We stand up, shrug off the worry and readjust our load. We think we have the strength to make it to wherever it is we’re going, that is until we break, then in a bewildered state we turn to what we know not realizing it was our very lives that broke us.

One thing I learnt from being a student at a Technical College teaching relative trade skills was that the amount of effort applied is in proportion to success. Subjects included carpentry, metal and machine shop, technical drawing and many more. My favourites were metal work and carpentry because they allowed me to create. My carpentry and music teachers were good men who put their time and hearts into teaching and were good role models. Through their efforts, I discovered sometimes we need to apply our skills over a short time to see results but for something we think worthwhile the application must be applied over a long period before we have success.

I’ve always approached life in a positive and serious manner. My life and my work were treated in the same way. Against the odds I would always find a way to keep going, keep moving forward then a psychiatrist said stop. I had to stop doing what I loved to do and most likely would never function in a normal way again. He had to be wrong.

Disappointment taught me if you can see your goal the other side of an object there are four things you can do. You can return to what you already have and hope it’s enough to see you through; you can wait until the object moves out of the way; you can climb the object or you can search for a way around it. The object could be small or large. It might be education, finance, friends or contacts, or it might be something personal like a habit or addiction.

I might be down now, I thought at the time, but my brain and I, my psych or my spirit is strong enough to find a way to get well then it would all go away. It didn’t and I had to fight for my own sanity. Something had happened. Against my will, I was whisked away and taken beyond myself to confused emotional and mental anguish, of confused dreams and psychosis. I continually searched my darkness for the person I once was. I was asleep in a weird, surreal dream fighting every day to wake a little more hoping one day I would be conscious enough to continue on and move forward.

Depression or PTST (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) can occur when we, for whatever reason, are pushed beyond our physical, emotional or mental abilities to cope. We attack problems as they arise in the hope we’re resilient enough to continue our journey, but after a while life can wear us down and we’re pushed just that little bit too much. We break and all the traumas and the bad experiences we have faced resurface to flood our emotions, thoughts and our lives threatening the very sanity we used to hold ourselves together.

At first, I was overwhelmed with a sense of failure from not being able to do what I loved to do. If you’re used to doing something every day then without warning or reason your mind stops and refuses to acknowledge its work, it confuses you. You don’t know or understand what’s happened so without a mental point of reference you become lost.

I thought I was strong until after ten years working in Information Technology my mind just stopped while doing a routine software installation. For years afterward, every time I went near a computer anxiety would raise its head and remind me of my failure to be the best I could be.

As it does with all sufferers, depression engulfed my entire life and every day I was confronted with a mind not wanting to function, not wanting to connect to the rest of the world and not wanting to face its failure. Sometimes existing only in the fogginess of a hangover a simple task