User:Todd Lyons/My story

From Depression Wiki

I've struggled with depression on and off for most of my life; since long before I even understood what depression was. When depression begins early in your life, as it did in mine, it becomes impossible to distinguish, at least internally, as something abnormal. If it's something you've experienced over a long period of time, it becomes what you recognize as your own personality.

I'm something of a stranger to myself, because I really don't know who I am without depression. I don't think that person exists. He hasn't, for at least as long as he's been self aware enough to think in those abstract terms.

Over the years I have learned to mask it, particularly at work. My success varies depending on the amount of stress in my life. I'm quite successful and well liked, so I suppose I do a good job at it most days. On the days that I'm not, I can at least be relied on to be very open to what's going on in my life and what I'm doing to handle it.

Some days are worse than others. While I've never given any serious recent thought to suicide, I do regularly re-visit the comparison of a world with me in it, versus one without. My conclusion is always the same: whatever I've lived through as a child is in the past -- a past that I'm prepared to keep dealing with though it is painful. But no amount of pain I have experienced would justify the harm I could do by leaving this life prematurely.

At the end of the day, it's my children that keep me focused. Bringing them into this world brought with it a lifetime commitment, and one that I intend to honour. I want them to grow up well, with none of the emptiness, doubt, and lingering questions that I have.

That said, I've been feeling really good for quite some time now. A lot of what I've been working for has come to fruition, and I'm inspired.