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| Picture of Douglas MacArthur from Shorpy.com |
“He doesn’t understand. He thinks it’s just… he thinks I should just get over
it. You know? He doesn’t understand that it isn’t
something I can just get over. I
can’t go to him when I feel like this, I just have to deal with it alone,
‘cause I know he won’t understand.
You know?”
Those are the words of a women explaining to me how her
husband has dealt with her depression.
Men are just set up for struggle when it comes to
understanding depression. There
are a lot of reasons for this.
Generally speaking, men are less empathetic than women. We often find ourselves reverting back
to football boot camp methods for every kind of motivation. Someone is struggling? Can’t seem to fix it? Then you aren’t yelling and swearing
loud enough! To be fair, this is
how we are motivated most frequently when we are segregated by sex. The peer pressure plus the yelling
turns out quite effective… if you are teaching someone how to overcome their
fear of getting hit in football, or trying to get someone over the wall on an
obstacle course. I am chuckling
thinking about someone employing this technique on someone in depression,
simply because it is so awful and absurd, it is ridiculous.
The main reason men are handicapped compared to women in
their understanding of depression is because they have never experienced
anything like it. Almost any other
pain can be empathized with even if not experienced directly, because it still
links in with pain already felt.
For example, I don’t have to have lived through the holocaust to
empathize with those who went through it.
Can I know the full breadth of their specific pain? No way. But I CAN definitely imagine it. I can easily picture the faces of my family getting thrown
aboard one train as I am thrown aboard another. I can picture their tattered faces lurch slowly away as the
train pulls out of the station, taking them to their death, as I head to
mine.
Depression is not like that. It is so unique, so different from anything felt previously,
that if you haven’t felt it, then your brain will struggle mightily to
comprehend it… at all.
Confession, before I was depressed, I struggled to believe
that depression was real. Irony, I
know. It’s a gift though, as it
humbles me to recognize the struggle of those on the outside looking in,
particularly men.
Women, on the other hand, are all familiar with the
something happening to your hormones, to your brain chemicals, that changes the
way you feel, turning you into a different person. Women experience this once a month for a majority of their
lives.
Men don’t understand this really either, but here is the
kicker… they accept that it is real, and they (if mature) react
accordingly. I’ve never heard a
man tell a woman that her PMS isn’t real. Cowardly men may hide, but
that’s only because they know it will go away in a couple of days.
Depression, most likely, isn’t going away in a couple of
days. It needs the attention of
every loved one that can be there.
Besides, if men are all about bravery, then this is a time to be brave,
because you are being asked to wade into uncomfortable waters. A piece of encouragement is this
though. You don’t really need to
understand depression to help someone in it. Many men have become incredibly adept at encouraging the
women in their lives when they go through PMS. Our patience grows.
We understand that things are going to be said that are not common, that
may even fly in the face of what was said just days ago. Such it is with depression. You don’t have to understand
depression. However, you do have
to believe it is real, and you have to learn how to encourage your loved one in
the face of it.
Another thing that deters men from being involved with a
depressed loved one is that you can’t FIX depression. My father almost lost his mind as he watched me, his beloved
son spiral into the darkness for a decade, and he didn’t have a damn clue what
to do about it. It changed him,
crushed him a bit. I could see it
in his face. He would look at me
and it was blank, as he was completely overwhelmed with his inability to duck
tape my heart back into my chest, or drain the poison out of my mind. All he could do was be there.
What he doesn’t know is that my depression would have been
years longer if it weren’t for his acceptance of my depression as real. Not one time did he tell me to get over
it. He did try to convince me I
was more okay than I was, but that is what everybody does (makes me angry just
thinking about how many times people tried to convince me I was depressed, but not THAT depressed), but when
the rubber met the road, he was there with my mom looking up the next doctor,
or buying the latest book, or whatever.
In all of my dealing with those whom are depressed, fathers
and husbands have been one of the greatest impediments to healing. So many people have shared with their
inability to move forward, because they are crippled by the doubt and
harassment of their ignorant, prideful husband or father.
I want to remind you that I am not bashing men. I AM one. Women are not better.
They didn’t earn their understanding. It is simply a part of their biological make up. The point is that the men of this world
need to join this fight, now. You
can’t close your eyes on this one.
If your son, daughter or wife is hurting from depression and you’re
playing the ostrich, then you are a prideful, hypocritical coward. Don’t let your ignorance and pride
stand in the way of you loving your child, spouse, friend, whomever it is. It isn’t really that hard. All you have to do is accept that
depression is real even if you don’t understand it. (statistical reminder, over 100 million people have been diagnosed worldwide. Seeing as how most deal with depression alone in the shadows, that number is actually much higher. Are a couple hundred million people all faking it? Really?) From there you can grow in patience. You will strike idiotic phrases like,
“just get over it,” out of your speech, and you will instead say things like,
“I don’t fully understand it, but I am here for you. You understand me?
We’re in this fight together.”
And you are, because the truth is it IS a battle, one like you can’t
imagine. You can either be a part
of the biggest battle of your loved one’s life, or you can go AWOL and hide in the
corner. What’s it going to be?
The most horrifying part about this struggle that men have
with depression is how it affects those men who become depressed. All of that pride, that fix it
attitude, that unbeatable attitude… they are concrete boots… and we’ve been
thrown in the ocean. Men in
depression always seem to take the longest to deal with it, because they spend
so much time and effort, years maybe, fighting their new reality. For me, it took a year of feeling the
hell of depression before I was worn down enough to admit that there was a
problem. A year! Gone! Why? Because I
could fix it. I just had to push
through, pull myself out of it.
Only I couldn’t. Not only
that, but the harder I tried to fight it by not accepting it, the worse it got,
the more complex the knot in my mind became. I truly believe that, had I accepted my depression sooner, I
could have gotten help sooner, and I believe years would have been shaved off
of my battle. Years. I am thirty. A decade was lost to depression. That’s a third of my life, and to be honest, a lot of that
is my own dang fault. Those
concrete boots have laces. They
can be untied at any time. I just
couldn’t let go of my concrete boots.
I thought they made me a man.
In reality, they nearly drowned me.
Praise God the times are changing with regard to depression,
and people are really starting to talk about it and address it. Thank God that more and more people
don’t have to grope around in the dark as I did. It is a new day. It is a new battle. Our Earthly fathers are great, but like us, they are flawed. Fortunately, we have a Father in heaven who is not flawed, and while He doesn't promise to wave away your pain, He does promise to give you courage while your in it. He promises to give your pain meaning, something atheism takes away. He promises that, if you'll just hold on to Him, one day, the pain will stop... in this life or the next.
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