Chronic Depression Destroys Survival Instincts

It’s hard to live when everything inside tells you to die.

CW: Discussions of suicide and chronic depression.

A few weeks ago, I wrote a story about the suicide of Naomi Judd and how the public reacted to it.

In most comments and responses, the focus was on the sorrow people felt upon hearing about it all. Sympathetic emotions abound when an event like this occurs, of course, and rightfully, most were concerned with how her children and extended family were handling things.

However, as is so often the case when a person takes their life, some of the reactions are more difficult, at best, to handle.

A comment got me thinking…

For instance, a commenter left a long reply to the article berating Naomi herself for not enduring. They said it was a selfish act, because she had access to professional mental and physical healthcare, a loving family, and never had to worry about money problems like most others do.

“… scores of people are in serious pain financially, have kids in prison, live in hellish environments, have all sorts of other problems, yet choose to live…”

They continued, adding in: “What Naomi put her daughters through was reprehensible… it’s not all about mental illness. It can also be a selfish choice.”

I always welcome the thoughts and perspectives from my readers. As a writer, understanding what people see, experience, and know helps me comprehend the world that much more than I did the moment before. I’m a people-watcher, and it’s sort of the ultimate way to get inside someone’s head, instead of just observing from the outside.

The “selfish” paradigm is difficult, at best.

I’ve heard many times over the years the “it’s selfish” argument when it comes to suicide. I’m not going to detract or take away from that perspective from the commenter in question, because I believe firmly in giving people space to experience whatever emotions they’re feeling in the moment.

They’re not necessarily wrong, but, at the same time, the situation is a lot more complex once you dig beneath the surface.

That’s certainly the way it is whenever it comes to anything relating to mental or physical health.

Depression, especially chronic, unstoppable depression, is more than just “being sad.” It goes far deeper than that “blue feeling” people always associate with it, especially when it’s relating to physical or hormonal mechanisms causing it to happen.

It wrecks you. It takes every bit of energy you have, uses it up, and then spits you back out while it waits for more. There are days you can’t even move. You forget to eat, because your mind is so wrapped within the veils of brain fog. Hydration, too, goes out of the window. That merely reinforces the cycle, because you have nothing physically to go on.

The stress of it brings your levels down even more. Did you know if you’re under constant stress, your brain actually shrinks? Yet another component.

Depression has nothing to do with what you have, own, or are.

Depression has nothing to do with whether or not you’re successful. Being rich? Depression will eat that for breakfast. A loving family does little for your mental state when your guilt over what you’re putting them through adds even more for your brain to feast upon.

Having access to the best mental health care money can buy? That, too, goes the way of the dodo when everything else is fighting against it.

Finally, the thing chronic depression really does — and this is critical to understand, folks — is murders any sense of a survival instinct you might have.

When my depression was at its worst, and I tried to commit suicide multiple times, my survival instinct was gone. Just… gone. No matter what else I had going on in my life, no matter the “good things” I could lay claim to, my brain could not fathom remaining alive any longer.

The impulse to die sometimes overwhelms the reasons to live.

I’ve seen it happen with one of my children, too. The mental illness they have causes an impulsivity they have no reckoning of or control over.

For example, one night I was readying myself for bed and having a conversation with them. They were okay. Depressed, sure, but they’d been going through that for a while. Otherwise? They were fine.

I’ve always trusted them to speak to me whenever they’re feeling off, and they’ve been open with me every single time.

So, knowing everything was alright, I went to bed.

An hour later, they were frantically waking me to tell me they realized — after it happened — they had taken a bunch of pills.

They didn’t know they were doing it. There’s no memory of it happening at all. Fine one moment, and the next waking me in terror over what they’d done.

There was no warning with it. Neither of us had a clue it was going to happen. They had no plans, or an inkling they were going to, an hour later, do something horrendous.

Imagine that for a moment, dear reader. You’re fine one moment, and the next you realize you dissociated from reality and did something devastating to yourself.

It happened to me, too, many times more than I like to admit.

Survivors have a lot to process.

The scariest thing for me is knowing, if I’m not ever-vigilant and paying attention to my inner workings, it could happen again.

So, yes, we survivors can admit there’s perhaps a selfish overtone to it when it happens. We also know, intimately, there is a lot more going on than someone outside of it will ever know.

We also have to realize it’s easy to lay everything at the feet of the one who does it, because they’re no longer there to explain why.

Thank you for being you.

Keep striving to “be the best you that you can be” at this moment. Remember, no matter who you are or what you’re going through, you are worthy of being loved. Don’t let anyone teach you anything different.

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