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He looked like he was a throwback to the 1960’s here in the USA.  He had black curly hair and long sideburns.  He liked to wear grungy jeans and t-shirts. His handwriting was impeccable.  I remember that about him.  He was rather quiet and soft spoken.  I liked him.  I used to eat breakfast with him most every morning while we attended the small twelve hundred student college on the scenic Ohio River in Madison Indiana during 1982-1984.  I only saw his dad once.  He was a professional well-dressed man who carried himself like a doctor.  I learned later that he was in fact a medical doctor.  That would explain why he, I will call him Jim, was taking a pre-med major.  He did well in school but I could tell that his heart was not in it.  His dad was paying for college—though there were strings attached.  He wanted his sons to be doctors.  And he would pay for college so long as they stayed on that path.  Those strings ended up becoming ropes.  One of them ended up becoming a noose.

I saw Jim eating breakfast with his Dad at the school cafeteria one morning.  That was the first and only time I saw him.  It was the day after my brother found Jim alone in his dorm room.  He was barely breathing and could not be roused.  There was an empty bottle of sleeping pills and an empty bottle of Jim Beam beside him.  He never planned on waking up.  He did not want to wake up.  He had had enough of tests and finals and life.  So he tried to make his own final—breath that is.  And he almost succeeded.  He was rushed to the hospital where his stomach was pumped.  It was a good thing my brother found him when he did or he would have been another teenage suicide.

It was my first exposure to suicide and depression with someone I knew well.  All that day at school, I wanted to say something to him.  I wanted to tell him I care and that suicide was not an option.  I wanted to say those things.  But I did not.  I did not know how to say them to him.  It is not like you can just say, “So, I heard you’ve been depressed and that you tried to kill yourself the other night.  So how are you feeling today?”   Instead, I did what everyone else at school did.  We whispered about him and said nothing to him.  We were all cowards.  It takes courage to say you care.  It takes courage to connect with someone who is depressed and withdrawn from life.  It takes courage to open up.  But it only takes one.

The cycle of pain in that family continued.  I learned just a few years ago that his younger brother, the happy go lucky life of the party brother, had succeeded where his older brother had failed.  He created his own final—breath.  He hung himself one day.  He died from asphyxiation.  He must have been about thirty.  I knew him too back then.  He is dead now so I can use his real name.  His name was Stuart.  We called him Stu at college.  He was the last person you would have thought would have created his own final—moment.    It just goes to show you how well people wear masks.

I have read that suicide is the number one leading cause of death in college universities.  It is a little known fact that colleges do not like to publicize as it creates a negative public relations image for the school.

You probably know someone or several people who ended their own life.  What I know for certain is that you know many people who have wanted to and maybe even planned to.  You may be one of them.  If I have learned anything over six years of coaching some eight hundred people from a number of countries is that most people at some point in their life become depressed and many to the point of considering ending their own life.

Suicide is the final stop on the road of depression.  Not everyone makes it to that point but far too many do.  Depression is something many people have at various times in their life, but few admit to having.  There is a fear of being diagnosed as “depressed” as if it marks a person as being inferior in some way.  So many people just try to hide it.  I know—because I did for a long time.

Just the mere fact that I admitted that creates some angst in me.  You see I want you to see me in my best light.  I want to be viewed as strong, capable, competent, and lovable.  That is what we all want. And most of us go to great lengths to put on masks and create props to make us look good to each other.  And often the worse we feel about ourselves, the more props we need.  But I have arrived at a place in my life where I recognize and realize that if I do not truly love and value myself and see myself as strong, capable, and competent, then all the accolades from you or the synthetic mood alterations from prescription medications wont ever matter.  So I tell the truth now.  I tell it to myself and I tell it to you.  It takes courage to do that.  It takes courage for me to write this article and tell you these things.  But I am free from your perception of me by and large.  I am free to tell the truth.  And I hope by telling you the truth, that it gives you permission to tell the truth to yourself, and to me, and to others.  The truth is the only thing that sets us free, someone much wiser than I said that.

I used to deal with depression and it’s twin brother or sister anxiety.  They often come together I learned. http://www.stresscenter.com/ I had my first panic attack in college at age nineteen.  One night while studying for finals, my heart began to race, I could not catch my breath, and I was certain that I was dying.  I literally stuck my head out the window of my second story dorm room in the middle of winter to try to breathe.  It was one of the most frightening experiences of my life.  I learned later that I had had an anxiety attack.  It was the first of many that was to last twenty years.

I kept it all to myself.  Sound familiar?  I did not want you to know that I had those bouts or that I wanted to sleep in because I did not want to face the world.  Some would say that it is because of my childhood.  It is true that I had a difficult childhood.  It was mild though compared to many others.  But the reality is that our childhood may be the cause of something, but it is our adulthood that continues everything.  As adults, we are responsible for our choices and actions, not mommy and daddy.  Playing victim only keeps us victims.  That is not the solution as some would advocate.  At some point we must learn to really appreciate and value ourselves even if our parent’s did not do it perfectly.  And none do it perfectly by the way.  It is our job to appreciate ourselves.  And we must learn to do it well.  When we seek from others what we refuse to give ourselves, we will never arrive at the destination of happiness or true joy.

I am not a medical doctor or mental health practitioner so my perspective is different.  And quite honestly I am very glad that it is.  I am not someone who advocates brain chemistry altering drugs as a solution to the problem of depression.  Most of those “solutions” are worse than the “problem” itself.  Do your research. http://www.fda.gov/cder/drug/advisory/SSRI200507.htm

You are more likely to commit suicide taking many of the anti-depression or anti-anxiety drugs than if you did not.  I could go on at length about the mental health system in this and many countries but I will not do that in this article.  What I will say is that you need to work with your doctor to wean yourself off of those medications if you are on them.  And yes it is possible.  But you do need to become educated about medications and the risks. Do not rely on others to do your research about what you put into your own body.

I never took a prescription medication.  I refused to go down that path.  I saw many who took that road and for me I did not like the results.  So I decided to deal with the cause of the problem and not the symptom.  I wanted to eliminate the cause of the pain.  I invested money in a Personal Coach and purchased a course that put me on the road to recovery.  It was not easy.  But it was worth it.  I have not had an anxiety attack now in six years.  I used to have them weekly.  And yes I ended up in an emergency room because of them.  I no longer let depression get me down or keep me down.  Sometimes I find myself focusing on the negatives in life and feel myself falling into that abyss.  But I catch myself now and I pull myself out.  So I know from experience that it is possible to make it past depression.

So I know from experience that it is possible to get on the other side of depression and anxiety and suicidal thoughts.  I have done it.  And I want you to know that you can do it too.  You need to do it for yourself, for your family, and for those who you influence in your life.  You deserve to live a happy, fulfilled, joyful life.  At the end of the day, we move towards and attract what we focus our attention on.  If we think about painful experiences over and over, guess what we are going to attract to us?  It matters not if you buy in to the notion at this point that you are co-creating your life and your experiences by virtue of what you place your attention on.  It matters not if you understand that your mind is a powerful tool that you use to daily construct the place you live in and the bed you sleep in.  It matters not if you understand or buy in to the idea that you will be treated by life in direct correlation to how you truly treat yourself.

What does matter is that you start telling yourself the truth.  If you are depressed, then be willing to face the reality of that fact.  If you have a question about whether or not you may be depressed then click on one of the resources below to determine the warning signs.  Pay attention to them.  And if you are depressed, or anxious or suicidal, then please get help.

If I can be of help to you then please contact me.  I would be glad to assist you personally or either one of our Total Success Coaches can assist you in the journey to life and joy.  No it is not easy.  But it is much, much easier than the other path.  Email:  support@totalsuccessinstitute.com

Choose to live while you are alive.

Live Bold

Cliff Stockamp

Founder of Total Success Institute LLC

Personal, Executive, and Business Coach

www.totalsuccessinstitute

RESOURCES:

Take a Depression Quiz: Depression Quiz

Great source of education and support: Depression Support

Depression Questions and Warning Signs: Warning Signs

Tags: Depression