My depression...

Disclaimer: I am not going to do anything to hurt myself. This is just a brain dump brought on by reading and too much time to think.

My depression

I posted something on Facebook earlier about depression. A guy on Reddit wrote a very good post about living with depression and what its like. I decided to write about me and my depression and get it out. This isnt going to be fun and its already scaring the shit out of me. Im going way out of my comfort zone here so please bear with me if I start to ramble or not make sense. I am just writing what comes into my head when I think of things. Here we go.

My depression is like a weight. It feels like ten thousand pounds bearing down on me sometimes. I can feel the weight pushing me down and sometimes I can even see it above me.

My depression convinces me that people who say they love me or care about me really dont. I know that people who say they are there for me or like me or worry about me really dont. Thats just what you say to someone who is like me. I mean, what are you going to say to someone who is depressed, tell them to jump off a building or shoot themselves? No, you say that you care and worry even when you dont. Its just what you do. I know that no one would miss me if I was gone or care. My depression tells me so.

When dealing with someone who is battling depression there are a few things you really shouldnt do. Dont tell me to "snap out of it" or "just be happy and cheer up". Really? I can just be happy and cheer up? Wow, why didnt I think of that? I suppose in your world someone with cancer can just "snap out of it" and be well too, right? Thats not how it works, and it makes me feel guilty and bad about myself when someone tells me that. I feel like I am supposed to just be happy and that there is something wrong with me that I cant.

Dont treat a depressed person like a little kid or someone who needs special treatment. Kid gloves arent required and I can pretty much promise you that nothing you say is going to make a depressed person snap and start killing everyone around them. Im not proud of or happy about being depressed and being treated like Im a freak or different somehow doesnt help at all. Maybe I am different, I mean not everyone wants to die and doesnt want to kill themselves. But that doesnt mean you need to be afraid or treat me differently.

My depression makes me want to hide and isolate myself. I sit on the couch and watch tv or sit at my computer doing very little to nothing for hours, even days. I want to go to events, hang out with friends, see and do stuff but my depression makes me feel like I cant and that it would be better to just sit here.

My depression makes me do things I am ashamed of. I go days without bathing, brushing my teeth or changing clothes. I eat like shit and feel like I am fat and gaining weight all the time. I eat things that are bad for me and I know it. Maybe if I eat badly enough or enough to make me sick I can die and it wont be my fault. Before I met my wife and had weight loss surgery my plan was to eat myself to death slowly. I damn near succeeded. I weighed somewhere near 700 pounds at my highest weight. I had heart problems, full blown type 2 diabetes, hypertension and couldnt climb a flight of stairs without stopping for a rest on the way. I wanted to die. I have no idea why I didnt. Sometimes I still wish I had.

Yes, I want to die. Im not afraid of it, but I am not going to do anything to cause it either. Im too scared to. When someone I know or someone I read about dies I am jealous. they know what its like to die and start over. I want to start over and do this fucked up life right next time.

My depression makes me tired. I am exhausted all the time. I sleep a lot but it isnt good sleep. Sure I can drug myself and get 8-10 hours of sleep easily but when I wake up and I just as exhausted as when I went to sleep.

I wish I had someone who would just sit with me. Who would watch tv or movies and let me cry on them and just be there. Someone who wouldnt try to solve anything or make anything better but who would just be there with me.

My depression can be battled with music. Music has saved my life a few times. Music is the closest thing to a religion I will ever have.

My depression doesnt scare me. Its like an old friend now. Sometimes I feel like its the only friend I have. Especially when its convincing me of something I know in my heart isnt true but that my fucked up brain buys into completely. Im not sure I know how to exist without my depression. Its been part of me for so long and has fucked me up so completely and efficiently that I cant imagine being without it any more

This is the hardest thing I have ever written. Im so scared of sharing it. Part of me isnt nervous at all because it knows that no one will care. But part of me, a small part, still wants to believe. Still wants to believe that someone cares or worries or likes me.

That small part is probably why I am still alive.

2 weeks and the Grateful Dead

Fuck. Its been over two weeks since I wrote last. Im sorry and I will try to do better...

Its Superbowl Sunday. I am listening to the Grateful Dead and trying to decide if I want to watch the game or not. I probably will watch just for the commercials, football doesnt really hold any interest for me unless its the Bears or Colts.

The music has me a bit nostalgic for the days I worked security backstage at a large local concert venue. That was a great job most of the time. I worked a Grateful Dead concert, it was an experience. Most of the people were quite cool. Mellow and stoned and calm. Then there was the chick who thought she was drowning because she fell in a ditch and landed on her back in about 2 feet of water. She was laying there flailing around and hollering about drowning and a fellow security guy walked onto the bridge and yelled down at her "Stand up, dumbass!". She got to her feet and realized she was in very little water so of course she started taking a bath. We laughed hard that day.

Other memories:
Melissa Etheridge once sang to me. Well, at me anyway. It was during a sound check and I was on a break so I went down to the front row and just sat and listened as she sang. She is so sexy and has such an amazing voice.

I was at a John Fogerty show and he began to sing "Have you ever seen the rain?" and I swear to Jeebus the moment he started to sing it started pouring down rain.

Toby Keith is the biggest douchebag in the universe. Both times I met him I thought so. First time he kept 80 fans waiting for a backstage meet-n-greet because he was getting high with the coach of the IU basketball team, a friend of his from Oklahoma. They shoved 80 people through a line to get pictures taken with him in just under 7 minutes so they could start the show on time. Second time he was just a general douchebag, acting like a prima donna and pitching a fit because the wrong type of ice was available.

I held the leash of and walked around with Sheryl Crow's dog for about an hour once. She forgot she had an interview to do for an Australian television crew and was walking her dog. They needed to go live and she didnt have time to walk him back to her trailer so I volunteered to take him and watch him. She was very nice to me and thanked me later. I like her

I once stood backstage right before the start of a Lynyrd Skynyrd show and didnt know I was standing in the little hallway that led to the stage. I heard a noise behind me and looked up to find the whole band heading for the stage. Billy Powell walked up and asked me if they were going the right way and I said I had no idea. They all laughed and a roadie walked up and told them to hang out for a second and then they could start the show. Johnny Van Zant shot me a high five as he walked out to sing "Sweet Home Alabama" and I almost cried because there were so many feels going around inside me. Powell was dead a few months later of a heart attack. It was sad.

Willie Nelson called me "Brother" and gave me a guitar pick.

Vince Neil asked me if I knew where he could get a cow. I had no idea what to say to that and pointed him to the venue managers office. About an hour or so later a farmer and another guy walked backstage with a large cow. There was a group of us security people backstage and no one wanted to go around the back to see what was going on. We wound up doing Rock-Paper-Scissors to see who had to go and I lost. I walked around the bus to find Neil dressed as a farmer doing a photo shoot for an album. I must admit I was a bit disappointed to see thats all that was going on.

KC of KC and the Sunshine band wanted his picture taken with me. I said sure and somewhere there is a picture of me and KC.

David Crosby once said hello to me and talked to me for a few minutes. He was very cool, we talked about sailing and the song "Southern Cross" and the fact that he remembers nothing of performing at Woodstock because he was so nervous. He said he was sot of mad at not remembering it. I suggested he watch the movie and see if it brings back anything. No idea if he ever did.

David Gilmour once handed me his black Stratocaster and asked me to look after it for a few minutes for him. The start of the Pink Floyd show that evening was delayed for a few minutes while he went and took a "healthy shit" as he called it when he came back. He said to me "Dont worry, mate! Washed me hands good." and took his guitar back. They went out and performed a great show.

Speaking of Pink Floyd, Roger Waters and I once discussed Mini Coopers and the fact that I could wear two of them as shoes if I had a pair. He was very amused by the mental image and thanked me. That night was unquestionably the best concert I have ever seen. Waters and his band performed the entire Wall album and the sound was amazing

I have somewhere a picture of me with two of the members of Umphrey's McGee. That was a great show and they played my favorite song.

I once cut the hair of the lead singer from the band System of a Down. Serj Tankian said he wanted a mohawk like the one I was wearing for Ozzfest. I told him I could give him one if he could find some clippers. I was joking but he sent someone for clippers and I cut his hair. It was funny

Snoop Dogg high fived me and thanked me for being cool. I kept a few people from bothering him and his group of friends as they shot baskets and he was thankful.

I talked to Steven Tyler once. He asked me if I had seen any movies lately and I had seen one with his daughter in it. Jersey Girl was the movie and I told him I had quite the crush on Liv. He said he liked the movie and told me he would pass my feelings along and we laughed.

I have a drum head signed by all the members of the country band Flynnville Station.

It was really cool seeing the backstage area and working there. I enjoyed it a lot. I liked seeing the areas that not everyone can see and meeting people.