Hi, John.  Thanks again for a great post.  I would agree with you 100% based on what I've observed in the males I've known who have been depressed.  As I've talked about before, I didn't realize until recently that my dad has probably been depressed most of his life.  He was physically and emotionally violent, seemed to get pleasure in belittling us and nothing was ever his fault.  But to hear him talk with his customers, you'd think he was Mr. Nice Guy.  He's 84 now, has lost a lot of steam, but I seem to notice the sadness in him more.  He's had a lot of pain but seldom ever says anything about it and won't even tell doctors the whole truth of what's going on with him physically.

As a teenager and young adult, my older son had a hair-trigger temper and blamed everyone for his problems, although I know he also hated himself.  He actually begged me at age 12 to get him some help, which we did and he continued for a number of years, but even with all that, he tried to kill himself twice, then had a short marriage to a young woman who was exactly the wrong person for him.  He's a lot better now and I'm so glad to see that he doesn't take anything out on his little son - it's like that boy has given him a new reason for living.

I wish this male phenomenon with depression had an easy solution, but I suspect it's so culturally-driven that it may be along time coming.  People who are in a relationship with them would do just about anything to help them and so many don't take it.  So many years of their lives get spent in misery and self-hate - and all for what?

Thanks again for your insightful post and sharing your experience with us.

John Folk-Williams, Health Guide

3/22/10 2:07am

Thanks, Judy -

 

I think you're right - the issues for men are so culture-driven that something basic has to change at that level for most men to get a different view of themselves and the emotional life. And I have to say that for all the progress I've made in the last few years, much of my life fit your description. Not fun to look back on!

 

I'm glad to hear that your son has been doing well, especially in his relationship to his own boy. It's take a lot of strength and self-awareness to break a pattern that gets started in childhood.

 

I hope you're well.

 

John

I saw my dad live a lifetime of depression.  Deep depression.  Compounded by constant migraines and the most awesome displays of negativity and insular anger I've ever seen.  But he never admitted any depression because HE DID NOT HAVE ANY KIND OF PSYCHOSOMATIC DISEASE.  That's what he called mental illness.

Once I was diagnosed with major depression and schizophrenia, there were several years of trying one medicine after another to try to find relief.  One of those meds was Depakote, a mood stabilizer.  It just so happened that a short while later, my dad was prescribed Depakote for migraine prevention.  I was fascinated.  I said, "Hey, Dad, that is the same medicine they give me for depression!"  Immediately, he thrust the Depakote aside and refused to take it, even though it might help his headaches.  He was almost paranoid that some doctor was going to try to treat him for a mental illness that he knew he didn't have.  (Sometimes he showed signs of a paranoid personality himself.)

It was at that moment that I gave up any hope of his ever understanding what I was going through.  He was not about to think about emotions or feelings.  Often, I have wondered how different his middle and late life might have been changed had he sought help.

Thank you for your posts.  They are very enlightening; doubtless, to both sexes.

Survivor

3/22/10 8:52am

Hello Donna,

 

I empathize with your feelings about your father. Mine had episodes of depression and what we can judge now was hypomania, complicated with alcoholism. He refused the idea of help, but in the 50s and 60s there wasn't much help available. Psychoanalysis wouldn't do a whole lot to treat the underlying illness, and antidepressants wouldn't have been good for the mood swings, we know now. Like he refused to believe he was an alcoholic, though he said he knew he drank more than was good for him, he wasn't going to admit he had a mental illness. The idea of "crazy" was just out of the question. Finally in his 40s, it all became too much. He accepted antidepressants on a Friday and had an appointment with a psychiatrist the next monday, but committed suicide on Saturday night. Ironically, if he had found the right doctor and was willing to try, lithium had just been approved for treatment of manic-depression that same year, 1970.

 

Like you, I can't help thinking "what if?" and how our lives would have been different if he could have accepted what was causing the difficulties and if today's knowledge had been available. I think it would be much harder to know that treatment is possible but have him refuse it.

 

The men in my life would never listen to persuasion and argument and say, "you're right." So throwing out the information and your feelings can do some good as long as you let any change be "their idea." That's my experience with both my husband and son, anyway. I think it also sensitizes them to external information so they can explore that without letting you know.

 

He can see that treatment is doing you good, and knows that there is a genetic factor, so he might see that he might do better. I wish we could change our language to refer to these illnesses as brain disorders, which they are.

John Folk-Williams, Health Guide

3/22/10 12:58pm

Hi, Donna -

 

That's an incredible story. It make me think of the fear I've often had of losing myself - but defining depression in such a way that it can't possibly apply to your state is taking it pretty far. I know someone who regards every visit to a doctor - including an emergency for a heart attack - as an encounter with a crook who's trying to sell him something he doesn't need. He gets suspicious that treatment could simply kill him. There are lots of legitimate criticisms to make about health care, but the stories a fearful mind can spin are amazing.

 

Thanks for commenting.

 

John