Last week I was prompted to write an article entitled Dark Shadows as a means to process the sudden and unexpected death of actor and comedian, Robin Williams. As a means to come to grips with how someone who – from the outside looking in – seemingly had everything could end up in a place where he must have felt he had nothing to live for, I traveled back to a place in my own life when I knew I had felt the same way just prior to my own suicide attempt.

Caught within the throes of a nasty divorce following a twenty-five year marriage, I was suddenly alienated from my parents and children who felt as if they no longer knew me, as well as what friendships I’d managed to maintain over the years. I was struggling to survive in a new city only to find out all access to any funds I’d managed to put back for the occasion had been frozen thus leaving me with little or nothing to live on, and I was racked by an overwhelming sense of guilt, because it was me who wanted out of the marriage and me that was turning everyone’s life I cared about inside out along with my own. Besides all this I was living in hiding …. moving from one cheap hotel room to the next, night after night once I found out my husband had hired a detective who was to bring me back. Though due to his abandonment I had more or less spent the last fifteen years by myself as I labored to raise our two children, I remember thinking I had never felt so alone in all my life. My world was in shambles, and I had no idea where to begin or even how to start rebuilding. It didn’t matter in what direction I looked, as it seemed there was no future on that distant horizon that included me anymore, and the best thing I could do for my loved ones was put an end to all this suffering …. or at least that’s what my mind was telling me in that at the time.

mind was telling me in that at the time.

But God was good. Just because I had lost faith in him didn’t mean he had given up on me. He sent his angels and they protected me from myself. Thus my attempt at an overdose was subverted when I was found and rushed to a hospital where my stomach was pumped just before my lungs aspirated. Three days later, as I sat across from a staff psychiatrist, I knew I was neither crazy nor intent on a death wish …. I was just incredibly sad, and I had been for well over a decade. Now – although it’s taken me fifteen years to discover the reason – I know now why my life was spared when by all accounts it shouldn’t have been.

I’m tired of the devastating effects mental illness has upon our society, and I’m worn out turning on the television and seeing one more gut-wrenching example of countless people’s lives being ripped apart due to some troubled individual who takes their frustrations out on innocents as a means to somehow seek revenge against a civilization that has abandoned him. It doesn’t take a trained psychologist to comprehend we need to embrace a different kind of culture that allows for someone to seek help for a troubled mind without the fear of being labeled as sick, crazy or incompetent. It’s time family members seek help for troubled minors long before they become a household name due to a tragic headline splashed across the news. And last of all it’s time we admit we are not invincible and that even the strongest among us sometimes suffers from weak moments, and that is okay …. we are all only human.

Since writing Dark Shadows this past week, a number of people have reached out to me in a variety of ways, some sharing their own personal struggles with maladies that affect the mind. As such it’s my belief that depression, as well as a variety of other mental illnesses, are far more prevalent in society than any of us would like to believe. I also am under the distinct impression that depression in particular affects far more men than women simply because women are more adept at sharing their feelings and processing their emotions than men. We have had to pay dearly for that advantage by being labeled bitches and drama queens, but in the end it is a benefit that has helped us cope more often than not, while men are left to internalize their fears and anxieties lest they should be perceived as weak.

As Americans we are for the most part Type-A over-achievers. Our founding fathers left British rule and oppression then subsequently fought to insure their independence from England in the War for Independence and then went on to establish what was to become a world-dominating superpower in less than two hundred years. There is no other society on earth that can lay claim to such bragging rights, which ultimately makes us hated by some and adored by others. Inasmuch we have grown up being held as the standard bearer for excellence and accomplishment, which makes it that much more difficult when on a personal level we feel we can no longer cope in our private lives. Unfortunately with such shame comes the need to keep secrets from the very people who would help if only they knew.

We grow up celebrating victory and achievement, but no one wants to celebrate failure, much less find themselves victimized by its unforgiving ramifications, thus we are faced with one of two choices …. live a possible life of shame – which may very well lead to securing the kind of help we need – or choose to live a life that is less than authentic as we endeavor to cover up our misfortune as if it meant being stripped naked before an unforgiving crowd of onlookers. The first option – though indeed painful – is undoubtedly the shortest distance to recovery, while the second option can lead to years of dysfunctional living designed to eat away at you from the inside out, and in the worst of circumstances, culminating in one desperate final act intended to take one’s life.

However, the good news is that mental illness is not cancer or some other terminal illness. With the right kind of compassion and care it can be treated, and recovery or at least management is possible. Oftentimes over the years I’ve watched a profile on television of someone who is fighting – or perhaps even dying from some potentially terminal illness – only to hear them say something like, “Cancer is the best thing that ever happened to me ….” I believe that’s because through circumstances that are beyond their control they have been forced to re-evaluate what’s most important in life and then embrace whatever time they had left making the most of it with a renewed perspective that wouldn’t have been possible otherwise. In this insistence something like cancer can actually become a gift, but then so can overcoming those same struggles that originate within the mind. Because conquering the effects of mental illness can lead to the same kind of grace that overcoming any other kind of illness does, and once you do you just might find you’ve written your own silver linings playbook.

On a final note …. I’ve been hard on my ex-husband of late, because he helped shaped the darkest period of my life, but that was years ago when perhaps we were both too young to know any better. As a result, my numerous knee-jerk reactions caused me to do many things that hurt him as well, however we are both much older and wiser now. He went on to eventually re-marry and is living life much differently than he once did, and I went on to find a separate peace that has brought me much happiness in return. We are both better people now. Thus it’s never too late to get healthy, and you should never feel ashamed for reaching out to people and seeking the help you need. Things like depression, fear and anxiety need not be terminal once you decide to stop giving them power and instead take it back for yourself.