The depression monster

A person who belongs to a group of which I am a member asked a question this week. I found the question odd for various reasons, but mostly for the implicit restriction the person felt surrounded them. The question was: How do you do it? How do you work, go to school, raise a family or succeed with a chronic disease?

Now that question begs more information and come to find out the person who posed the question has asthma (self-described as bad asthma) and has had that condition for 15 years. He is 17. He is getting ready to graduate from high school in a few months and he is worried about adapting to a world beyond his K-12 environment.

Depression and Chronic Illness

I think if we have lived with chronic disease as a child we have asked ourselves that question, and if you are like me it tugs at you to see a young person so terribly upset about the future quality of life. Or as Douglas Adams (one of my favorite authors) wrote in ‘Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy’ the young man was worried about “Life, the Universe and Everything”.

I really had no sage advice to share with him. Is it fair to write, I have been there, I get it? (I have) Is it fair to write you can overcome this? (I have never had asthma but I do recall the diagnosis of type 1 diabetes at 17) Is it fair to write, get over it, pick yourself up we all have problems? (I think not)

I, of course, cannot diagnose anyone (I am not that kind of a doctor); but I do suspect that depression may be at the root of the problem. After all, depression is a comorbidity of many chronic conditions and what the young man described seemed more a case I do not wish to go on, than how do I go on.

Confront the Monster

How to approach this depression monster is the million dollar question. From my own experience I know that when I chose not to deal with my depression, I was swallowed up by it. So, if this young man might be suffering depression it seems important to suggest therapy. Especially when depression is a major cause of distress for both young and not so young people suffering through chronic disease.

But if depression is our common enemy then there must be common ways of dealing with depression? See your high school counselor may be a good place for this young man to start, but what about the adult who feels the same? Ask a friend? Are friends equipped to help really? (Doubtful) Or maybe we should say see your family doctor? Has it been our experience that family doctors have good solutions for depression? (Not really) Or maybe the person should call the local mental health office? (Most won’t) So what is the one ironclad way to deal with depression for someone with chronic illness? I do not know. And I will never pretend to give the best answer, except to offer everything I can think of including all of the above. Because we never know exactly what might be needed/helpful for any one person.

What I do know is that when someone asks these kind of questions the implications are often bigger than a kid asking a dumb question and the response (get over it like I did) is never a good answer. I hope someday we have better solutions than all of the above.

-30-

rick

Take away for February 28, 2016

• Depression and Chronic illness are comorbidities
• No one size fits all
• Talk therapy seems to be our best defense right now
• We need better ways of dealing with depression and chronic illness