Copyright, 1999 by Kurt Nemes

Starting in high school, I began to develop a somewhat moody personality—alternating between a buzz of activity and black pessimism. This resulted in my not being able to enjoy the fruits of my labors. Whenever something went well, I felt guilty and unworthy of it.

In an attempt to cure myself over the years, I read the classics works of psychology and then graduated to self-help books with titles like: “Healing the Child Within” and “The Feeling Good Handbook.” I went to group therapy, and later joined a men’s group, which met twice a month for 4 years. Finally, I went to a Jungian therapist for about a year.

But the fact of the matter was that after all of this, I was still depressed.

Fortunately, my decline happened not too long after the publication of a book called “Listening to Prozac,” by Peter Kramer. That book put me on the path to my cure.

I haven’t gone out of my way to advertise my struggle with depression since then. I worried about alienating people who might have misconceptions about mental illness. However, at our Christmas lunch, Young Kimaro asked me to consider devoting my next speech to my experiences battling depression. The route I took has relieved me of considerable suffering, so I thought that if sharing my story can somehow prevent others from going through what I did, it will have been worth it.

My speech today therefore has three main parts. Clearing up misconceptions about depression, recognizing symptoms of depression, and, finally, how to get help if you’re depressed.

Doing something about one’s depression takes guts, because our society stigmatizes mental illness. One need not look far to find examples. In the 1992 presidential campaign, Michael Dukakis was considered weak because he had been treated for depression.

Yet depression and other mental disease take a profound toll on health and productivity. According to “Mental Health: A report of the Surgeon General,” published last December, untreated mental illness on the average takes 15 years off a person’s life span. What’s more, 1 in 5 people suffer from some type of depression, and untreated depression is the largest cause of suicide in the United States.

Over the last 30 years, researchers have come to understand the connections between chemical processes in the brain and complex human emotions and behaviors. Mental functions are caused by physical processes in the brain. And mental states like stress can cause physical disease in the body. Depression can be caused by traumatic experiences, be hereditary, or even may be part of the natural aging process. We don’t think that someone is weak if they get diabetes or cancer. You wouldn’t tell a person with heart disease, for example, to snap out of it. But depression is no less a disease than those.

Our society’s attitude toward depression makes people think they have to tough their problems out. They believe they are weak if they resort to counseling or drugs. Thus they find themselves in a double bind—if they don’t get better, they’re even weaker and more of a failure. And what if they can’t work it out on their own?

It is important to understand the symptoms of depression, because they sometimes seem counterintuitive. I was lucky to find Kramer’s book. It discussed symptoms we would instantly associate with depression: introversion, broodiness, excessive guilt, and self-denigration. However, depressive people also sometimes become over-excited, extraverted, self-assured, exuberant, and over optimistic. I fit into the type who was on that emotional seesaw. Seeing myself in this book and its discussion of the cures available made me take action.

I have created a handout for you that lists some of the major signs of depression and resources. These sources state the importance of seeking help, because untreated depressive episodes can cause increased susceptibility to more severe depression.

If you think you are depressed, what should you do? While there is no single solution to any mental disorder, most people with mental disorders have treatment options—including medications, short-term psychotherapy, and community-based supportive services.

Now GPs are not always up on the latest research in mental health. Therefore, if you do suffer from depression, you have to give yourself permission to seek help and treatment from a psychiatrist or psycho-pharmacologist. It is important that you don’t try to tough it out.

The greatest success in treating depression comes from a fairly new class of drugs called selective serotonin re-uptake inhibitors. These include drugs you might have heard of, like Prozac and Zoloft. They have had dramatic results in curing depression and letting people lead healthy and productive lives.

The important thing to remember is that everyone is different and it might take a while to find the right drug or combinations of drugs. Some of these drugs take a few weeks to work, and if they don’t you have to wait until one clears out of your system before trying another. The import thing is not to give up.

I knew the second when the drug had taken affect and that it was working. Something happened--a minor setback at work that I would normally have taken personally. I heard myself thinking: “Oh, thank you for bringing that up. That’s one way of looking at it. I’ll just put that thought over there and go on.”

For me this was nothing short of revolutionary. I’d never looked at adversity that way before. For the first time in ages I felt like a rational person again. Other people who’ve battled depression all their lives describe the results like this, “I never knew life could be this way.”

Now this does not mean that therapy is worthless or a waste of time. Through therapy, I learned more constructive ways to approach problems in my life. It also helped me to understand and resolve certain incidents in my past. On Zoloft, what I had learned in therapy seemed even more valuable. The combination of drugs and therapy has over an 80% success rate in curing depression.

In his book, Walden, the American philosopher, Thoreau, wrote:

“The mass of men lead lives of quite desperation.”

As I have tried to show today, that does not have to be true any longer. New antidepressant drugs have allowed to millions of people to find balance and normalcy once again. The key is learning to recognize the signs and seek help. In my own case, feelings of inadequacy and self-doubt no longer keep me from taking risks, trying new roles, or going after goals—many of which I have obtained. These drugs have given me options where previously there existed none. In short, they have given me hope.