Dateline:  The Franciscan Restaurant, San Francisco, CA

Today I learned that another person I’d seen in the past gave up and gave in to the promise of escape through substances.   I’d written the following before receiving the news.

At least once a year, I take time to remember the struggles of people for whom every day, every hour is a struggle.  A struggle to keep depression from winning completely.  I know thousands die of hunger every day and slavery exists and people struggle with all sorts health-threatening and life-ending traumas.  But all that being true doesn’t take away the fact that depression is a real thing.  All that doesn’t take away the need to recognize and appreciate the struggles and efforts of those we know who fight the beast.

I’ve had three suicides in my practice and one in my family.  I wasn’t seeing any of the three in my practice at the time of the overdose and the two gunshots, but each of them passed by my way and we’d tried.  I’d fought with them for a while against the darkness.  I’d done the best I knew how and each of them tried much harder.  Each tried every medication, every method, and every wild possibility.

One morning I’ll never forget….In my blithering way I commented to one of the above, “What a great day.  The winter was worth it for a morning like this.”  The sad one said, “That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you, Dr. DeShong.  I don’t see any of what you’re seeing.  And not just this morning.  Not ever.  Or at least not ever that I can remember.”

I remember, too, the pretty student who was repulsed by her own body.  Knowing I attended university basketball games, she asked me, “What do you think about during the play?”  I’m sure my face lit up as I said, “All of it, the big plays, the guys who are really trying, the competition…and I get into the refs when they make lousy calls…“  She let me ramble on, then said.  “What I’m trying to tell you is that when I go to a basketball game all I can think about is the food available at the concessions.  That’s it.  And all my life experiences are the same horrible way.”

All things considered, I’m not sure how well I ever understood what the world looked like to them.  I was blessed to have been born to an incredibly positive mother, one of eight in a Tennessee mountain family.  Once, having just spent a weekend with one of my well-heeled equestrian buddies, I asked my mother if she ever longed for more than she had.  She’d patted my knee and looked at me like I was crazy.  “Oh, no,” she said.  “To have a nice house, this wonderful family, my job as a teacher…if I’d known I’d have all this when I was a kid…wow.”

I remember another moment happening when I was around thirteen.  I’d sat down next to my mother on the couch and noticed the hairs on her calves were about a quarter of an inch long.  “Oh, mother,” I’d wailed. “How can you let yourself go like that?”  She’d put her arm around me and laughed.  “Someday, my dear,” she’d said, “you’ll understand, and things like keeping your legs shaved won’t matter so much.”

I’m lucky to have had the parents I did including their genetics.  But I am not saying if the four I’ve known who’ve suicided had the same mother they wouldn’t have been depressed.  I don’t know all that goes into that kind of depression.  No one does.  I just know that at least once a year…I want to remember and respect how hard they each one tried.  I want to remind myself and whoever will listen…that life is not equally easy to live…and certainly not equally easy to enjoy.