The next few years I went in and out of major and minor depressive episodes, although I didn't recognize either for what they were. I remember a few periods of doing nothing but dragging myself to work and, in my free time, reading romance novels. My roommates would try to coax me into going out and bar-hopping (which I normally loved), but I just didn't feel like it.

In the summer of 1990, as I've said, I read Styron's Darkness Visible. As I read it, I kept saying to myself, "This is me; I've been feeling all of this." However, I still hesitated to see a psychiatrist. Not that I wasn't seeing a doctor. I was overwhelming my family doctor with visit after visit, sure that I had this disease or that ailment. I think I was in his office every two weeks on average that year. My hypochondria wasn't the only problem, though. My memory and concentration, which had always been excellent, were completely shot. I couldn't retain anything I read. I lay in bed every morning trying to think of a reason to get up and go to work. When I wasn't at work, the only thing I had the energy to do was watch TV.

I had been dating a man for a year who not only was depressed himself, but was an alcoholic. I had been pressuring him to make some sort of commitment to me, without understanding why it was so important to me. Finally, the morning after a particularly nasty argument, as I lay in bed, the sound of his car driving off made me crack. I started screaming and couldn't stop until I was hoarse. Shaken, I called my family doctor and asked for the name of a good psychiatrist. I saw the head of psychiatry at the local hospital a few days later. I remember sitting in his office twisting my hands together in my lap as he asked me about my family history and my symptoms. At the end of the hour he told me he thought that they could help me (the most beautiful words I could remember ever hearing) and that he would set me up with a therapist and a psychiatrist at the hospital's mental health clinic. He also mentioned that they might want me to go on medication, an idea which I negated immediately. I had hated taking medication since I was put on tranquilizers for migraines when I was a teenager.

The next few weeks, which were at Christmas time, were horrendous. I went to a dear friend's wedding, but was only able to endure half an hour of the reception before escaping, crying on the drive home. I kept ahold of myself all Christmas Day, but started crying hysterically as soon as I left my parent's house, and cried all the way home. Things got slightly better after the holidays, and I was going to therapy once a week. I was gaining insight into what made me tick, which was helping me to a great extent in my relationships. However, it was not alleviating what was steadily growing into a shrieking storm inside my head. In early spring I sat in my bedroom and decided that if this was the kind of pain I was going to live with for the next fifty years, then life would hold absolutely no appeal for me. Strictly speaking, I wasn't thinking of suicide, but I'm sure it would only have been a matter of time before I sought that relief. I told my psychiatrist that I was ready to try whatever medication they wanted to give me. He put me on Norpramin, which is a type of antidepressant. The side effects (dry mouth, shaking hands, dizziness in the morning) were unpleasant, but I was determined to stick it out for the six weeks they told me it would take for the medicine to take effect. This was my only chance at having my life back.

Not only did I get my life back, I got a new life. At first I noticed only that the noise in my head was fading, and I was beginning to take an interest in things going on around me again. But as the weeks went on, a whole new personality emerged. Instead of the classic clothes in smoky colors I had always worn, I now was gravitating toward flashy clothes in bright colors. Now I wanted to draw attention to myself - I loved it! I, who had always been so shy, was now smiling at strangers and eagerly entering into conversation with them. I was suddenly interested in everything: food, clothes, science, sports, history, etc. Not only did I have a thirst for knowledge, but I also had the energy to follow through on it. I read voraciously, but for the first time I wasn't trying to escape into a make-believe world; I was fascinated by the one I inhabited.

I felt that for the first time in my life, my "real" personality had emerged. Going on the medication did so much more than I expected. The only thing that marred this rebirth was the thought that I had wasted so many years living in the fog of depression. I mourn all the years lost, all the opportunities missed, and all the friends that I had alienated. If I had understood more about this illness, if there weren't so many misconceptions about it, I probably would have gone to a doctor years before.

Now, almost ten years later, the only time my depression has come back has been when I've gone off my medication or the level of medication in my blood has become too low. I have high and low moods like everyone else, but the low moods are always of short duration, a day or so, and always in reaction to something negative or stressful happening in my life. In other words, my moods are normal.

I'm begging you, if you think you have depression, get help. Although it's true that not every case is as successful as mine, around 80% of people who have depression can be helped. I'm not advocating medication for everyone. I have a friend whose outlook on life has been changed by psychotherapy as much as mine has been changed by the combination of medication and psychotherapy. Every case is different. Your best bet is to educate yourself as much as possible about this illness in addition to seeking professional help. Depression is a terrible, soul-stealing illness. I don't know if we will ever be able to eradicate it, but from my own experience I know that the tools to defeat it are there. You owe it to yourself to give those tools the chance to rescue you from the pain and emptiness of depression.

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