I’ve always been a little perturbed about the way society treats those of us who suffer from clinical depression. People don’t think twice when you call work and tell them you can’t come in because your leg is broken or you have the flu. But tell them you’re depressed and the person at the other end of the telephone turns mute.

To give the devil his due we have become a little more enlightened the last several years on the subject and no longer view those with emotional or mental problems as being “stark raving mad” or “crazy as h*ll.”

Truth is, almost everyone I know has either dealt with depression or knows someone who has. My daddy, the druggist, used to say, “Almost everybody in town takes some type of nerve pill, and those who don’t probably need to.”

Of course he always said this, too. “There are two kinds of people in the world. Those who have stomach ulcers and those who cause them.” Daddy suffered with ulcers all of his adult life and lost half his stomach because of them.

But I digress. Finally, people are taking depression seriously.

“Depression is the worst kind of sickness,” said a friend of mine who, by the way, had a nut wing (I apologize but I have to insert a little humor here) named for her at Jackson Hospital in Montgomery. It’s a very swanky place. I vacationed there over a weekend once.

Depression, the clinical kind, is not at all like the “I’m down in the dumps” or “Dang, will I ever lose these fifty pounds?” variety. It’s so much worse. Multiply those situations a thousand times and you’ll have just a hint of what it’s like to live with depression day in and day out.

Clinically depressed people don’t want to get out of bed, don’t want to talk, don’t want to eat, don’t want to do much of anything, except maybe cry.

“Why are you crying?” your family will ask. “Tell you what. Let’s go to the Tastee Freeze and get some ice cream.”

Listen folks, there’s not enough ice cream in Lincoln County that will make a depressed person “perk up,” as those unaffected are wont to say.

You know, if you have the flu you can still pretty much function. But, dear hearts, if you’re truly clinically depressed you’re hard pressed to do anything productive or be at all social.

As I said, you cry all the time with not a clue as to why and, again, no amount of chocolate chip cookies or sympathetic friends can help you. It’s a chemical problem in the brain. It’s a physical problem in other words, like having the measles, or having freckles and being fat, and just as terrible.

My current depression began for me when I woke up one morning and I felt like I was dying, I mean really dying. I looked in the mirror and started sobbing – no, not because I looked bad, which obviously I did, but because I felt my life was over, it meant nothing, and I meant nothing to anybody else.

Now mind you, my life is no more stressful than the average neurotic’s. I have friends. I am loved by my family, and as far as I know, no terrorist has targeted my house for future annihilation. Logically, I had no reason to be depressed. But I was.

All I could figure was that the anti-depressant I’d taken the last twenty years had obviously petered out. I needed something new and improved and I needed it fast. Only one problem. I hadn’t had a counselor or a shrink since my children were in grade school and therefore I had no one to go to for help and, more importantly, a new prescription.

So how, you might ask, have I continued to take my now useless anti-depressants all these years without the help of a professional? Well, it was legitimately subscribed at one time, back when Noah built the ark, so I just kept getting my family doctor(s) to re-issue my prescriptions. After all, they worked, didn’t they?

And should I run out, my girlfriend, who takes the same thing as I, gives me the pills she has left over.

Now, I’m pretty sure that is unethical, maybe criminal, but the net result is positive, in that I continued to have access to medicine that kept me from going, as you say, crazy. Bonkers. Nutty as a fruitcake.

I quickly found out on that day I woke up to gloom and doom that finding a new shrink was not going to be an easy task. First of all, how does one go about finding a good one? Do you call your friends who don’t seem quite right and say, “Hey, when I saw you the other day in Bells sobbing over the cabbage, I figured you just might know the name of a good counselor?”

And even if you do find a good one, he or she can’t see you for 6 months or more. Can you imagine?? I mean, listen to those TV commercials that talk about anti-depressants. They rattle this off in a matter of seconds: This medication has been known to cause hopelessness, despair, unexplained sadness, loss of appetite, thoughts of suicide, no interest in doing things you love…yada, yada, yada.

Did you happen to catch that little phrase they managed to sneak in there? “…thoughts of suicide.”

Umm, now tell me, wouldn’t you think that people who might have those kinds of thoughts could really benefit from a speedy visit to the shrink’s office? Six months!

Are they kidding?

Then there’s the problem of insurance. Many people don’t have insurance that will pay for any type of mental or emotional problem. How sucky is that? The people who already feel lower than a snake’s belly in a wagon rut now have to worry about how to pay the $150 an hour most shrinks charge!

Oh, you can go to a free mental health clinic, which, from what I’ve seen, is like a scene out of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. I helped admit a friend to one of those places one time.

It’s amazing. After about an hour and a half in the waiting room, you feel perfectly sane, wonder why in the heck you’re in here at all, and suddenly check out all the exits.

That’s because most of the other unfortunate souls are lined up, back to back, in the waiting room, some of them looking as if they’ve been here for years. Their clothes have even started to shrink and their beards are down to their chests. And that’s just the women.

Some obviously had problems unlike those of my friend because, for at least one lady, her symptoms apparently included thinking it was perfectly all right to come to the clinic wearing only her slip and one flipflop.

My friend kept telling me, “Am I in as bad a shape as these people?”

“Of course not,” I reassured her. “You’re not schizophrenic and you’re certainly not screaming for all to hear like that fella over there.”

“I JUST CAME IN HERE FOR MY MEDICAL MARIJUANA,” the man shouted. “All I NEED IS MY MARIJUANA AND A SIX-PACK. Now GIVE ‘em to me!”

It’s true. And the longer you sit in a place like that you slowly turn into the most normal person on the planet and have to resist the urge to run screaming out the door yelling, “Thank God, I don’t belong here! I want to live! I want to live!”

The only good thing, I suppose, about these clinics is that if you can get you a case worker you can at least get a prescription for whatever ails you, and you can get it pretty quickly. The down size is, along with the meds you also get a custom-fitted strait jacket.

Okay, okay, I’m kidding. Besides, if they give you Thorazine, you won’t even need a strait jacket.

Again, kidding. Just kidding.

By the way, kidding, exaggerating, lying – any of those things are great ways to occupy yourself until your next appointment, and you must make an appointment. It is imperative if you ever expect to get any pills.

Let me share this with you, friends. If you are prescribed anti-depressants it takes at least two weeks or more for the suckers to kick in, so to speak, so don’t despair. Until then, there are any number of pills you can take to tide you over. As I said, friends will usually share.

Okay, enough of that. Let me be serious for a minute. If there is one thing that I have learned in my 61 years it is that we are flawed human beings. We are born into a sinful world and while we are here, like it or not, we will experience pain from time to time. Emotional, mental, physical, even spiritual pain that can strip you of all hope and faith if you let it.

Don’t let it. Remember, all of us are in this thing together and it behooves us to open up, be vulnerable, and reach out to those who are hurting if to do nothing but say, “Hey, I’ve been there, and though you may wish it would sometimes, what you’re going through will not kill you.”

And here’s a tip: All people, at some time or another, will experience emotional pain. They will deal with it in various and sundry ways, some healthy and some not so healthy. Alcohol is the drug of choice for way too many of us. Then so is overeating.

See your doctor, please, if you feel the need. Don’t suffer in silence. You are not alone! There are, oh, so many new medicines now for treating depression and for that, I’m so very grateful. I’m ready to try a new one any day now. Better Living with Chemistry, I always say.

Let me end with another of my daddy’s jokes. If you don’t feel like laughing, then don’t. It’s okay to feel bad.

Two men were in adjoining cells in an asylum. As the doctor was making his rounds he heard one of the men mumbling something.

“Hello, John,” he said, “What is that you’re saying?”

“Doc, Doc!! Did you know that I’m Franklin Roosevelt!?”

“Well, no John, I didn’t,” the doctor said calmly. “And just how do you know that?”

John grinned from ear to ear. “God told me!” he said proudly.

Then immediately from the adjoining cell came a meek little voice, “I did not!”

* * * * …Weeping may endure for a night, but Joy comes in the morning. Psalm 30:5