So, so you think you can tell
Heaven from hell
Blue skies from pain
Can you tell a green field
From a cold steel rail
A smile from a veil
Do you think you can tell?

We’re just two lost souls swimming in a fish bowl
Year after year
Runnin’ over the same old ground
What have we found?
The same old fears
Wish you were here (Sung by the great Pink Floyd)

Hello, hello, hello
is there anybody in there?
Just nod if you can hear me.
Is there anybody home?
Come on now, I hear you’re feelin’ down
Well, I can ease your pain
and get you on your feet again.
Relax. I need some information first.
Relax. Just to face the facts.
Can you show me where it hurts? (Again by the great Pink Floyd)

Living with depression is a constant battle that is fought on a daily basis. This is not just for the weak, but also for the strongest, too. Mental illness doesn’t discriminate at all. It rears its butt ugly head whenever it wants to. It doesn’t matter who you are and what you have, it will target you and set it’s eyes on you. My innocent inner child would have no clue what do if I didn’t have someone close to me also suffer with this. If my mother didn’t inherit mental illness and I was the lone wolf in this battle, I don’t know what would’ve happened to me.

One of my favorite rock groups is Pink Floyd. My dad introduced to me to their music when I was younger. Every time I hear “Wish you were here” and “Comfortably numb”, I stop dead in my tracks. I will listen and sing along to the songs and it affects me.  I can completely relate to the songs and their lyrics. Look at them closely and listen to both of the songs and you can hear the emotions in the music and also in the melody of the song. Can people really tell the difference between “blue skies from pain” or “when you’re feeling down, I can ease your pain”?

The answer is NO. Read the picture above. This is the worst part of depression. If no one ever felt like this before, then they wouldn’t have a clue as what it feels like. For me, depression is like “swimming in the same fishbowl year after year” in “Wish you were here.” This would be the Triple Threat Disease’s sophomore effect called: “Wish you were here & Comfortably numb.” This effort sweeps the airwaves of my brain on a daily basis like a broken record. It’s more annoying than any other hit song that has hit the airwaves such as “I got you babe” by Sonny and Cher. Love Cher, but I can’t stand this song.

Living in darkness and in a fishbowl swimming the same laps over again is brutal. It’s like there’s no light at all. Someone turned off the power in your head and you’re stumbling around trying to find the nearest light switch when there is none. Life is like a being swept up into a tornado and you can’t stop it if you could.

Imagine yourself in a crowded room and you scream at the top of your lungs, but no one hears you. That’s me. How do I survive everyday when I feel like I’m driving down a dead-end street? I get out my coping strategies and take a good look at myself in the mirror. Life is hard and death is inevitable. But take a deep breath and take baby steps. Relax yourself and clear your mind. Easier said that done, right? Take stock of what you have. I have family, friends, dogs, and others that love and care for me. That’s one point there. Yes, I have a job, a car, a home, and some money to name, but those are mostly material items. I do have my health and but I do have get my butt back into shape. I’m not the slender girl like I used to be. So there’s another couple of points there. But I’m still here. I’m still fighting the good fight. Somedays are diamonds and somedays are like disappointments. Oh well, we can’t have great days every day!

Having a positive attitude and outlook for life is important. If I didn’t look at the positive spectrum then who knows what would happen? My mother is notorious for thinking in terms of the “worst case scenario” and this is not how to approach your life. For as long as I’ve known her, she always been like this. She’s a little bit more stubborn than me. She likes the “light switch off” and I prefer to have the “light switch on”. I can’t stand living in the darkness and having a negative outlook on life. I just can’t. This world is nowhere near perfect and will never be, but there still is hope and brightness that exists. There’s great humanity that exists out there, you just have to find it. It could be right there in your face or a long ways from you. How you handle mental illness day by day is so different for everyone. I’m sure there’s a lot of positive sufferers like me that have a great outlook on life and there’s probably a lot of negative sufferers that don’t have a great outlook, too. Remember a trick learned in Cognitive Behavior Therapy: “Change your ways of thinking.” Think positive, you’ll be positive and vice versa.

It does help that this is only temporary (because life is short) and I refused to think of mental illness as “lifetime prison sentence.” If I thought that way, then who knows where I would be. I probably would’ve tightened up that noose around my neck and called it a day. But I don’t. Any and all nooses, shackles, or handcuffs that my depression attaches to me with, I destroy them all. I burn the noose. I rip the shackles off and steal the keys to handcuffs and free myself. I refuse to let this battle take my life. Trust me, living with demons everyday is tough. I know! But think and be POSITIVE! You can fight it with everything you have. I do! I put on my boxing gloves and start pounding those demons one by one like the “Great” Ali. I don’t stop until each one is dead and is totally KO’D. I do all this without drugs, alcohol, and violence. I have my inner strength and my spirit fighter doing all the work along with medications. Yeah, medications help, but my inner self outpowers them all. Find your inner strength and your spirit fighter and tackle each day; one day at a time. No one said life was easy or fair.

Heed the wish that Aladdin made to Genie! Unshackle yourself everyday and face it with a positive outlook. Also enjoy watching this movie! The late and great Robin Williams made this one of my favorite Disney films, period!