More on . . .
"My Bout with & VICTORY over Depression & Fibromyalgia!"
. . . Continued
Here I was, voted "The Girl with The Best Smile" in the 8th grade a great smile with perfect teeth a smile I made money with in my 3 years of waitressing. And they were right! I could not make a genuine, happy, up-turned, wholesome, whole-hearted smile! I was impressed with how this disease syndrome could get right into the very tissues!
A great awakening I experienced, then, is that the reason I am such an extraordinary person when I am out and about among The People is that (up until this Bout) I am definitely not depressed! I literally bubble when I go places! I love to burst out in song, I feel so good! (But I don't carry a tune very well.) I make direct contact, look into people's eyes, get human, and want to share a little message of joy and fun with them, usually health-related. And it is fun! Because most of them are "so low on the tone scale" that they are hungry for and thoroughly enjoy a non-threatening person coming out of the blue who wants to light them up! Another lesson learned was that when I watch people move slowly and look down and calculate their steps, they are not just appearing old and feeble! They are in pain, and they are moving and living in fear!
Today, April 23rd, 1998, I have claimed "VICTORY over Depression with Fibromyalgia!" The reality remains that on a good day, I am 80% to 90% completely FREE of the condition. I am swimming, hiking, and riding again. And I am infinitely more compassionate! I had forgotten how horrible it is when sickness becomes lifestyle! My heart, renewed, goes out to The Suffering People like never before! In fact, I am truly grateful for this first-hand trip into this particular set of symptoms. This is a trip you do not want to take. If it is a trip a Loved One is on, there is much you can do to help. "REACH OUT with LOVE," for a start. Your Love Revolutionist,
experience of being clinically depressed substantiated the opening statement of the Minirth and Meier book I subsequently studied: "Depression is The Nation's #1 Health Problem." I believe it. First we become depressed, low in Nerve Energy, enervated. Then, if the depression is severe enough, the negative thinking of the individual causes biochemical changes: specifically, an overabundance of neurotransmitters associated with negative emotions that are highly irritable to the nervous system. The subjective experience is not only "Painful Thinking," "Sighing Respiration," and "Retarded Locomotion," but The Depressed Sufferer is a Victim of his/her own Auto-Intoxication that has led to Irritation and Inflammation! Let me tell you, that when I turned into that proverbial "Pillar of Salt" and found bending and any kind of movement painful, I felt like I had moved into a sort of hardening of my tissues that could only be called "turning old overnight."
With this analysis, you can see how Severe Depression with Fibromyalgia Symptoms fits The 7 Stages of Disease Paradigm! It's fascinating! The Depressive Victim moves from Enervation to Auto-Intoxication, into Irritation and Inflammation; and in time, he/she could go right into Induration and Cancer. For researchers have identified the common denominators of "The Cancer Personality": and clinical depression figures mightily in that profile.
One of my most horrifying moments came when I read the Minirth and Meier book and found that the biochemical transformations of The Depressive Personality actually get into the muscles! It is reported that it is typical for The Victim to find it impossible to make a big smile with the corners of the lips turned up! The face has what is clinically termed: "A SAD Affect." And one day, looking into the mirror, I saw a SAD face looking back!
