Lifting the Lid on Depression

Hi, my name is Steven. I'm here today to talk about depression, something that's affected me my entire life. It's been hard to talk about over the years, and until recently it's kind of been my big secret. I'm learning, though, to just be more open about it and to help others, share that with them. And so I'm looking forward today to be able to encourage others to talk about it and that there's help out there. What brought me here was depression has been my big secret for many, many years before I even realized it was depression, not knowing what it was, that there was something wrong with me. The time I've spent suffering, just feeling horrible or completely empty all the time. But I was looking intellectually at my life and I'm like, why do I feel horrible all the time? This is good. This is good. I have a good job. My kids are ... All the boxes are checked, but I feel like garbage. What's going on? It was a very lonely feeling. I didn't feel like there was anyone who really could understand it. I couldn't talk to my parents about it, especially my dad. He wouldn't have understood. I literally just, like, went to the doctor. I was like, "Doc, what's wrong with me?" And they diagnosed me with clinical depression, and that's when everything turned the corner because now I have something to work with. I have something to treat. I know I have a treatment plan and a medication, and now I can do something. Yeah. Even recently, when I mentioned to one of my brothers that I was taking medication again, working through an app, a life coach, and stuff like that: "Oh, you don't need that." You know, "You don't need that. You're fine." And I'm like, "Well, I do need that. I'm much better because I have this now." You know, that's another thing that's so fantastic about being here and about all of us being here together is that, you know, these kinds of things are happening more where people are coming out and not only willing to talk about it, but people are becoming more willing to listen ... Yeah. ... and try to understand. The thing that really resonated with me when you were talking was I think there's such a liberating feeling in kind of a diagnosis, Yes. to an extent. Because, you know, I was ADHD as a kid, but I always had this, I don't know, shame about it because I thought it was something that was wrong with me and it was a personality point of mine. Like, you're just wrong. Like, there's nothing that makes you wrong. You're just born wrong, and that's all there is to it. And so when I got that diagnosis and they're like, "Oh, actually, here's this and here's what you can do for it," it profoundly changed my life. I do kind of regret not...