Depression vs. Sadness
In an early blog entry I distinguished clinical depression from the depression that comes from the inevitable tribulations of life. I used the example of a pet dog dying as a cause for depression. Well, that happened to me yesterday, and the experience has given me opportunity to reflect on the difference between causal depression and the type that seems to come out of no where.
That fuzzy dope who inhabited the backyard for the last 10 years was little more than background life to my domestic abode. Sure, I patted him on the head now and again, or scratched his neck, but admittedly took him for granted. He was more friends with the kids I suppose, I merely the landlord.
Yesterday he was blowing blood out of his nostrils and had become very weak so we loaded him in the car and rushed him over to the animal ER. After a half hour the veterinarian gave us the somber news. It was most likely nasal cancer but he wouldn’t know for certain unless they were able to A) stop the bleeding, and B) find a specialist who could perform the proper scoping and X-rays to determine cause. Procedures could easily run into the high four figures, and possibly higher.
It was a tough decision, but the only prudent action given the age and condition of the dog was euthanasia.
My youngest daughter was probably the dogs best friend. She had taken to him as a favorite playmate and they spent hours together rolling around on the back lawn. She was in the waiting room with us and broke into uncontrollable sobs which choked-up my wife and I as well.
It’s a very strange and emotional experience to spend time with a living creature knowing that it will soon undergo the separation of life. We surrounded the wheezing cur, stroking his head and assuring him that he’s always been a good dog. He certainly wasn’t his usual, chipper self as he strained for air behind dim eyes and bloody snout. The room was filled with profound emotion.
After about 20 minutes we bid him farewell and notified the assistant that the doctor may proceed with the procedure. You always hear about the master holding the dog as the lethal dose of anesthetic is injected, but we wanted our last memory to be of his kind brown eyes. The veterinarian was a gentle man with a long gray ponytail, so we knew our beloved dog would be comforted as he dozed off for the last time.
Last night the family was in an expected funk. We’d lost a member that day and needed some time to grieve. I have been searching my soul to identify the emotions I have been feeling and how those differed from depression. I have lost loved ones to death in the past but have not really taken the time to understand the feelings. I now know that grieving loss is not the same thing as being depressed. It’s sadness, which is a very different emotion from depression.
Sadness is also squarely a pain in the heart. It’s easy to understand the feeling of something suddenly missing from the left side of the chest. A broken heart is also a good description. This feeling or emotion is entirely different from the vacuum of feeling that accompanies depression. Considering that only now am I seeing 20/20 emotional vision after nearly 50 years of darkness, can I begin to understand what people have been talking about.
Depression is a void in the head, whereas sadness is a vacuum in the heart.
In: Depression · Tagged with: bi-polar, Depression, sadness