Greetings,

It has been a long time since I have written.  I have been very busy, which I guess is kind of an excuse.

In the past I have argued depression is not necessarily a disease.  If you look back at my posts, you will not that I am in no way trying to claim expertise on the subject.  I once believed that it is a disease.  It has been turned into a disease my the APA, so that our "disease" can be categorized and easily fixed with a magic pill.  If you want more on my opinion on this issue read later posts.

Well, recently I read Tyler Hamilton's book on doping in professional cycling and his time riding with Lance Armstrong.  He did not hold back and was not kind to his erstwhile friend and ex-teammate Lance Armstrong.

I found the story very interesting, but the one thing that really stuck out to me, that might not to the more casual reader, is Hamilton's admission that he suffered from depression.  He does not go into great detail. But, he mentions that when the cycling authorities began beefing up the testing of banned drugs, and especially once he was caught he was severely depressed.

Once he comes clean and moves to Montana, away from all of the stress of his former life, his depression subsides.

It seems to me that this once again demonstrates that depression is not so much a disease as it is a inability to effectively deal with life's constant pressures.

I hate doing it, but I do it anyways.

We have not gotten a lot of snow, which means that I could ride.  But, it has been very cold, and I have limits on how much I am willing to withstand in order to get a ride in.  I generally like it to be at least 40F.  We've had some warms days, but I have been working a lot.  this means that I will not get home until right before it gets dark.

So, my only alternative is the trainer.  I could use Wii Fit, but that seems to only be beneficial to individuals that are seriously out of shape, or that only want a light workout.  So, I don't use Wii Fit, which brings be back to the trainer.

So, I get on the bike and spin.  It is very boring and the trainer is loud.  The one advantage is that I get to listen to my MP3 player while I ride.  I hate it.  The only advantage, as a cyclist, is that I will be in better shape when the warm weather arrives.

However, there is the more important advantage.  If I do not exercise, I fear that I will get into a funk.  At the very least I know that I will put a bunch of weight on, which will most definitely put me into a funk.  So, I attach the bike to the trainer and I spin, spin, spin and go nowhere.

Getting better, and staying that way is not easy.  I had to do things, and continue to do things, that I knew would be good for me, but I did not want to do.  I had to do the taxes that I put off for two years, I had to get out of bed and keep my mind active, I had to find an alternative to meds, and know I have to get on the damn trainer and spin even though I hate it.

The good news is that we just had a huge snow storm and tomorrow I get to get outside on my snowshoes.

Enjoy life,

Peter

Depression, as other maladies of the brain, is a problem that is more prevalent in western countries.  I recently read an article in the Wilson Quarterly that discussed a reevaluation of dealing with schizophrenia-that perhaps drugs is not the best answer.   For my opinion of drugs and mental "illnesses" see previous posts.  One of the more interesting issues that it discussed is where and why schizophrenia is prevalent.  If an Indian moves to England they have a much greater chance of getting schizophrenia and also would have had a much better chance of recovering from it if he had stayed in India.  Therefore it is something in the culture that is affecting individuals.  It is as if the culture is toxic.

How does this relate to depression.  Depression works in the same way, and it is almost counter intuitive.  In areas of the world where you would think depression would be most prevalent, such as third world countries where the majority of individuals struggle just to get the basics of life, it is not.   Depression is more prevalent in the better-to-do parts of the world.  I have read that many that study depression believe that this is a result of the western culture.  In the United States success is often define in terms of money or what we "do" for a living.  If we are not wealthy or we do not have a career that is deemed a good job by others we might consider ourselves failures.  I am not saying that everyone feels this way.  But, in general this is the way that Americans view the world. Many Americans believe that anyone that has money must be smart--because they must have used their smarts to get rich.

I have never really cared about money.  I never wanted to be rich, and I still do not want to be rich.  I would like to have enough money to travel some, and I have been drooling over a new bike.  (Sometimes I drive my wife nuts with my obsession.) But, my tastes are pretty simple.  My self worth has never been connected to the size of my paycheck.  However, I did believe that what you do for a living, to a great extent, defined who you are as a person.  I was going to be a great intellectual--a history professor.

That did not work out.  I have discussed my failures in my chosen career many times in past posts.  So, I don't feel that I need to recount my pain.  Simply put, I became seriously depressed because I failed as a teacher, and was therefore a failure in life.

Despite the neurofeedback and the cycling, which both helped immensely,  I had, for a very long time, very low self-esteem.  I knew that I was smart and hard working, but felt that no one would ever hire me due to my past failures.  I went through the motions of searching for a job, and I would occasionally get excited about a job that I felt I had a good chance of getting.  But, I almost always expected no reply.

Eventually, I began to focus less and less on my career as the core of who I was and more and more on the rest of life when I defined myself.  I was a great dad and husband, a lover of the outdoors, a backpacker, a cyclist, a bibliophile, someone who others could count on to lend a hand, a hard worker...ect.  When I began to focus on the positives and less on the one obvious negative, I began to have a better perspective on my life.  I was not a failure.  I was someone who was struggling to find what they wanted to do with his life.  But, what?

I knew that I did not want to work as a grocery clerk. I hate my job, and I could not imagine enjoying it any more if I was a manager.  I also knew that any kind of retail was out of the question.  Most retail jobs pay crap.  And, workers are almost certainly required to work nights and weekends. I had been working two nights a week and every Saturday for almost 4 1/2 years when I finally decided to break away--to believe that I could make it on my own.

For more than two years I had contemplated starting my own house painting company.  But, I had many excuses.  It was not what I spent eight years in college to do, I did not have the money to buy a truck, I did not have the money to buy materials, I did not have experience writing estimates.  And, most importantly, I knew that I would fail.

Finally, I took a bold step.  I just decided to do what many had been telling me what I could do for several years. In less than two months after deciding to start a new painting company I have had two clients accept estimates, had a relative offer me a huge multi-thousand dollar job, and received a call for another job that sounds as if it will a least be a couple or thousand dollars.  For the two jobs for which clients have accepted contracts, I will make as much money as I made working as a grocery clerk for three months.  I have also bought a truck!

For the first time, in a very long time, I am happy with all aspects of my life.  This is not to suggest that I think that my life is perfect.  Yet, it is perfect.  What I mean by this is that my life is the way that it should be.  I have told my wife a couple of times that I daugther is perfect.  She is smart, funny, silly, curious, but at times she can be a pain in the ass, whinny, lazy..ect.  This is exactly what I expected an eleven year old to be, and thus she is a perfect.  The concept of perfection is is subjective.  To me a perfect life, is one that is for the most part enjoyable--one in which you look forward to life.

It took a long time for me to get to this point.  But, it was all about perspective.  A person does not have to have a career that brings joy to millions to be considered successful.  He does not have to write a Pulitzer Prize winning book to be successful.  He does not have to be a millionaire to be considered successful.  Just focus on being important to your loved ones.  Is the father that volunteers at their child's school as important as the father that spends thousands on gifts for their child, but never spends time with her?  I think that the first father is much more important, and he is the person that I am striving to be everyday.

Enjoy life.

Peter