I am on vacation in the Florida Keys. I had dinner tonight with a friend at a restaurant on the Gulf of Mexico. The sunset was postcard over-the-top stunning – pink, orange, lavender, yellow. After dinner we walked across the street and watched in the moon rise on the Atlantic ocean.

I started the day with my favorite breakfast: greasy hash browns, sausage, scrambled eggs and coffee. Then I spent a couple of hours on the bottom of the ocean with thousands of yellow tail snapper, psychadelic parrot fish, sharks, eels, lobster, conch, hog snapper and coral so intricate and delicate that I have no doubt there is a God.

I takes a day like this to make me grasp the depth of my depression. I watched moon silver waves on a black ocean and wondered, “How could I ever have wanted to leave this? How could I have ever wanted to kill myself?”

That is how strong depression is. So strong that no matter how much love and beauty are in our lives we want to die. Maybe not all of us. But I did want to die and even tried it a couple of times. There are so many people who love me deeply and so much natural beauty around me but all I wanted was out.

I am getting ready for bed. Tomorrow morning I will get up early, have another unhealthy breakfast, ride on the bow of a boat into the sunrise and dive to the bottom of the ocean again – and then again in the afternoon.

On Friday I will leave the Florida Keys with deep respect for nature, God and my mental illnesses. I have no doubt that my depression is real. Only a terribly ill woman would want to kill herself surrounded by this much love and beauty.

Good night.

Comments

This post currently has 8 comments/trackbacks.
You can read the comments or leave your own thoughts.

Trackbacks

From Psych Central's website:
PsychCentral (August 6, 2009)

    Last reviewed: 5 Aug 2009