We had another murder here last week. Actually, it was three murders and an attempted suicide. According to news reports:

What friends, family and authorities do say is that it appears that as Neal Jacobson sank deeper and deeper into depression, something terrible was building inside him.

The once successful mortgage broker from New Jersey left his company and moved to Florida to care for his ailing father, who died in 2007. Jacobson, 49, lost money in bad investments and hated himself despite his beautiful wife and brilliant twin sons, he confided in his best friend, Richard Norton.

When Norton died of cancer this month, it pushed him farther off his axis, said Norton’s wife, Laurie.

Less than a week after his friend’s funeral, Jacobson took up a gun and shot and killed his wife, Franki, 53, and 7-year-old boys, Eric and Joshua, according to a family member and Palm Beach County Sheriff’s investigators.

After killing his family – just hours before the twin boys’ seventh birthday party – Jacobson took 10 Xanax tablets and a gun and drove away. He go into an accident. Police asked what happened:

“I went off the deep end,” he said, according to the police affidavit.

I have a lot of questions. Most start with “why didn’t he…”

go to a doctor or psychologist?

voluntarily commit himself for observation?

call a suicide hotline?

call a pastor/priest/rabbi?

talk about his feelings?

ask for help?

I understand wanting to kill yourself. I have been at that place and it is a very, very real place – even though today it seems like a dream. But I do not understand the kind of depression and desperation that would drive a person to kill their own child. It must be some kind of excruciating, horrific, mental anguish that is beyond comprehension.

I feel terrible for men with depression and anxiety. It is not just the stigma of mental illness that they face. It is also the ridiculous stereotypes we hold about men – they are strong and do not need help. Men provide and protect. Men …

I have trained my dog, “Dog” to run in front of my bicycle on a retractable leash. He loves it. I love it. Every morning we ride down to the park, about 1/2 mile from my house. At the north end of the park is a little pond, where I let him off the leash and he runs free. The pond is home to three ducks, a little blue heron, egrets, anhinga and an alligator. On days when the water level is high, wood storks -endangered – also visit the pond.

The park is stunning. Filled with giant ficus trees with bizarre shaped trunks and huge canopies. There is a dog park, soccer field, baseball diamond, playground, tennis courts and exercise trail. It’s not unusual to hear five different languages spoken and people of every color playing at the park. I love my park and I have visited it everyday for years.

Monday was a perfect Florida winter morning. Sunny, about 68 degrees. As I rode with Dog to the park I was amazed at the park’s beauty in the early morning light. We have had a lot of rain lately and the greens of the trees and landscaping were so green. The light was perfect. I said “mornin’” to my neighbors out walking their dogs. Swear to God there was even a faint rainbow over the soccer field.

How the hell did my life come to this? Pinch me, I thought. My life is so good. I am so blessed. Look how beautiful my world is. Amazing.

Four years ago, in the same park, on the same bike with the same weather I was asked myself the same question: How the hell did my life come to this? I was in the beginnings of a severe depression that would take me to death’s doorstep. I hated life – I hated MY life. I hated my weakness for not being able to pull myself up by my bootstraps. I hated the monotony of daily routines. I hated working so hard. I hated being a loser.

Same park. Same weather. Same pond. Same funky trees. Same colorful people. But none of …

humility: \hyü-ˈmi-lə-tē, yü-\

1 : the quality or state of being humble

humble: \həm-bəl\

1 : not proud or haughty : not arrogant or assertive

2 : reflecting, expressing, or offered in a spirit of deference or submission

3 a : ranking low in a hierarchy or scale b : not costly or luxurious

The upside of depression – and pretty much any mental illness – is that it will wipe out any pride, arrogance and self-importance you had before your fall. It’s not easy to be your old pompous, pretentious, highfalutin self after going through a major depression. Ditto for bipolar.

When you are in a depression you learn the true meaning of humility – to remain teachable – whether you want to or not. Only through humility could I get well. Sure, the medications helped lift me from my black hole and my mood stabilizer calmed me down, but to become truly healthy I had to become humble.

I spent most of my life trying to pull myself up by my bootstraps whenever I sank into my black hole. I made no effort to calm myself when I vibrated with mania. I can handle this, I thought. Then came “The Big One.” I could not lift myself and I refused to listen to anyone – even my therapist – who told me I was in a major clinical depression and needed medications. I was NOT going to take antidepressants. I was not the kind of woman who took antidepressants. I was above that. I was strong. I just needed to work harder and exercise harder and get off my freakin’ pity pot.

Crash.

I was like a little baby. Help me, please. Someone, help me. I could not focus. I could not eat. I could not sleep. I could not read or write. All I wanted was to curl up in a little ball. Everything was flat. I did not know what to do to help myself. I had to take off my cape and…gulp…ask for help. Then I had to admit that …

I interviewed conservative talk show host Larry Kudlow on Tuesday night, about 10 minutes after he finished his prime time show, The Kudlow Report, on CNBC. Kudlow is speaking in Palm Beach on Saturday night at a black-tie benefit for Gratitude House, a local treatment center for women – many who are off the streets and could never afford the kind of long-term residential treatment they get there.

I am not a big fan of talk shows – radio or television – whose hosts cover current events like they are fans at a hockey game – taunting each other’s beliefs with insults, threats and misinformation. I think these shows encourage viewers to draw a line in the sand – you are either on their side or you are not.

On the rude-o-meter Kudlow is nowhere near Palm Beach’s own Rush Limbaugh. Regardless of what you think about Kudlow’s beliefs,  the guy is brilliant and he has a resume that blows all other talk show hosts out of the water: Chief economist at Bear Sterns, Paine Webber and the OMB under Reagan. His is an author and regular contributor to The National Review. He was a member of the Bush Cheney transition team and advisor to Jack Kemp.

Personally, I don’t agree with some of Kudlow’s beliefs but he knows what he is talking about. He is NOT just another talking head.

What does any of this have to do with depression?

Kudlow is a fellow recovered alcoholic who speaks openly about his illness.

What does that have to do with depression?

I am one of those alcoholics who also has depression. I am dual diagnosed, like about half the other alcoholics out there. I don’t know if Kudlow is dual-diagnosed but I admire and respect the hell out of his 15-years in recovery. Unlike his TV persona, Kudlow –  the recovered addict and alcoholic – is soft-spoken, calm and humble when he speaks of his respect for his illness and 12-Step program.

He regularly attends meetings. He still reads his program’s literature every morning. He still prays. He still …

I was brought up to believe in a God with flowing robes and a beard. He looked to be in his sixties – maybe seventies but he was a in good shape. He was white with long white hair and he did not look pleased. Actually, he looked kind of pissed.

For some reason I never understood, he liked us to pin little plastic cameos, called scapulars, to our undershirts and whenever we went to church the girls – not the boys – had to cover our heads. Our God was big on keeping score. Apparently he counted every single sin that everyone had ever committed and he broke them into two groups – venial sins: little sins (like “borrowing” your sister’s Girl Scout sash because she had more badges than you and telling everyone it was yours) and mortal sins, like killing someone – even Hitler – for which there was no redemption and you would burn in hell for eternity.

Depending on the offense and the priest that happened to be in the confessional that day, you had to say a bunch of Hail Mary’s to get your soul off the hook. This God, whom I had been tip-toeing around all my life, was the One I was supposed to ask for help – the One who would help me climb out of my black hole, keep me sober and calm my mania.

I was screwed.

Still, I knew it was going to take a power greater than me to get me through, make me healthy and maybe even happy. My best efforts had failed – I knew that. The medications and therapy eventually helped but before they did, I needed faith to believe that they would work. And after the depression lifted I needed faith that if I ever slipped into that black hole again, took a drink or lost control of my mouth, body and brain, I could count on some kind of higher power to help me out.

Luckily I had been introduced to a 12-Step program which gave me permission to believe in a God of my understanding, not the understanding of some guys …

I was watching the PBS program This Emotional Life – which is fantastic – and one of the researchers explained how the brains of people with depression become hardwired to cop to the negative. He said it much more elegantly but when I heard this, the bush burned, the clouds parted, the cherubim sang and my life made a lot more sense.

I ALWAYS cop to the negative. I ALWAYS assume the worst will happen and, hey, if the best happens, well, extra bonus points! I do this with the big things in life: “They’re not going to give you a raise so don’t waste your time asking.” “You’re never going to be able to retire so get over it.” ”Just settle for what you can get.” ”You’re not going to find a handsome, kind, honest guy who thinks that diamonds really are a girl’s best friend – and even if you did, you think he’s going to want to go out with YOU?”  Copping to the negative allows me to live life as a victim. I did not know any other way to live.

Then I went shopping with a friend. The parking lot was crowded. “There’s a spot,” I pointed out – the first one I saw – about 1/4 mile from the store. “No,” he said. “I start at the very best spot and work my way out. You have to assume you’re going to get the best spot.” And I’ll be damned, he got a really good spot up front.

“Some people settle,” he said.

Holy cow! This was an extraordinary revelation. I am a settler. I settle. I would have settled for the parking spot in Egypt without thinking that a better spot might be out there. My brain instinctively cops to the negative. It’s subliminal and subtle but it’s there. So over the Christmas holidays I decided to try his theory of positive parking. It worked damn near every time, even at the new Super Target and the mall. It worked at the grocery store, too, and in parking garages and on the street. It worked everywhere. I just assume I’m going to get …

I went to bed last night at 1:30 this afternoon.

I spent the night doggin’ a Miami man charged with gunning down four people – including his twin sisters and a sleeping 6-year-old – at a family Thanksgiving dinner in Jupiter, Florida. I went to the Palm Beach County jail at about 1 am but he wasn’t there. So I drove north about 30 minutes to the police department where investigators were questioning Paul Merhige. The police wouldn’t let the media park within sight of the sally port (the garage where Merhige got in and out of a police car.) So, we staked out Merhige from a hedge across from the sally port until 4:15 am. It was 43-degrees, which isn’t cold if you are a Packer’s fan, but is damn cold if you are a Floridian.

I followed Merhige back to jail and then to court. Then I raced back to the newsroom, then back to court and then back to the newsroom. I finally hit the pillow at 1:30 pm – about 30 hours without sleep. In my college days I pulled all nighters during exams and drinking marathons and bounced back quickly. Not today. Sleep is to my mental health what my heart beat is to my physical health. Can’t function well without a nice, regular pattern.

During my last major depression, as my psychiatric nurse practitioner evaluated whether I needed to be involuntarily commitment to a psych hospital, she said I needed sleep. Actually, she said it was “the first thing you need.” Sleep? She explained how disruptive sleep patterns and lack of sleep fueled my depression. I knew my depression caused my sleeplessness but I did not know my sleeplessness worsened my depression, which worsened my sleeplessness and on and on.

She gave me a prescription for a drug called Seroquel and I slept and slept and slept. I was in a fog, stared off into space but I was sleeping. It took a couple of months before I crawled out of my black hole and a couple more months before I tapered off the Seroquel. Now, I take my antidepressants and mood …