It has a name

A list of questions is before me on a piece of paper. It boils down to 12 I suppose highly selected questions to aid in revealing a diagnosis. Am I or am I not? And if I am, what kind am I? And if I'm not, then what the heck is wrong with me? I put a check in the box beside the first question and think, Well, who wouldn't be if they were in my shoes? (defensive, I admit). The second question has me rolling my eyes - Isn't everybody these days? I skate through the beginning with my internal snarky comments. Questions four, five and six surprise me. Is this a trick? These aren't my words but this is exactly how I feel. It does not feel good, this recognition. And so it goes. Only one question is 50/50 and only one can I answer No, or in this case, leave the box blank.

My score: Yes - 10, No - 1, Sometimes - 1.

My Diagnosis: Depression. Further classification: Situational depression, also known as Reactive depression. No surprise there, but sort of a defeated, failed feeling wihin. My doctor speaks of my diagnostic score, his plan to address my problems. I view this as a test I have failed.

My mother suffered from severe depression for most of her life. When I was 12, I thought it meant that she was just really really sad, and I developed and embraced a fierce anger at her for not being able to shake it. For years I held onto that anger; I did not understand then that it wasn't a mood and it wasn't in her control. I later learned that depression is a cruel and dark mix of hopelessness and guilt. Lack of energy, inability to feel, or even care about, pleasure. I did not know that depression takes memory and tumbles it with concentration and asks you to get up in the morning and deal with a different world than what you left when you fell asleep. I did not know then how crippling it could be. I didn't understand that depression robs you of your hope, your poetry, your dreams, that depression can happily smother you with its humidity.

Whole years of her life could be considered major depressive episodes. Whole years I heard her voice, saw her shape in bed, visited her in the hospital(s) and begged her to at least, at the very least, talk to me. There were years she could not do that much.

Today, in my diagnosis, I understand her. Finally. Today, in my diagnosis, a bit of light shines on those years.

In her case, they call it major depression. She was valium/lithium medicated. Serious but necessary drugs. In my case, situational seems safe. It seems very here-and-now, so of the moment, like fashion.

The symptoms are the same, whether situational, major or just run of the mill depression, but in varying degrees of intensity. And the treatment is the same, also in varying degrees of intensity. The difference is that with situational depression, when the situation is resolved or passes, it follows that so too the depression. The drawback is that, as in many behaviors or reactions, future situations are likely to trigger the return of my depression. I hear this and imagine my depression waiting, hungry and calmly plotting the perfect time to pounce.

In a big way I'm relieved that, forgive the pun, it's not just in my head. I understand now what the gaps are about, the guilt, the confusion, the self-hate and desperation. I also feel sad that there's an officially recognized crack in my paint.

I have this much more in common with my mother at a time her wisdom is out of reach. Today on the phone she tells me that she is depressed. As if I won a ribbon, I tell her that I too am depressed. She doesn't buy into the camraderie, says she wants to die. I close my eyes and spin in blue-ish black swirls to nowhere.

Now that I know, I am able take measures to help myself. It's milligrams and therapy, a prescriptive first step. And all that. Still, things were a lot easier when I could simply say that I had the blues, and you would say, Yeah, me too. We would call in sick and chase our blues away, with the sun shining down on our innocense and stolen freedom.