Life on Wheels (39 page)

It’s not always enough to express anger. If you are being treated poorly or unjustly, you can use your anger as redirected energy to try to resolve the problem. For example, if your insurer won’t pay for something you need and you believe you have a right to it, hitting pillows isn’t going to change things. You need to do some research, write letters, and make phone calls to make a difference. Righteous anger has moved many a mountain, especially if you take the time to find out the best methods to make your case and enlist the help of the right people.

Feelings of resentment and rage toward society’s misconceptions of the disability experience drive many people to become involved in disability activism. Anger played a part in the motivation of trailblazers like Judy Heumann, Justin Dart, Ed Roberts, Bob Kafka, Evan Kemp, John Kemp, and Mary Lou Breslin—among many others—to get out and work for the kinds of changes that have already been accomplished. Despite the passage of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, the Americans with Disabilities Act, and other victories, there is a great deal to be done. Anger will, and should, stoke that fire.

There are basically two kinds of depression: the kind almost everyone experiences from time to time, often called “the blues,” and chronic, clinical depression. There is a distinct difference in the effects of each kind, how long the depression lasts, and how it is treated.

Few people get through life without ever feeling down. Common depression always has a reason that triggers it. The trigger can be something significant—like dealing with a disability—or more mundane, like a week of rainy weather. During a common depression, brain chemistry is altered, which is why you don’t feel like your normal self. The chemical alteration usually rights itself after a few days when the trigger has either dissipated or you have had enough time to begin to cope with it.

It’s normal to feel sad and disappointed, maybe even a little hopeless, just following a recent disability. You may wonder, “Will I feel like this forever? How much worse will my life get? Who could ever love me with this disability? Is it my fault that I’m disabled?” These are normal things to worry about, and they can foster feelings of depression.

When you are depressed, it is hard to separate issues associated with your disability from those troubling issues you would have anyway. Be careful not to allow your disability to become a scapegoat for things that have little or nothing to do with it. Blaming everything on your disability means missing the chance to review other aspects of your life that merit attention, and it means defining your disability as an unendurable state that you can never rise above. That can be a lifelong sentence for unnecessary unhappiness.

Common depression can last from a few hours to a couple of weeks. You might feel unmotivated, sluggish, or distracted as well as sad. You might be tempted to retreat into yourself, spend more time sleeping, and be as passive as possible, maybe watching television a lot more than you usually do. However, you will still be able to attend to necessary daily activities, and you will be able to acknowledge that there can be solutions to your problems, even though you might not yet be able to imagine what the solutions are. Although you may not laugh as readily as when you’re not depressed, you’ll still have a sense of humor. Most important, you will retain a sense of being in control of your life. You just won’t feel like working very hard at it.

When mental health professionals speak of depression, they are usually referring to a condition much more severe than common depression. Clinical depression affects about one in 20 people in the United States each year. Whereas common depression is a temporary emotional downswing, clinical depression is an illness that can last as long as three years and can be completely debilitating—although this is a worst-case scenario. Unlike common depression, clinical depression doesn’t necessarily have a trigger. Even if there is a reason, the depression lasts long beyond the time it normally takes to cope with a trigger event. Clinical depression is more about the alteration of brain chemistry that doesn’t right itself than it is about logical reasons for feeling blue.

Although modern research is learning much about brain chemistry and depression, it remains a chicken-and-egg question. It is not clear whether the chemical change is a cause or a symptom of depression. This means that one must be careful of simply taking antidepressant drugs to curtail depression when, at the same time, it might be important to engage in the deep personal and spiritual work of self-evaluation such feelings often elicit.

A person ill with clinical depression requires medical intervention. You should tell your doctor if you have any of the following symptoms and they last more than a couple of weeks:

Persistent sadness, hopelessness, or pessimism

Feelings of guilt or worthlessness

Lack of emotion; a feeling of emptiness

A sense of helplessness

Lack of interest in activities you would normally enjoy; inability to find pleasure or humor in anything

Marked change in sleeping or eating patterns

Chronic fatigue; exhaustion

Restlessness or irritability