Hello!

"I am living proof that even if you've been through multiple episodes of severe depression, it's possible to live depression-free for decades or even for the rest of your life."

I was born and raised in Chicago, Illinois.  Throughout elementary school, I was the quintessential class clown.  After my family moved to Ashland, Oregon when I was 11 years old, I experienced a lot of bullying.  Some of it was fairly brutal.  In time, though, the bullying stopped.  I'd like to think that my sense of humor won the bullies over.  Maybe it also had to do with the fact that I started working out at the gym.

From high school through college, the goofing off continued, but I started paying more attention to my studies.  I graduated college with honors, magna cum laude.

After college, I seemed to wander through life without purpose.  Life felt great, but I had no overall direction.  Eventually, that caught up with me.  In my 20s and 30s, I experienced profound major depression five times.  The "triggers" included 1) my mother having a devastating stroke; 2) being overwhelmed by too many stressors all at the same time; and 3) the sudden, unexpected ending of relationships. The first four episodes lasted three to eight months each.  The last episode lasted two years.  During those two years, I did not genuinely laugh-- or even smile -- not even once.  As in all episodes, a constant thought was fervently wishing to die.  For my fifth episode, the seriousness of my depression went beyond simply wishing.  I was thoroughly convinced that my life was broken beyond repair and there was absolutely no hope left for me.  One of the tragic parts of clinical depression is that the illness itself clouds one's thinking, allowing only persistent negative thoughts about oneself and often catastrophic thinking.

I can say with great confidence that life is absolutely worth living.  Suicide is not the answer.  It has been twelve years since my last episode of clinical depression.  Life is beautiful and each day is a blessing.  And I mean that.  For me, as with most people struggling with depression, the key to getting better involved a psychiatrist and a therapist.  But I also believe in the power of peer support.  That's where I come in.

Through all of my experiences with clinical depression, I have developed a great understanding of this serious illness.  I understand what works... and what doesn't work while battling through it.  Talking with a psychiatrist and therapist can be crucial for recovery, but listening to someone who has been through the worst of it and and has come away from it a better person because of those incredibly dark times is valuable, too.  During my hospitalizations, I wished that I had heard from an actual survivor, telling me with first-hand knowledge that "I was going to be okay."  That peer support and insight can make a tremendous difference.

I didn't have any special powers that helped me through my five episodes of major depression.  I certainly wasn't any tougher than the average person when battling depression.  This means that recovery is, in fact, possible for everyone.

Now, I truly wish to help others with depression who find hope fleeting from their lives.  I have been through the most hopeless of situations throughout all of my episodes of major depression, and I can say that even in the darkest of times, hope remains.

Please visit the "Contact Me" page on my website for further information.

Thanks for stopping by!