This is a guest post by Anthony Davis. This post has to do with the serious issue of depression and the damaging effects it can have on a person’s life and family.

Depression sucks. It sucks the life out of a person. Going untreated it can affect not only you but also those you care about the most. Your family and friends may not know what it is about you that makes you the way you are unless you tell them. Most people who have depression never seek help and go through life with a black hole in the pit of their soul.

Some people do not realize they have depression and think that life has just been unfair to them. One day they believe they will get a break from feeling bad if they can just land that dream job, buy a nice house and car, or get married and have kids. The value that our society puts on those things is something that most of us think will make us happy and the “blues” will fade away.

It’s just not that simple for people with depression. I know. I am one of them.

I have spent most of my life dealing with my depression alone. Alone with my thoughts about how I became depressed, how I could fix it on my own, and how I failed to get better every single time. Each attempt I made to try and better myself mentality, physically, spirituality, or emotionally, and did not succeed made it worse. Depression sucks. It sucked the life out of me and left me a shell of a person who became afraid to fail and afraid to succeed.

I eventually stopped trying. I gave up my attempts on some levels to improve my personal well-being and continued self-medicating with alcohol to numb my head and forget about how messed up it was. I focused on my kids and lived vicariously through them each day knowing they were happy and have never dealt with, and hopefully never will, the illness that was silently poisoning me inside. I continued to distract myself from my thoughts in any way I could find.

Nothing ever worked.

Earlier this year my wife asked me if I was depressed. I lied and said no. I wish I had taken that opportunity and walked through the door she opened for me, but I was still afraid. It wasn’t until recently when I was faced with the reality that my wife was unhappy being married to me and wanted a divorce that I was finally able to tell her. I never once thought our marriage could end up in divorce. She is the love of my life - the woman I want by my side as I we grow older.

After getting the worst wakeup call I could ever imagine I confessed to my wife the secrets that I was scared to tell anybody. I wanted her to know why I am the way I am, which is the person she didn’t want to be with. It was time to stop protecting myself and ask for help. I told her about the sexual abuse from my childhood and the depression that soon followed. It was the first time in 25 years those words ever left my mouth. There were many late nights where I sat alone on the back porch drinking, crying, smoking cigarette after cigarette, while attempting to find the courage to wake her up and tell her everything. I chickened out each time. I was afraid of having to deal with the trauma and depression I had been burying deep inside of me, so I kept hiding the truth.

Now I am no longer hiding from it and have started getting help. The first thing I did was put an end to the nightly drinking since self-medicating the pain wasn’t necessary anymore, nor was it working. I was finally able to get in to see a counselor to help me get back into a happy place again. I also went to my doctor, was diagnosed with major depressive disorder, and am now taking medication – something I wanted to try years ago to see if it helped. My wife and I also began marriage counseling to find out if we can start our union over the right way and make it last. The damage has been done and our old marriage is dead. Finding out if we can have a new marriage is something that we both want to know. The love is there but so are the wounds.

The reason I’m sharing all of this with the readers here at Discovering Dad is to help raise awareness about depression and start a discussion on the subject. As I mentioned earlier, many people who are depressed never seek help. Most estimates I have read say only 30% of people overall get treatment for depression. The percentage is even lower for men.

Six million men in America are diagnosed with depression every year. Millions more than that do not get help. As men, we have this preconceived notion that depression is just a feeling that we can beat. Because we are men, most of us think we should be strong enough to deal with it and move on. For me that was the case and I was wrong.

I know I can beat this illness now by getting the help I need. I will be putting more effort into doing so than I have ever done with anything else in my life. By healing myself I will be able to be a better man, father, husband, son, brother, and friend.

Are you depressed? Here is a list of symptoms. Some people only experience a few of these symptoms at times but some people suffer from many of them frequently.

• Do you feel sad, anxious, or “empty” inside?
• Are there feelings of guilt, worthlessness, pessimism, or hopelessness in your life?
• Do you have trouble concentrating, making decisions, or remembering things?
• Do you get irritable very easily?
• Do you sleep too much or not enough?
• Are there pleasurable activities and hobbies you once enjoyed that you have lost interest in?
• Is your body in chronic pain or do you have headaches or digestive disorders?
• Have there been changes in your weight or appetite?
• Is it hard to control your negative thoughts?
• Do you self-medicate with drugs or alcohol to “get away” from your thoughts?
• Have you noticed that you isolate yourself from family and friends?
• Do you have frequent crying spells?
• Has suicide ever crossed your mind?

If you are reading this and you think you may be suffering from depression, then I encourage you to go see someone who can help. If you know you are suffering from depression and are keeping it a secret like I did, then I ask that you take a good look inside yourself and find out if that is the way you want to live the rest of your life.

I first realized I was depressed many years ago and never got help. Those years could have been much happier if I had found the courage within myself to face the things in my life that needed to be dealt with. The longer you wait the farther you fall into that black hole, and it is much harder to get out. Learn from my mistakes and don’t hide your problems. Throw your pride out the window and take back control of your life. Get help before you receive the wakeup call that I did. Nobody wants to lose the ones they love.

If you are depressed and thinking about suicide then please call someone for help. Call Hopeline at 1-800-SUICIDE or any other hotline and talk to somebody. I’ve seen first hand what suicide does to family and friends and there is always a better option. Life is a precious thing.

Depression sucks, but you don’t have to let it suck the life out of you.

Anthony Davis is a husband, father and fellow Dad blogger who asked permission to write this article under a pseudonymn, so that his family would not be identified during or after this discussion. I (Jeremy - publisher of Discovering Dad) assure you that he is genuine, real and sincere, and I respect his courage in sharing his story. As a parent, if you suffer from depression, your family and kids notice your moods and behavior, so please reach out to your doctor and take action. I appreciate anyone else who is willing to share your story or insights in the comments here as well, and thanks for talking about this important issue.

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