The Columns
Depression
It has been a while since I have written a column that directly pertained to the cause (s) that drives me to do what I do. I made up my mind this past weekend that prior to getting started on any work that needs to be accomplished for this week, I would write a column about one of the difficult illnesses people are inflicted with and thereby their families and loved ones are inflicted with as well. This week, I will concentrate on depression.
Before I get started… generally when I write about depression I get a lot of emails with concern that I might be experiencing an episode of depression, myself. I appreciate that concern. Today, however I am writing this column as an educational piece and as a positive coping skill for myself.
Depression can be a very difficult thing for many to understand who have not experienced it. I feel that we all have experienced depressive states of mind throughout the difficult times in our life i.e. death, disease, finances and so forth. These are environmental depressions. A clinical or chemical depression can be quite different. It was once explained to me as surfing on the top of a water hole or whirlpool. The longer you ignore the depths and the cycling, the harder it will be to get yourself out of that abyss.
Many things can trigger a clinical depression, but one of the most aggravating aspects of clinical depression is that nothing has to trigger it – it can simply come upon you without any warning. This is when it becomes the most concerning, to me anyway.
To explain what depression actually feels like is difficult, but I will attempt to do so. For me, depression feels as though someone just placed an emotional pair of glasses on my eyes and heart that are not the right prescription. I don’t see things as they really are and I can’t comprehend the logic in anything because I can’t get a clear picture of reality. As this depression increases, the prescription of the lenses gets stronger and my eyes and heart grow weaker, leaving me quite helpless to decipher what is real and what is not. Eventually, I am walking through life blind to everything that is good and certainly blind to find anything that might help me find the right ‘prescription’.
When depression does set in and deeply, every weakness that I have is brought forth with priority. Those weaknesses overshadow every strength that I have. People around me can easily look at me and say, “How in the world can he not see the gifts and talents he has?” yet for me, I feel as though all those gifts and talents were simply illusion.
As many of you know, I consider my illness of Bipolar Disorder a very worthy adversary. I consider it an enemy that may be lurking around the corner (and is) at all times and I must be ready for any attack from any direction. If you look at this in a strategic way, the first thing you do is make sure you have more eyes and ears than just your own and make a conscious decision that you will listen to those you have in your life that love YOU and hate the illness as much as you.
Friends and family are key, for me, in this fight as well as my professional army of therapist, medication, psychiatrist and case management. It is rare that a day goes by that I don’t have a friend say, “are you doing okay? I know you have a lot going on and I want to make sure you are taking care of Cory as well!” I think I had four people say that to me over the weekend alone. They are in my life because I trust them and I take heed to their concern, not insult – they don’t hesitate to ask, because I don’t negate their concern.
There certainly were many years that I was quite embarrassed to say that I needed medication, doctors and so forth to maintain a life. I realized that anyone that I needed to feel embarrassed or less than because of the foundation that I must have to conduct a productive and rewarding life, simply did not belong in my life. I can honestly say that today, I will scream it from the mountain tops…. “I love lithium, I love shrinks and I love God” and anyone that can walk in my shoes and have the attitude that I have about life is doing pretty darn well in life!
You see, so many are suffering from various mental illnesses that they feel embarrassed about and here is what I have to say to all of you. I have been throughout this world many times over… I have friends all over the place from every walk of life. I have yet, to meet anyone who doesn’t have one or more personal challenges that they must deal with daily. Some choose positive skills and some chose more self-destructive ones – however… you must look at maintaining any mental illness as a HUGE accomplishment and a privilege to have the ability to deal with what you know. My biggest accomplishment each day is not any success or accolades – my biggest accomplishment is the fact that I won the battle over a mind that has the capacity to kill me and damage me and hurt me – but each day that I win over that battle, I have the access to a mind that can promote the cause and purpose of my life, love and nurture the friendships in my life and most importantly, a mind that has the wherewithal to know and give credit where credit is do! That is when I wink to the heavens and say, “Thank You!”
It is my hope that all who suffer with mental illnesses take the journey to get to the point that you can celebrate the fact you are not “normal”. The mentally ill mind functions on a different plain. The fact of the matter is you use more of your brain that man most. When you put any army around you, when you confess the reality of your illness and no longer live in shame… well, the sky is the limit because you have the ability to train and discipline the most powerful muscle in the human body, the brain! Personally, I like that!
God Bless
Cory
When Mary and I first discussed me doing this talk, I searched my heart and soul to find the message that I needed to deliver. I speak to a lot of people throughout the state every year, generally telling my story and I knew that tonight’s speech was not going to be about my story – but about some of the lesson’s I learned from my journey.
For myself and I think for so many, we go through life not truly realizing how blessed we are. I know for my life, I always had a realization that I had a blessed life, but did not internalize it. As adulthood came around and I was traveling extensively, I was privileged enough to travel to third world countries that included several countries on the African continent. I realized what devastation, famine and disease is. Yet, while appreciating my life, I didn’t have a grasp on what that was really all about. I guess you could say I had the perspective that some are born into privilege and some are born into devastation and poverty.
I was raised with the idea that if you work hard you will be provided for. Things like mental illness, disabilities, generational poverty and so on – simply didn’t approach my way of thinking. I always had compassion for others, but I never spent much time thinking about their situations and circumstances. I never questioned what made them who they now are.
By the time I was 26 years old, I had traveled throughout the world and was blessed enough to see some incredible ways of life. As I look back, I realize that most of what I saw or what I internalized were the lives that I found inspirational or I admired in a worldly way and aspired for. I missed a lot. From what I can remember, I also saw a lot of very interesting and colorful people in that journey that I didn’t spend any time thinking about.
What was about to be the worst 10 years in my life was also about to be the most educational and spiritually evolving time of my life. Those 10 years included prison, rape, homelessness, homeless shelters and many psychiatric hospitals along with several suicide attempts. It included estrangement from my family for those 10 years and hearing things about myself that were not only untrue, but emotionally devastating to me.
I can’t tell you when it happened, it is somewhat of a blur now because I was not in my right mind, but it did happen… There was no question that I had done wrong in my life and certainly did not always live in a Christ like fashion – I had no problem fully admitting that. I did have a problem with the consequences and I did have a hard time trying to figure what it all meant – to my life. I also had a very difficult time with the reaction and responses of those I loved that I had always known as Christians.
Until I took myself out of the equation and looked around at all that God was presenting to me, I was not able to communicate directly with God. I was allowing the world to define God to me and allowing my shame, guilt and remorse to keep me from my relationship with God. I thank God, that I was allowed to transcend from that state of mind and all the definitions and labels that came with it.
You see, before the age of 30, I could have died and would have lived more of life than most 90 years olds ever will. The worldly life was somewhat “used up” for me and I was emptied of it – it didn’t excite me any longer. Along with that emptying process was the emptying of opinions, gossip and labels that came from others. It simply no longer mattered to me.
What intrigued me were the countless people that I had met and was meeting that were dealing with issues that I could not possibly understand HOW they were going to transcend out of the abyss that was their life, to make a better life for themselves. They had no voice, they were invisible! They were on the streets, they were sick; they were in prisons and hospitals. They were placed in prisons with those that deserved to be there for violent crimes and were victims of those offenders simply because they were sick and society didn’t want to recognize their illness or deal with it. While it was disappointing to me, I could understand how the legal system, the average person, even medical professionals were ignorant to their condition. I could NOT however comprehend how we as Christians could be involved in anything that turns our backs on those that are lost. At that point my life – I could relate with all of them because God allowed me to experience their life first hand.
I was still homeless and sitting on a park bench in front of the Marriott hotel in Cleveland, Ohio when I made a vow to God and myself.
You see, I was watching the valet parking cars at the hotel. The year before I received 3 development awards from the City of Cleveland at that very hotel and now I was homeless weighing 118 pounds and could barely walk due to shin splints and a lack of nutrition. Just two days prior to that, a young man in a group walked by me and spit on me. I had never begged or asked for a cent form anyone when I was homeless – I didn’t feel I deserved to live, let alone feel any comfort of food or warmth and this young man spit on me. I remember thinking, not asking but thinking, “God, wasn’t the rapes enough? Wasn’t the fact my family has no idea where I am and I have left them alone enough? Wasn’t the mental illness enough? The shame? The guilt? Was the SPIT really necessary – I already know I am worthless, hated, rejected and alone.
But on that day, at the park bench I did talk to God and I made a vow, “I don’t want ANYONE to feel this way!” It was no longer about ME – I didn’t want ANYONE to ever feel the way I felt that day and I still don’t and it is the driving force behind everything that I am and do through God.
That vow never left my heart or soul. I viewed my circumstances differently. I truly allowed those that were homeless and sick into my heart and listened to them. I turned my circumstances into classroom for two more years. It would be a long journey from that point on. It would be more trials of desperation. However, I never allowed that vow to be compromised and when I doubted, God reminded!
Mathew 25 continued to play over and over in my heart and mind. “For whatever you do for the least of my brothers – you have done for me!” Just as I had become a sponge in the corporate world I had become a sponge in the world of the lost.
I have never been a fan of “God’s time” because I am not a person that was blessed with patience. Yet it is undeniable the incredible lessons learned and the time required to open my heart and meet people where they are were indeed God’s plan in God’s time.
Today I sit on 6 state committees overseeing prisons, law enforcement, housing, juvenile courts and courts. I was appointed by the Ohio Supreme Court and The Attorney General’s office. I work with the mental health program for William’s County Juvenile Court. I have just been appointed to implement a statewide educating the educator initiative on mental health throughout Ohio’s schools. I speak to thousands of people every year and have authored two books. I never sought these positions out – they came to me. I work with courts, legislation and individuals and families with mental health issues. You see, when I vowed to God that I didn’t want anyone to feel that way – he took me seriously and gave me a voice for those that do not have one. Nothing I do is about me or for me. I am not that strong of a person. To overcome bitterness and resentment and live with forgiveness is simply not in my human nature or personality for that matter. ONLY God could do what he has with me.
You will never find me judging another Christian. In fact, you will not find me judging any faith. However, I do believe there is call to action. There are many damaged people in this world, there are many at our back door and our front door. There are many that our Christian community can be the voice of. It doesn’t have to be mental health issues. It can be generational poverty, abuse, our veterans that are experiencing record highs in suicide and PTSD. Every 18 minutes in this country someone succeeds in taking their own life. Think about how desperate, lonely, lost and discouraged you would have to be – to end your own life… What are WE as a church, a community, as simple good human beings doing about it? It is getting worse and worse – so obviously we are not doing enough! The head psychology for the Juvenile prison system in the state of Ohio told me Monday, “Cory, I have never seen, in my 30 years, the problem this bad! Last summer I got a call from Major Bentely of the Ohio National Guard. We talked for an hour on the telephone regarding the suicides that his division had experienced. I did not go speak to his division, but sent someone I felt would be better qualified. It brought such a deep understanding to me of how these tribulations in life are crossing every boundary. Every socio-economic status and every profession and EVERY belief system!
God taught me as only I could be taught – I am quite stubborn - through experience and a 2 x 4 to the back of my head he enlightened me to the lost! At 40 years of age, I look back on my life and realize – I am every man… I am not special, I am not excluded from the tragedies of life – I am however, responsible for what I have been shown. I am responsible to let it be known that I am Every Man! Even today, I am that man homeless on the streets, I am that man getting raped in a prison, I am that man trying to take his own life, I am that man sitting in a psychiatric hospital in the corner of the room and regardless of how many people you put around me, how many titles and positions I have and how man accolades…. I am alone. That is the psychology of it all… that is now my life. But through God, I am not alone – but empowered by him to do all that I can to make sure someone else never feels the way I feel.
Are our doors truly open to the lost or are we simply preaching to the choir… Are we continuing to take in God’s glory and grace and mercy without putting out? Are we walking in the sandals of Christ on the sand dirt of this earth or are we walking in our designer shoes on the paved streets of our entitlement?
Are you every man, every woman, every Child or are you better than the least of your brothers?
We all have that choice, even I. I choose to be EVERY man.