Framed with Depression

Much of my adult life has been framed and defined by depression.  This mental illness has deeply affected my relationships with Marja and the children, my career(s), my faith, my writing, my sensitivity to the suffering of others, … my entire life.  This has not been as true over the last seventeen years as my medications have given me far more emotional stability.  But several times a year, I’ll have a couple of days of the deeper depression, just to remind me it’s there.  Even after all these good years, it’s lain as a frame in the background, a deep threat and fear. 

And now the rest of my life will be framed by Alzheimer’s disease.  It’s not that it determines my life, but it will increasingly be woven into the background.  It will always be there: a threat, a fear, a question, a cloud hanging over the future.  I will act to a large extent through that frame and so will family, friends, and strangers.