 Hi, this is Mitch Mitchell and today I'm going to talk about a serious subject from the basic history of someone who's in the mid-50s and it's a serious subject that Scott Craighead broached on his blog a few days ago basically responding to Someone who I assume is even younger than Scott who was talking about thoughts of depression and suicide That he had been having and how he was working his way out of it and Scott broached it and I'm gonna broach it I'm gonna go and a little bit further maybe but we shall see you know We have to face the fact that every person in the world goes through depression at some point in their lives Some people go through it really badly some people have a mild touch of it and then move on But everybody goes through it also probably everybody in Today's world and I'll even use today's world in my youth and going back even you know Probably the early baby boomers. I think I don't know that a lot of kids or even adults thought about it before then except those who you know Basically were afraid of losing their dignity when something was getting ready to come out But it wasn't really a big deal And at a certain point But you know everyone after that has thought about Suicide now how serious have they thought about it? You know what I can't really tell you I can tell you my thing My thing basically says that I thought about suicide once only once ever and it never really got serious as a matter of fact Probably around the time I started thinking about it I was also pretty much realizing that I didn't trust religion and I didn't believe in almost anything You know, they were just way too many contradictions. And so I knew that if I commit suicide, that's it Get another shot at it. I'm you know, I'm done. I'm history and in my opinion There's never anything That's worse than not having a chance to make things better So I never seriously contemplated it, but depression. Let me tell you about depression You know, we've always had bullies. Everyone's always had bullies, but I haven't had The kind of dealings with bullies overall that a lot of people had sure I had a couple here and there But oddly enough, I always had other people who are ready to protect me against the bullies whether I asked for it or not and when I didn't have that I Had Intellect and so I knew that you know bullies were always gonna try the exact same thing They're gonna try to hit you in the face and you just hit them in the stomach You pick something up and you smack them and you kick them in the knees and you do all this other kind of stuff And they don't expect that now maybe today's bullies are a little bit different, but they didn't expect that back then We didn't have social media. So there was no online bullying. Most people didn't have Telephones as hot as that sounds. Well, the family might have had a telephone But there was no kid who's gonna get on the telephone and be calling you up doing whatever I had my own telephone But you know, I only had a few people that I could call but I had my own telephone It was a nice red telephone that my dad got me And I also lived on a military base. And so bullying was only gonna go so far Before you know, someone was gonna go to somebody's house and you know, one of the things about military families is that you have the ranks and You know, if it's Some kid messing with a master sergeant's kid and his father's not, you know higher No, there's gonna be trouble and even if the father is a captain or a colonel or something like that They don't mess with the master sergeants. The master sergeants run the military trust me on this So if I'd ever needed it, I Head back up, but I didn't need it. But let's talk about depression. I Think that I suffered my bits of depression for a really long time Even now I did a video a few weeks ago where I mentioned that I had gone into a little slight depression It was only a few days, but we all have these depressions, but I wanted to a depression back in 1969 I was 10 years old and my dad went to Vietnam and They You know, my mother and I had to move in to my grandmother's house in Kansas City And basically it was a ghetto it hadn't been a ghetto when she bought it But you know, this is how things happen sometimes in some neighborhoods neighborhood got bad and it was a ghetto Some of the houses had broken windows. Some of them didn't have windows There were a few nice houses my grandmother's house was nice, but the kids in the school You didn't have homework because you couldn't trust the kids to take the books home and bring them back some of them didn't have electricity some kids came to school in the exact same clothes every day and So I had this year that I had to deal with when my dad's in Vietnam It's just me my mother my grandmother her dog Pierre, which was a poodle of course because it was named Pierre We had mice. We had rats. We had bugs. I Was not used to this and I had almost no friends and I say that because I had one friend across the street But he was 15 years old. I was 10. I didn't see him that often and another friend named Odell Odell talk about, you know a bad life his father was blind his mother was blind They had boards on the windows because they couldn't afford to buy a glass. They had no electricity So he came over to my house, but Odell was in a way the cowardly type He was my friend as long as we weren't in school once we're in school Odell Wasn't my friend because he basically knew that he was going to be there when I left when my dad came back From Vietnam and we left and so, you know, and I understood that at 10 years old I knew what it was about, but it was depressing So I basically spent an entire year of school by myself. I didn't have to go to the class I didn't do anything. I was by myself and that was depressing. So here I am by myself. I can't tell mom Anything cuz I'm 10 years old. I don't know how to articulate that and my dad's gone So that started that and then we moved from there once my dad came back and he had to recover He had injured himself in Vietnam and we go to northern Maine limestone main lowering Air Force base And I'm an only child and all of a sudden you have just taken me from this ghetto inner-city thing in Kansas City to this air base in northern Maine in the middle of winter and it's 35 below zero and I didn't really make a lot of friends for the longest time and I didn't start making any friends until I started playing sports and Even then they were sports friends They weren't really a whole lot of friends where they could come to my house or I could go to their house or whatever So I spent a lot of time alone and it's a strange thing You kind of get used to being alone because you're alone, but it's depressing when you want people around you Sometimes you just can't get it and it's depressing and then I moved from there to limestone Limestone I got limestone under my Liverpool, New York which back in 1975 had almost no black people You know Right now I live on a street where when I first moved there and rode my bike I would swear people were calling other houses down the street saying go take a look outside and see what's riding their bike Because people would come out of their houses as I'm riding my bike down the street and watch me True so I didn't have a lot of friends there. I had a couple over the couple of years I did meet a few people who I was friendly with and nice with but most of the time it wasn't it was just me and that was depressing and Then I got to college and early on it was difficult I went to Oswego State and I loved Oswego State, but it was difficult because there were almost no black people But the last two years were wonderful. Oh my god. I was like a big man on campus Everyone knew who I was and it was wonderful. I could go anywhere. I was getting free food I was getting free entry in the shows. It was wonderful, but I knew it was gonna change. I knew it was going to change I Dreaded it beginning of my senior year. I dreaded it. I knew I was gonna graduate I knew life was gonna totally change and it did and You make a long story short. I had some early difficulties trying to transition from being a college student Getting a degree to trying to find a job Eventually got a job in the hospital and the billing department and then my parents Left me of all things they moved to another city because my dad worked for Xerats and now I'm in my own apartment, which is cool but I didn't really have my friends around they'd all gone off and done something else That's how it was in the 70s. You know a lot of people Didn't appreciate where they were and so they left and here I was I'd been everywhere else and I said well I love this place. I'm staying here. So I didn't have any friends and then I didn't have much money and It was really depressing. So pretty much for a two-year period. I was deeply depressed I Went to work and I didn't show anything at work Because I'd always you know been taught to have this great work ethics and so you treat people, right? So I was fine at work But then I would leave work drive home to my apartment close the door and unless I had to go to the store I basically spent the next four or five hours Playing piano. Yes, I did a lot of piano I wrote a lot of songs and it were all depressed almost all of them were depressing I didn't have a relationship with a female for nine years. I had no relationships whatsoever and It was just depressing and it was dark I would come home and I would not turn the lights on and I would keep the blinds closed all the time And I live in this basement apartment and I would just play my piano and write my songs And that was it sometimes on Wednesdays. I would go to what we called party in the plaza downtown Syracuse I did bowl. I was in a bunch of bowling leagues But you know what when I bold I brought books and I read all the time You can ask people and I brought books on ethics and science and history and biographies I wasn't reading Star Trek books. I wasn't reading any fiction at the time. None of it was fun It was all intellectual stuff and that way I could keep within myself. I had a TV But I rarely turned the TV on I wasn't even watching sports except for, you know World series if my team was in it or sometimes the Super Bowl But I did that and you know, there's that thing with depression We all like I said, we've all been there but not everyone's been there all that long I would unhook the phone on Weekends I would come home on a Friday and I would unhook the phone from the wall So that I wouldn't know that nobody was calling me. Isn't that a shit? If my parents tried to call me big we're gonna get me but I don't know I did not want to know that no one was gonna call and almost no one ever called and So that was the thing about depression and I've had periods of that like that throughout my life But one of the things that you do or that you hope happens because I didn't go to counseling I've never gone to counseling until my dad passed away and I went to a grief counselor twice and that was it so that's the only counseling I ever had in my life and You think and you take that time and you're brooding and doing whatever But one day I came to this thing where I said, okay Mitchell What do you want to do with your life? You know is this it are you going to spend the rest of your life brooding and staying depressed and doing nothing and not trying to do Anything is this what your dreams were way back when well my dream had been to be a baseball player But then I injured myself so that wasn't going to happen and I thought about being a sports announcer But I realized you know what I didn't have a passion for that I Wanted to be a songwriter and I wrote a bunch of songs and I sent them all in and I would get these rejection letters all The time I don't see this is a hit. I don't see this is a hit So what did I want to do with my life and I decided one day I said, you know what? I'm going to get out there and try to advance. I'm gonna try to get management. I'm gonna try to see What there is that I can do I need to take a shot at this at this life and I took my shot and You know what sometimes you get beaten down Sometimes you actually succeed you do some good things and you move up and I've always wanted to be in management or work for Myself because you have a better opportunity to change things to change other people's lives to change your life and working for myself I have that exact same opportunity and I also have opportunity to Possibly make good money and live a really comfortable life at some point here and there and You know, that's the whole thing about depression is that you know You can get to that point where there's just nothing that you can do I did a video earlier this year about a friend of mine who got so depressed that she ended up Basically on the deathbed. She was on the respirator and she you know, she was gone She was going she was going and then what intervened is the brain Basically the brain wiped itself clean and she's on the vent and she doesn't know this happening But once she's on the vent and the wife's are brain clean She doesn't remember anything now. She doesn't remember why she's depressed. She doesn't know why she's in the hospital She doesn't know anything and She came out of it now We spent basically an hour and a half one night after she was able to talk again because she had to learn how to talk again first and I was filling in parts of her life for her I wouldn't fill it all in because I didn't want to bring back the really bad stuff to stuff that helped her to get there But you know, you have to kind of ask yourself Are you really going to stay in that depressed state or you got to try to get out of it and you try to find something and You know, this is like I said, this is coming from a 50 year old who's been there in that spot I mean, I have really I've been depressed. I was so depressed one point I left I lost 68 pounds and I lost it fast There you go. I was living on tic-tacs cinnamon tic-tacs If you don't know what a tic-tac is go ask your father, but that was it. I wasn't eating anything else I was basically getting three hours of sleep a night and I lost 68 pounds I've gone through periods like that where I've lost a lot of weight that hasn't happened since I've been married I haven't had that kind of depression except for like said when my dad passed away And then I had her there to talk to me and I had mom talk to me And I you know had started I had a different outlet at that point, you know One of the best things I'll tell you to do is when you're really depressed Find yourself an outlet of something where you can either put your words down like writing or playing music or Painting or building something. I just finished a book that a friend of mine wrote and she talked about Detachment and she said, you know every once while you have to find a way to break out of a mood and Maybe one of the things you like to do is break stuff You know, she said do it safely but break stuff, but don't go cutting yourself and don't go taking drugs, you know You basically you find other outlets stuff that maybe can help you to get out of depression Back in our day. There was something that used to call primal scream Where these folks said you just go out into a field or whatever and just scream Like you were just born, you know Only don't sit there and wait for someone to smack you to scream Because you know then then you're mad and you know it's something else And maybe you need some of that You know when I talk leadership one of the things I said is sometimes you have to do something disruptive to someone who's really so far Gone that you just can't control them And so maybe you say something disruptive or you do something stupid like you push a book off the thing You let it slam down to it and you know takes their mind off of their issue for the moment It's disruption, but it now gives you an opportunity to step in and do something else But you know I'm gonna come back to this which is you can always Eventually get out of it. If you can't do it on your own There's someone who is always willing to listen to you It may be your parent. It may be a friend. It may be another relative if not There's counselors in every city in America. There really are and If you can just find someone to talk to heck This kid the other day did a YouTube video on it and had some people who saw it and gave him some positive words Yes, there's there's gonna be haters. There's gonna be trolls There's gonna be these morons these idiots or whatever You know, I just don't see what people get out of hurting other people and You know, so that's why I block all trolls no trolling on my channel, but you know, this is me saying this It's not easy. No, it's not easy. I'm not gonna make this sound like this is a Pollyanna thing I'm not gonna say just get over yourself and move on like I said I've been there it can sometimes take a lot of time to figure it out But I want you to know Here I am in my mid 50s. I have gotten past that point. I now have a much happier life I see things in a more positive light. Can I still get depressed? Sure, but at this point I know how to get out of it relatively soon Even if it takes a few days Luckily for me most of the time it only takes an hour or two. Sometimes it only takes a half hour Sometimes that even take that so I wanted to give you that little positive spin on it to say you can get out of it You can overcome, but please don't ever think that suicide is an option It's not you don't do anything after suicide. It's done. It's over. It's history and I mean really if that's what you want for yourself I'm just gonna say no don't do it I don't usually like to give that kind of advice, but I'm telling you right now. Don't do it. Go find someone There's always someone Give them a chance to help you out of this There's my serious video for today. I'm Mitch Mitchell Leave me your comment below and I hope this helps someone y'all take care