How Depression is Diagnosed

Looking at this photo and the one I posted last, both of which Leif had designated as avatars for online things he was involved in, I see clearly how sick he really was. We were worried about hims, terribly worried at that time, when he was so terribly depressed in February 2003. He was still struggling to make it back from the depth of depression when he was suicidal, but he put on a good front around us. Although we were worried, we never saw these faces. These are photos I found on his computer after his death, more of his self portraits. If you compare this unhappy man to the one in the photo at the top right of this blog, when he was glowing with happiness on Thanksgiving 2003, you can clearly see what a difference there is in a depressed and a happy man. How fervently we wish he had been able to keep that happiness and bask in it.

Leif may have considered later that he had PTSD, and whether he had that or severe depression, or even bipolar disorder, we will never know. However, given the possibility that he inherited the tendency to depression from two grandparents I think there's a strong likelihood he was severely depressed and my also have suffered from PTSD. How many times can one climb out of such a deep pit of depression? I know he did it twice. The third time was too much.

I found an excellent article about depression at this website (click the word DEPRESSION below):

DEPRESSION

If you or a loved one is suffering from undiagnosed and untreated depression, or you don't even know it's depression but aren't finding enjoyment in life, please go there and read the article.

I am going to repost a long quote from that article here, for those that won't go read all of it, and I hope that if you read this, you will reconsider.

Most people who are depressed do not seek psychiatric help and must rely on their  family doctor. Unfortunately, there are a number of obstacles associated with  this approach:

Studies suggest that although at least 10% of patients who visit a physician are suffering from major depression, most cases are unrecognized or inadequately treated. One study, in fact, reported that only 25% of family physicians accurately diagnose depression.

 Patients themselves may be unable to sense or admit to their own depression. In one study, although 21% of patients who visited their family physicians were depressed, only one percent described their problem as depression.

To compound the problem, half the physicians in one study admitted to deliberately diagnosing a different problem, such as fatigue, anxiety, insomnia, or headache, in some of their patients who had depression. Reasons for doing this included uncertainty about the diagnosis, a concern that insurers wouldn't reimburse the patient for a diagnosis of depression, or because of the stigma attached to such a diagnosis.

 Depression can be confused with other medical illnesses. Weight loss and fatigue, for example, accompany many conditions, some serious, but they can also occur with depression.

 Many people lack insurance that will cover mental health costs. Such people are also likely to have adverse socioeconomic situations that increase their risk for depression.

Although not all patients who visit their physician should be screened for depression, certain individuals, such as the following, may be at higher risk and so warrant  a screening test:

People with a family or personal history of depression.

 Patients with multiple medical problems.

 Patients with physical symptoms that have no clear medical cause.

 Patients with chronic pain.

 Individuals who visit their physician more frequently than expected.


 Screening Tests

A mental health specialist, such as a psychiatrist, social worker, or psychologist, is the best source for a diagnosis of depression. Such health professionals may administer a screening test, such as the Beck Depression Inventory or the Hamilton Rating Scale, which consists of about 20 questions that assess the individual  for depression. Studies are finding that even computerized phone interviews are valuable as screening tools for depression. It is important to note, however, that these tests are limited, and mental health professionals generally diagnose depression based on symptoms and other criteria.

I tried asking Leif about depression, tried sending him online self screening depression tests, but he would not admit that he was depressed. I ask you, though, when you look at these photos, when you look at the top right photo of him happy in 2003 and his birthday photo in 2008, his last birthday, can't you see the difference? See the hollow smile in 2008, the eyes that don't smile?

I'm sure that there are times each of us is unhappy and has a sad countenance, but when it becomes frequent, pervasive, it's time to look for help.

The Difficulties of Diagnosing PTSD and What to Do About It

Leif took more photos of himself than he did of anything else. I sometimes wonder about this. He took few pictures of his friends. He photographed his wife and some of the women he dated, but not all of them. He took pictures of his vehicles, but not much else, after he grew up. As a teen he photographed cool cars and our cat, and architecture he liked, but as an adult, his photos were overwhelmingly of him. I always photographed my sons a lot, so it wasn't that no one else was taking pictures of him. So why all the self-portraits? Was he trying to see himself, to define himself in some way?

This photo was one of a series he took when he shaved off his beard a mustache (that look didn't last long) and was dressed up to go to a job fair. He chose this one from the series as an "avatar" to use somewhere online, but wasn't using it to my knowledge at the time of his death.

In this series of photos, you can see the depressed and haunted young man that he was at that time. They are sad photos. They came to mind when I read a long and interesting article about the history of the diagnosis of PTSD and what treatment versus disability benefits might mean. If you're interested, please click HERE for "PTSD's Diagnostic Trap."

A quote from the article seems to describe Leif very well:

They called it "Post-Vietnam Syndrome," a disorder marked by "growing apathy, cynicism, alienation, depression, mistrust, and expectation of betrayal as well as an inability to concentrate, insomnia, nightmares, restlessness, uprootedness, and impatience with almost any job or course of study."

Leif was never diagnosed with PTSD, though he told at least one friend he thought he might have it. It was clear that he suffered from all of these symptoms but one . . . he had no trouble concentrating, but often concentrated on things that didn't help his welfare.

Not diagnosed (I don't think he ever brought it up to his VA doctor), and not treated, Leif also did not receive any disability benefits for it, though he did for his increasingly problematic asthma. He could hold down a job, but became disillusioned and unhappy with every one he had. He once said to me that he wished he could just get a "job that didn't suck."

We hoped Leif would climb out of his depression, but he didn't. The point this article makes about the importance of treatment is paramount. I don't know what would have helped him, but I wish he'd given something a chance. Yes, he had a long series of unhappy events and tragedies in his life, but we always hoped he could overcome them.

If you know someone, military veteran or not, who suffers from these symptoms, urge them to get help.

"On the Rocks" at Lover's Point, Monterey, California

Here's another photo of Leif in a brief moment of stillness when he was climbing around on the rocks at Lover's Point in Monterey, California where his paternal grandmother lived at the time. He loved climbing on rocks, logs, anything like that, when he was a kid, like a little mountain goat, always sure of himself. I was the nervous mommy, hoping he wouldn't fall and get hurt. He never did. This was taken in July 2980 when he was five and a half years old.

Leif's MySpace Profile Is Back

To my surprise, Leif's deleted MySpace profile actually did get restored. It doesn't have the background photo of the x-ray of his collarbone with the metal plate and screws, but it seems that the other information is there. I had given up hope that it would ever be resurrected. It's a small thing but oddly a little comforting, that this page that he created is there again. The photo I've posted here is the one he chose to go on that page, a self portrait he took on March 20, 2003, his spring semester as a senior at Kansas State University, when we was coming out of his depression over his failed marriage and beginning to look hopefully at the world again. He looks so innocent and vulnerable in this photo, so different from those taken two years or more later. If you'd like to visit Leif's MySpace page, click the link or paste in:
http://www.myspace.com/97757799

Funny Face

Leif enjoyed clowning around for the camera and making funny faces. Here's another photo I found on one of his cell phones. It was taken May 5, 2007.

I have a Google home page for my browser and one of the personalized features I set up is a Picasa slide show. That means that often when I open my browser, I'm greeted by photos of Leif, and usually they bring a smile to my face. Sometimes I say, "Hello, my handsome son." Silly? Maybe, but it's as though he is there to greet me, almost like an avatar online. Wish he were really "behind" that avatar!

How Fast Life Changes

How fast life changes! I have often remarked to friends that life can change in one instant, and you will never know it's coming, like Leif's death. And now we have another change that took place on his birthday.

Yesterday would have been Leif's 36th birthday if he had lived, and a couple of weeks ago I made up my mind that we should celebrate his birthday instead of either moping around or not celebrating it. We had plans for the day. But then my cousin from Wisconsin called. She was in Florida and wanted to get together. Yesterday was the best day to do it, and she was flying out the next day, and wanted to meet in Sarasota. Peter W. had talked about going to Sarasota, so though it was a switch in plans, it seemed right to meet two of my cousins and one's husband in Sarasota for lunch and some strolling around.

Driving down to Sarasota, Peter W. talked about Leif and how hard it was to know that he was so unhappy, so miserable, that he would take his life. It was a sad trip down, serious, thoughtful.

Then we had a really delightful lunch with Judy, John and Sandie, a cousin I hadn't met before. We ate outside in the sunshine at Marina Jack by all the pretty yachts and Sarasota Bay. Afterward we walked around Bayfront Park by the dolphin fountain, and then drove across the causeway to Lido Key and St. Armand's Circle, took a little walk on the beach and around the shops. I was remember the last time Leif was there with us, with Peter A. and his kids, and having coconut ice cream.

It was a good way to spend his birthday, and I had planned to come home, light a candle, and have a beer in his honor (his favorite drink), a Newcastle, a beer he introduced us to, but life had other less pleasant things in store for us.

On the way back from Sarasota, my cell phone rang and it was a Lifeline dispatcher telling me that my mother had falled and was taken to the hospital. We went directly there. Mom fell and broke her right hip, just a year and eleven months after breaking her back for the second time.

Mom is 92 and in good health except for severe osteoporosis and macular degeneration. As she put it, she's like a "china doll," and breaks easily.

I spent the entire evening at the ER with her and then in her room, after which I went to her house to take care of some things and get some other things for her and took them back to her hospital room. I didn't get home until nearly 2:00 a.m. Mom will have to have surgery, but we don't know when or what the prognosis will be, but she's a fighter and if anyone can make it back from a broken hip, she can.

After I got home, I realized again that the living have to take precedence over the dead, but that I could still have the beer, even though it was past 2:00 a.m.

So here I am, Newcastle in hand, toasting Leif's birthday a day late. I am glad he was my son, glad I had him in my life, glad he HAD a birthday, sad he isn't here to celebrate it.

Life has changed yet again, suddenly, without warning.
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The photo was taken on Leif's birthday in 2007. Little did we know he would have only one more. He hadn't lost hope yet, still had that winning smile. It was a fun birthday, unlike his sad, preoccupied last one. He is crumping up the paper that had wrapped up a 2-drawer filing cabinet we gave him to organize his papers. Of course, he never did.

How to Celebrate His Birthday?

I was thinking a few days ago about my sadness over Leif's approaching birthday and how hard it is to think about him not being there to celebrate it, not spending it with us or off on some date and texting me about having a good time, not making his favorite food or taking him to a favorite restaurant, not getting a present for him, and for remembering that last sad birthday he had here.

I was thinking about a friend who celebrates her dead daughter's birthday by going to the cemetery with cake and balloons to celebrate. I liked that idea and that spirit, but it's not something that would be either possible or appropriate at Bay Pines National Cemetery. It would look very strange to take a lawn chair and sit in front of the wall of a columbarium with cake and balloons. There's not even any real place to leave flowers. I could sit somewhere quite a ways away and eat some cake, but that seems completely artificial in that setting.

But thinking about this I had a sudden idea. Rather than doing nothing on that day but be sad and go to the cemetery, we SHOULD celebrate his birth, celebrate the gift that he was, by doing something he would have enjoyed and would be glad to see us doing; go out to lunch or dinner, go to the beach, go to a movie, have a beer, do something fun, something new.

We have always combined trips to the cemetery with other more enjoyable things to do in the St. Petersburg area, but only once with the idea that we had once been there with Leif and were doing it in his memory. Now I think we will plan something special on his birthday each year and raise a glass of beer or wine in his honor.

it won't stop me from missing him, and I'm sure there will be some tears at some point during the day, even if they just well up in my eyes for a minute or two, but I will feel better that we are doing something positive he would have liked and celebrating the day he came into our lives and into this world.

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Peter W. took this photo of me and Leif at a temple somewhere in Japan in the fall of 1980 when Leif was five-and-a-half years old. I don't know where it was and there's no notation on the photo. He was so darling at that age.

Visiting the Cemetery and Lunch at The Green Iguana

This would be the third year I planned to visit the cemetery where Leif is inurned on his birthday, January 28th, but it is a long drive from our home and we were at another event within a few minutes drive of it today, so we went early. It's so terribly sad to think that his 36th birthday will be in 13 days, but he won't be here to celebrate it. When I go to the cemetery, all I can do is put my hands on the granite stone on the face of the niche that holds his cremains and cry, and wish with all my heart that he were not there, but alive and with us. It is still so hard for me to believe that all that's left of him is half the size or less of the baby who was born to me.

It struck me as we drove to the cemetery from the north this time, crossing Ulmerton Road, how close we were to the first place we stayed the first time we visited the Tampa Bay area, 13.1 miles by car, but more like nine miles as the crow flies. How happy he was in this bay area the first time we came, exultant, as he rented that white Mustang convertible and drove over the Sunshine Skyway Bridge, glorying in the view of the bay and the Gulf, the sparkling water and sun. As we stood there beside the columabarium, Peter W. talked about how we wanted to bring him here for a new start, a new hope. How little could we guess that a few short years later he would be here in this cemetery, only nine miles from were we were staying.

We don't stay long at the cemetery. As I told Peter, I could stay there all afternoon and cry for his loss, but I realize that isn't healthy for either of us, and as Peter says, Leif doesn't know we are there. I remarked that some people would think he knows. I wish I could think so, or that it would make a difference if he did. But if there is anything left of him in existence somewhere, surely he knows how much we love him, and surely he can see that we talk about him every day, look at his photos, think of him. Surely this blog is more of a memorial to him than hours in the cemetery.

Yet it does mean something to me to go there, to touch that stone, no matter how sad a moment it is. I'm usually not there more than five or ten minutes. After that time, I decide I need to get ahold of myself, stop the tears, and try to be happy, to try to be normal, and most of the time, I succeed.

That, going on with life, is one of the reasons we try to combine a visit to the cemetery with something positive and fun to do on the same trip in that direction. Today it was a rock and gem show in Largo, which we both enjoyed. After visiting Leif's niche, we went to lunch at the closest restaurant, The Green Iguana, and ate out on the deck overlooking the water, though the day had turned gray and chilly. We enjoyed the food and the view, and talked about how we would love to have taken Leif there, that it was the kind of place he would have enjoyed, with live music and good beer (which we didn't order).

It would have been so good to treat him, to enjoy a lively political conversation. He would have plenty to say about current affairs. I would have been especially interested to hear his viewpoints about the shooting tragedy in Tucson.

So we enjoyed lunch, thinking and talking about Leif, and then we did some shopping before heading home and to a performance about Mark Twain. It was a full day, and Leif was a part of it all, and he will always be a part of our lives, no matter how many years it has been since he was alive and with us.

The photo of the Green Iguana sign was indoors and in low light. I took the photos with my cell phone and Peter turned just as I took the photo. I find myself wondering whether Leif ever ate there. If he did, I hope he had a good time.

Time to Stay Very Busy as Leif's 36th Birthday Approaches

Anyone who has lost someone they deeply love can tell you that certain days are harder than others. Sometimes it's a day with a special significance due to a personal event, but it's always holidays like Christmas, Mother's Day, Father's Day, Thanksgiving and the loved one's birthday and death day that bring an especially poignant and painful sense of loss.

If find that the days leading up to those days are often harder for me than the actual day itself. I suppose it has to do with anticipating the day and how much I'll miss him. Christmas and Thanksgiving can be made better by time with family, busy time full of the things we do on holidays to keep my from thinking as much about Leif and missing him. Of course, he isn't gone from my mind, but the less time there is to be sad and reminisce, the better, at least for the celebrations.

It's much harder on Mother's Day or Father's Day, dates when we focus on parenthood and our children, and it's acutely clear that Leif isn't there, especially since he WAS with us from every one of them except while he was in the army for three years, plus there aren't any busy celebrations to be a distraction. We can, however, try to focus on Peter Anthony and be grateful for him and our continuing relationship with him, and all the years we have shared.

But Leif's birthday and death day have no other celebration, no other focus, and are impossible to ignore or forget, and I am finding it hard to anticipate his birthday on January 28th, wondering what I will say, what I will do, what he would have been like at thirty-six. I'm sure it will be so every year I live.

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This photo of Leif was taken in Charlottesville, Virginia in the spring of 1977 when he was two years old.

Astonishing How This Blog Has Fared

It's amazing to me that in less than three years, there have been over 13,490 visitors to this blog, from six continents and over 90 countries.

I know that many of them arrived here because of some search term, probably many because they were looking for Leif Garrett instead of my son, but it is still an amazing number of visits, and I am glad they saw at least the top of the page photos and saw that my son lived.

It's evident that some were touched, some read on, some were repeat visitors, and I am grateful for that, too.

Now that I post less frequently, I am even more surprised that people keep coming. I come back to see it myself, to check the visitor stats, to post anew. Now that I have posted the best photos of Leif, it's more of a challenge to find new ones, as I don't like to post just words with no pictures.

These photos of Leif were taken on July 26, 2006 when he was helping Peter W. put together my new office furniture. I wasn't there. I was still in Kansas, and Leif's girlfriend at the time, Donna, took the photos with her cell phone and sent them to me.

He had only moved out of this room, which had been his office/living room for a year, five months before this was taken. I wonder, now, if I hadn't needed to use that room, and his bedroom, once I moved down from Kansas, whether he would have stayed with us longer, whether it would have made a difference in his life. I doubt it, though. I think he decided to move when he did because he found the opportunity with her and grabbed it.

Peter W. told me this morning he goes to this page each day wondering whether I've posted something new, even though now I seldom do. This blog became an important focus for both of us to think about Leif and our family and deal with our grief. We have come a long, long way since his death, and we are much happier and function much better. A part of that is because we have learned to live with his death and have come to compartmentalize our sadness, to keep it at a distance most of the time. But not always. It still comes through, and, from what others tell me, always will.

We will miss so many things, but one of them is his wealth of knowledge about technology, vehicles, tools and putting things together, and the help and advice he could give on all of those. Today my sister, Lannay, said she wished that she could just call him up and ask him about her problems with her computer and cell phone. I wish so, too! There are so many times I have the same wish. I don't think Leif knew how many people respected his abilities and counted on them.