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Depression has been part of my life for as long as I can remember. But only in the last 4 of my 52 years did I even know it as depression and only in the last few months have I been able to acknowledge and face it. In the attempt to get better I have had to come to terms with a family legacy of affliction while confronting a dilemma involving loyalty, honor, and healing. Two years ago I turned 50. My two older sons went away to college last fall. It seems like a "crossroads" time. I am working at home and I have a lot of time to think both on paper and in my head. This may not be such a good thing. My newfound desire to write for a living and my ways of dealing with depression have worked together to encourage a higher level of self-examination than I have ever experienced. One of the most threatening questions anyone could ask in recent years is also the most banal and common: How are you? Torn between honesty and politeness, my stock reaction was first a shudder and next an innocuous reply. As I get older I am better able to handle this question with honesty. My working life has had its ups and downs. The happiest years of my professional life were as a teacher, a job I would have continued to do had the onset of California's infamous Proposition 13 not changed the local educational landscape dramatically some twenty-five years ago. A succession of positions in the business world brought a mixture of success and frustration. After a layoff last year, I decided, with the support of my loving wife, to pursue a career as a writer. I see writing as a continuation of my life as a teacher, as they are similar occupations, and because it is a worthy outlet for my native abilities. In some ways this new phase of my life is a living hell. I berate myself for not being able to bring in enough money to support my large family. Increased feelings of inadequacy, worthlessness, and mistrust of my abilities have cropped up over the last few months. The depression I experience changes on a daily basis. One day I feel awful that I cannot look my loving and supportive wife in the eyes and say that I am a full partner with her in making our life work. Another day I will feel more hopeful that I will come out of this phase of my life whole. Writing is an affirmation of my talent. It allows me to build esteem related to that skill and the confidence that comes with it. The very fact that I can do it means that I am doing something that is part of me, as opposed to getting into a succession of jobs for which I have had no passion. The only other thing that I do where there is a similar feeling is when I am coaching basketball. In these circumstances, I feel a powerful connection to my inner self and a sense of suspension of the outside world in that there is no clock and virtually nothing that can distract me. Somehow this process has brought both relief and willingness to speak openly of my depression. In am told that a male speaking out about depression is unusual. To me this proves there is a higher power. Depression has a history in my house. My father's father, I am told, was manic-depressive, back in the days when those words rarely appeared together or separately. He was a stonecutter by trade, which he learned in his native Italy and then continued to do when he moved to this country in 1915. My mother's family owned and operated a granite quarry. My cousin, the family historian, informs that from 1929 until the local shipyards came alive in 1940, "Pop" was unable to work. To his torpor was added the shame and humiliation of watching his wife, my grandmother, and her mother support the family by cooking and taking in work as seamstresses. My father, born in 1917, helped out as much as he could through the Depression, big D and little d. The specter of this long-suffering man trying to maintain any sense of self worth throughout that time is truly heartbreaking. But there is more to his story. He was actually born in the U.S., in the marble region of Vermont, where his father, also a stonecutter, was working at the time to send money home to Italy. My grandfather was sent home with his mother before he was a year old. There he stayed until he attained the age of 16, and stood by in shame and suffering as his mother carried on intimate relationships with many of the townsmen in his formative years. I am not passing judgment here, only telling the story as it was told to me. At 16 he joined his father in Vermont. One day, he broke down and told his father of his experiences at home in Italy. Two days later his father dove into a frigid Vermont river and killed himself. My grandfather carried the burden of shame he felt about his mother and the guilt he felt about his father's suicide into his marriage and own fatherhood. He begat two daughters and a son, who lived to be 71, a testament to the human spirit. My father was abused all through his youth, especially by his fanatically Catholic mother, until he was big enough to fend her off. From an early age he was fat, perhaps seeking comfort in food he could not find elsewhere. It is no coincidence that, as a certified public accountant, he chose to specialize in the restaurant business. Well-meaning and often charming, my father escaped his heritage as much he could by marrying a non-Italian and non-Catholic, and anglesizing his name from Vittorio Giuseppe Corsini to Victor John Corsini. But the chain of affliction was unbroken. My father abused my sister both physically and sexually. My sister never forgave my father for his cruelty nor my mother for her inability to stop him. I was both physically and verbally abused whenever my father got angry and my mother was verbally abused often and in my presence. My father was an extremely harsh critic with a volcanic temper from whom I almost never heard an encouraging word. I was a very good student and athlete but nothing I could do was good enough to please him. As bad as I got, I still feel guilty because my sister got worse. When he went on a rampage, my mother took refuge in books and quoted Aristotle. When he exploded, she recited lyrics of popular music to get back at him. I can still remember her running to the bedroom in tears, singing "I'm gonna wash that man right out of my hair". My father retaliated by selling the hi-fi. My mother was an inveterate collector of what my father thought was junk. Periodically he would sweep it all into a shopping bag and deposit it into the garbage can. I am told that the drunks of the family came from her side and that their parties were full of character and fine commentary. My dad's folks were reserved; my mom's were earthy, bawdy, and violently celebratory. Nice combo.
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