Grief Is not depression

Grief is a different feeling than depression in that grief, in its wake, can take your strength from you and leave a bottomless pit of utter and complete total agony where your heart once was, however, in time that bottomless pit will become home to the healing process. Make no mistake about it; that pit will forever be with you, but the pain and agony that originally came with it, over time, will eventually become somewhat bearable. Depression’s bottomless pit of despair never subsides, it only deepens.

Grief is a natural feeling brought on by horrible and overwhelming feelings of loss. I know as I lost my sister in a car accident in July 1993. I cried for a week, and even to this day, that feeling of saddens still permeates my soul. But grief does not do to you what depression can and does. Grief is a passing feeling that subsides over time into a deeply private feeling that can not be described by word for they lack the complexity needed to describe the feeling.

Please do not take this the wrong way, as grief is indeed a sword of horrific pain who’s wound upon its victim becomes a deep ache of the soul that will never truly goes away. Grief’s inflicted pain will forever reside deep within your soul, becoming a part of your psychology, and your life for all time. Although the sharpness of the pain may eventually subside, and even heal a bit, the pain brought on by grief will never truly go away. Depression does not heal; it kills, and among its victims are many people who have endured the pain of grief, fore grief can and often does lead to depression.

Grief is a powerful feeling that paralyzes its victim for a period of time eventually lessening and allowing that person to move on in life, weakened, yet strengthened by the pain. Depression does not lesson over time and it does not strengthen you, it weakens you, and keeps on weakening you until one day your strength is completely gone and all you want to do is die. Grief can help people to heal, as it is a natural part of the human emotional response to death and loss. Grief is painful, devastating, and even unbearable, but it does subside. Whereas, Depression simply goes on and on and on. Prolonged grief can lead to depression, and often does; however, depression never leads to grief unless it wins.

I have felt grief, and know its pain. I pray that the people who are forced to endure this horrific pain the best as they battle their own demons and learn to live with the loss that is now a reality in their lives. I pray that all of them move beyond this, and become stronger and more endeared to the plight of those around them.

I once said that the death of my sister was my initiation into a club whose members did not wish to join, but non-the less had become members. Today, that club gained tens of thousands of new members, and that alone is reason enough to grieve. God bless America, and may he bring peace to those who have been so horribly wronged this day.