Living with Depression: Confronting the Stigma

       I love to read! I get up at 4:30 every morning just so I have time to read before work. As someone with depression I find reading stories about other depressives and those with mental illness to be helpful and inspiring. But it can be difficult to find good books discussing biographical details about a person’s mental illness. My purpose in this blog is to tell you about five books everyone with mental illness needs to read. These books are inspiring, comforting, helpful, and encouraging. So, without further ado, here are the five books you need to read right now if you have mental illness.  1.  A First Rate Madness: Uncovering the Links Between Leadership and Mental Illness Written by Nassir Ghaemi, this book looks at the lives of four leaders who suffered with mental illness: Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King Jr., John F. Kennedy, and William Tecumseh Sherman. Ghaemi discusses each of these famous leaders’ mental illness, how their illness presen...

       When others find out I have major depressive disorder, they must look at my life and wonder what reason I have for being depressed. Well, I think that is why they call it mental illness; it comes from totally irrational thinking. If it made sense it would not be an "illness."           I am your typical, middle-class American. I am a man in my late 30s, married for 10 years (at the time of this writing) to an amazing woman. I have three beautiful daughters, and a yellow lab. We live in a medium sized house, which I am proud to call my home. All I am missing is the white picket fence.          I worked as a hospice chaplain for eight years, counseling terminally ill individuals and their families. I graduated law school in 2017 and landed a nice job working for a small law firm as an associate attorney. So what do I have to be depressed about?         Well, when I think ...