. But long before I went to graduate school, I had to deal with my own depression. Up close and personal.Depression was kept at bay, I suppose, by focusing on achievements, school, and grades. And by heavily self-medicating with marijuana.
The depressive symptoms were crushing. I lost focus. Constant thoughts of death left me fearful, frozen, and unable to make even simple decisions. A dark heaviness descended on me, making it almost impossible to move my body or think. All I wanted to do was sleep and have the depression disappear. Around the same time, I started to have vivid visionary experiences, some out of body and some hallucinatory in nature. These were not frightening; instead, they assured me that the daily reality in which I had been living was not the whole story. There was more. Much more.