A Rather Different World

Being widowed is the greatest blow in life. When my relatives and friends learned of my wife’s sudden death, they were sad and naturally worried that I might not be able to survive this.

As I look back, if I hadn’t learned the lesson from depression six years ago, my situation would have been really worrisome. The lesson is: never allow grief and fear to govern you.

Looking back on the ups and downs of life after marriage, each time the new wave is higher than the previous one, and the new hurdle is more difficult than the old one. However, if you lack the experience of the previous event, you may not be able to cope with the next one. It’s like the hard work of taking care of Lun. It has overdrawn our health in advance. At the same time, striving through those difficult times has enhancing our discretion, proper choices were made to preserve our energy . Without the experience of taking care of Lun, we might not be able to get through every illness.

Two years after the brain trauma, in early March 2019, I was still on long sick leave and was steadily recovering my ability to take care of myself when I was faced with the most torturous illness in my life. The pain I experienced far exceeded any previous blow. It was truly excruciating pain. When my illness was at its worst, I became suicidal every day. Fortunately, thanks to my family's persistent care, response, and assistance, I was able to return to the world from hell.

It was acute depression, and it almost completely defeated me, a "semi-professional" patient who had been suffering from diseases for a long time. Without any warning and triggered by a deep worry, my entire body, mind and spirit's defenses collapsed like dominoes in an instant. From the first night on, I suffered from insomnia for three consecutive months. My daily routine was disrupted, and I almost collapsed. The turning point of my condition began when I was admitted to the hospital. Just as the resident psychiatrist told my wife about the estimated number of days I would be hospitalized, I would be discharged in three weeks after receiving the appropriate medication. After that, my condition continued to improve. After two years, I evaluated that my condition had recovered to 95% of what it was before the onset of the disease. It has been nearly six years since then, and there has been no recurrence. 

That experience could become a book in itself, tentatively titled “Crazy Social Workers.”

As someone who has experienced this myself, I can now better understand the circumstances and moods of people with mental and psychological illnesses. I gained the most important understanding when facing hardship, which is not the end of the world. It enabled me to face the abrupt death of my wife and the aftermath, as well as to shoulder the responsibility of a father.

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