The years between about age 40 and 53 saw my depression get steadily worse until the time finally came, about 3 years ago, when I realized that I had to do something. I had to get some help and it had to be very soon.
After I had purchased that first truck, I drove it for nearly two years, and then purchased a new Freightliner Century Class. The company I had been leased to had been bought by Schneider National, the largest trucking company in the world, and Schneider had got me in the process. This had happened just before I traded the first truck in on the Freightliner, and after Schneider, the profits continued a steady increase. Trucking is a very stable and very profitable venture. It has its draw backs to be sure, but you can not beat it for job security, it is just the opposite from the flying business, where lower time pilots often had to pay for their jobs.
One day about three years ago I was driving down the road, there was nothing wrong. I had had no bad news, no friends had died, nothing bad at all had happened to me, but I was crying and I could not stop. I drove with my left hand up on the side of my face, like you would if you were resting your head on your hand, I was doing that so the people who passed my truck would not look up and be able to see I was sitting there crying.
I think in that moment I remembered an event from when I was very young. My mother had been having a bout with what she called “the blues.” When my father came home from work she tried to talk him into taking her to see a doctor. I remember her crying and pleading with him. She was saying, “Please, there is something wrong, it should not have to be like this, I want some help.” My father was a good man, but he was also a very practical man. His idea was that only crazy people saw a physiatrist, so it stands to reason if you do not see a physiatrist, then you must not be crazy, and my father was not about to have a crazy wife. I know now what she had been feeling, and I decided I no longer wanted to feel like I had been feeling for so long. I wanted to enjoy things again. I had gotten to the point where I no longer enjoyed my hobbies, some things I did by rote, but without much, if any enjoyment.
The next time I got home I made an appointment with a psychologist, I saw her twice and on the second visit she ask me to go see a……gulp…… physiatrist. I made that appointment and afterwards walked out with a prescription for a medicine called Wellbutrin XL. I see no need here to discuss all the reasons for the medicine and what it does, other than to say that the physiatrist felt my problem was a chemical imbalance in my brain, and this medicine would help correct that.
It is now about 2 1/2 years since I took that first Wellbutrin. I can not even begin to describe the difference it has made. After about a month I started to think, ya, maybe things are a little better. I don’t think I feel quite so bad, quite so often. After two months I knew things were improving. About that same time I realized I had to get out of the relationship I was in, it was going no where and staying together was not good for either of us.
Several years before I had met a lady who was from a part of the world I always had an interest in, the Philippines. Over the years she had told me a little about her life growing up there, and what it was like to be poor in a poor country. Once, when I was talking about my relationship at home, and how bad it was getting, she made the comment that there were many ladies in her country who would love to have an American husband. This was a girl I had always admired, she was intelligent, beautiful, and very sexy and she had come a very long way from being a poor girl in the Philippines. That statement planted a seed in my head that grew very fast. One night I was parked somewhere in the truck. I had stopped early because of some extra time on the load I currently had. I was on the internet and happened to be thinking about what my friend had said, and did a google search for “foreign bride.” I could not believe the results I got. After the smoke cleared, I was a member of a site called FilipinaHeart. At the time there were 75,000 female members. They had a very good search engine; you could get very specific on age, habits, appearance and so on. I had sent interest to a couple ladies when I came on a photo of a very pretty lady just getting on a bike. She had a big smile on her face, that long black hair, she was so pretty, and she just seemed to jump out of the screen at me. Need I say that lady is now my wife, we have been married almost a year, as I write this our first wedding anniversary is coming up in 11 days, on January 24th.
My life has changed so much in the last 2 ½ years….changed so much for the better. The blanket over my head is gone, I can see blue sky and sunshine. I have my hobbies back, I enjoy things, I see hope for the future. The most important thing of all, the thing that adds the flavor to all the others, is I have the most wonderful wife I could ever hope for. I live in fear of the day she realizes how much better she could have done, so I am going to do everything in my power to see she never has reason to question her choice.
After I had purchased that first truck, I drove it for nearly two years, and then purchased a new Freightliner Century Class. The company I had been leased to had been bought by Schneider National, the largest trucking company in the world, and Schneider had got me in the process. This had happened just before I traded the first truck in on the Freightliner, and after Schneider, the profits continued a steady increase. Trucking is a very stable and very profitable venture. It has its draw backs to be sure, but you can not beat it for job security, it is just the opposite from the flying business, where lower time pilots often had to pay for their jobs.
One day about three years ago I was driving down the road, there was nothing wrong. I had had no bad news, no friends had died, nothing bad at all had happened to me, but I was crying and I could not stop. I drove with my left hand up on the side of my face, like you would if you were resting your head on your hand, I was doing that so the people who passed my truck would not look up and be able to see I was sitting there crying.
I think in that moment I remembered an event from when I was very young. My mother had been having a bout with what she called “the blues.” When my father came home from work she tried to talk him into taking her to see a doctor. I remember her crying and pleading with him. She was saying, “Please, there is something wrong, it should not have to be like this, I want some help.” My father was a good man, but he was also a very practical man. His idea was that only crazy people saw a physiatrist, so it stands to reason if you do not see a physiatrist, then you must not be crazy, and my father was not about to have a crazy wife. I know now what she had been feeling, and I decided I no longer wanted to feel like I had been feeling for so long. I wanted to enjoy things again. I had gotten to the point where I no longer enjoyed my hobbies, some things I did by rote, but without much, if any enjoyment.
The next time I got home I made an appointment with a psychologist, I saw her twice and on the second visit she ask me to go see a……gulp…… physiatrist. I made that appointment and afterwards walked out with a prescription for a medicine called Wellbutrin XL. I see no need here to discuss all the reasons for the medicine and what it does, other than to say that the physiatrist felt my problem was a chemical imbalance in my brain, and this medicine would help correct that.
It is now about 2 1/2 years since I took that first Wellbutrin. I can not even begin to describe the difference it has made. After about a month I started to think, ya, maybe things are a little better. I don’t think I feel quite so bad, quite so often. After two months I knew things were improving. About that same time I realized I had to get out of the relationship I was in, it was going no where and staying together was not good for either of us.
Several years before I had met a lady who was from a part of the world I always had an interest in, the Philippines. Over the years she had told me a little about her life growing up there, and what it was like to be poor in a poor country. Once, when I was talking about my relationship at home, and how bad it was getting, she made the comment that there were many ladies in her country who would love to have an American husband. This was a girl I had always admired, she was intelligent, beautiful, and very sexy and she had come a very long way from being a poor girl in the Philippines. That statement planted a seed in my head that grew very fast. One night I was parked somewhere in the truck. I had stopped early because of some extra time on the load I currently had. I was on the internet and happened to be thinking about what my friend had said, and did a google search for “foreign bride.” I could not believe the results I got. After the smoke cleared, I was a member of a site called FilipinaHeart. At the time there were 75,000 female members. They had a very good search engine; you could get very specific on age, habits, appearance and so on. I had sent interest to a couple ladies when I came on a photo of a very pretty lady just getting on a bike. She had a big smile on her face, that long black hair, she was so pretty, and she just seemed to jump out of the screen at me. Need I say that lady is now my wife, we have been married almost a year, as I write this our first wedding anniversary is coming up in 11 days, on January 24th.
My life has changed so much in the last 2 ½ years….changed so much for the better. The blanket over my head is gone, I can see blue sky and sunshine. I have my hobbies back, I enjoy things, I see hope for the future. The most important thing of all, the thing that adds the flavor to all the others, is I have the most wonderful wife I could ever hope for. I live in fear of the day she realizes how much better she could have done, so I am going to do everything in my power to see she never has reason to question her choice.
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