Can I bare my soul to you guys for a minute?
It’s hard to talk about depression openly because it is such a taboo subject. It makes people so uncomfortable, and have to deal with their own stuff. Or some people just can’t understand what its like for someone in the throes of depression.
But I’m going to talk openly about my recent experience with depression. I’m sure this will help someone else out there who is going through the same thing. When you’re at this point, you don’t really want help from anyone, but it’s the time when you need it the most. So, if you see someone going through this (and believe me you can tell) please reach out. Talking through it makes all the difference in the world.
The last few weeks I’ve been in a deep valley of depression, but I really had no idea why. Nothing huge had happened.
I was dealing with all of the same things that I had been for months or years, like my illness, my time consuming daily Gerson Therapy-style healing routine, lack of family support, the financial burden of being sick and spending money on healing. But all of a sudden I couldn’t even function on a day to day basis because I was so down with all of these things going on in my life. I couldn’t handle it. I was in a zombie like state, just walking around feeling nothing but sadness, hopelessness, emptiness and with no motivation for any of the projects I’d been working my little tail off for months. Crying everyday with no explanation.
I have dealt with depression on and off my whole life. I have usually always been somewhere on that edge – when one thing goes wrong I can handle it, but two or three and I’m over the edge, back in that deep dark valley. Sometimes I just need 10 minutes, sometimes a few hours. And sometimes in the past I have needed weeks or months to come back.
But I hadn’t been down this valley in a long time, which I knew because my go-to way of dealing with this used to be alcohol. But that’s no longer an option (thank goodness). So this time, I had no idea how to handle it.
The first few days I chalked it up to PMS, but then it just stayed and stayed and stayed. I was trying to figure out why it came on so suddenly; it was like a switch was flicked in my head. I didn’t feel like myself.
One day I remembered watching Hungry for Change a month or so back, and something Dr. Andrew Saul really stuck out to me, because I had dealt with depression before I filed this away in my brain as information I might need later. He was talking about how he had used Niacin supplements to help people with depression.
So then I started thinking about what had I changed a few weeks ago that would have led to me being deficient in Niacin all of a sudden. I had changed my diet a few weeks ago to a much more simple, Gerson style way of eating. And then it clicked: Nutritional Yeast is fortified with B vitamins, especially niacin. I had stopped eating nooch a few weeks ago.
And then it all made sense. There was nothing wrong with me. I had a vitamin deficiency!
I went to the health food store, and picked up a Niacin supplement (and some nooch), went home and had half a tablet (50mg) with my next meal, and I could feel it working within a few hours. The next day I was back to normal, writing this article and getting through my to-do list again.
While anyone can have nutritional deficiencies, it is so much more likely you will have several deficiencies if you have celiac disease, as your body is not able to absorb nutrients normally. If you have celiac disease, please get tested for any vitamin deficiencies. As you can see, just a deficiency in one vitamin turned my life upside down, in a matter of weeks.
I will do a full post on Niacin, and why it’s so important really soon. Stay tuned!