Two of the feelings I experienced that drove me so deep into depression were the feeling of guilt and indebtedness. I didn’t know it then but I know it now. I felt guilty that I had survived when so many others in this world more deserving die every day. I felt guilty because so much money had been spent on me, some of that was from my wife and my life savings, I felt unworthy that “her” money was being spent on me. Compounded upon this was the feeling of indebtedness. I suspect everyone that experiences a near death experience feels some level of indebtedness to those who played such a crucial role in saving their life. I felt indebted to everyone from the EMT that dragged me out of my car and transported me to the hospital, to those at the hospital that sprung into action to discover my Aneurysm, those who flew me to Cox, those at Cox who cared for me, my Springfield doctor who repaired me, the list goes on and on.   A year after I now suspect this is a perfectly natural feeling, never in my life have I been forced to depend on so many for my survival. Even when I was an infant and I had to depend on my parents for survival, it isn’t the same, they choose to bring me into the world so they had a moral responsibility to care for me, but all these strangers had no responsibility other than the one they choose to take upon themselves, and that leaves one with a great feeling of indebtedness that sometimes can almost smother life out of one. Then comes the family, they didn’t have to come, they could have wiped their hands of me but my family did what all families do when a loved one is gravely ill, they came together and did what they must for my sake, not theirs. From the first day out of the hospital the guilt and indebtedness began to grow, and it doesn’t end there. There are those who only add to the guilt and overwhelming feeling of indebtedness, they mean well but they unknowingly only made my recovery more difficult. My mother and older brother told me that God wasn’t through with me, that the reason I survived was because He had something for me to do. This only piled it on because who wants to fail to pay their debt to God? The first words said to me by one of our best friends were how I owed my wife “big time”.  All of a sudden 36 years of love and devotion, of going to work every day to help provide a roof over our heads and put food on the table wasn’t enough, my Aneurysm had tapped into another line of credit for which I was to try to figure out a just compensation, I must make to pay yet another impossible debt. There is little wonder so many who experience near death experiences succumb to depression from which some take their own lives. My body had been repaired but my mind was sick and tormented. 

In a previous post I speak about how Six months after my Aneurysm I returned to Cox for an Angiogram but now I see this more clearly through a mind that is closer to being healed. When my doctor asked me how I was doing, I tried to tell him but to be honest; I don’t think he was listening, I probably were not saying the right works and all he was hearing was an old man complaining about getting old. When I told him how I would get lost sometimes and not know where I was or how I couldn’t concentrate or sleep, he told me that at my age some of these things happen. I never told him of the guilt or feeling of indebtedness because while I knew something was bad wrong, I had yet to come to understand exactly what it was that was so wrong. I left the hospital with a clean bill of health not to return for two years, but I felt like I was below water struggling for air. I came home and that weekend I was home alone and I seriously thought about going out into the backyard and ending it all. 

What stopped me? As I stated in a previous post, I am a battle harden criminal investigator and I investigated many suicides and saw firsthand what it did to the children, it destroys their lives. I couldn’t do that to my two sons, I had to find another way so I did what I always do, I set down and tried to put my feelings into words and wrote a letter to my primary care physician and my Springfield doctor. My primary care physician responded immediately by calling my office and setting an appointment the next working day.

I may be luckier than many who endure what I endure. Not only do I have the stone cold hard will fine tuned with my years of investigating some of the most heart breaking events but one of my primary investigators and closest friends had a daughter several years ago involved in a serious car crash. A drunk ran head on into the car she was in and she endured grave head injuries. She spent many weeks in the hospital and it took years of newly raising her all over again to get her to the point where she could resume her life. My good friend drove many miles to come see me while I was in ICU, even if I don’t remember it, and during my recovery he shared many of his daughter’s experiences and the solutions they came up with to overcome. We exchange about my six month angiogram and he was the first to tell me that he believed I was suffering from depression. He spoke the words in a language I understood, he told me that men like he and I don’t believe much in things we can’t touch and see, but he told me because of his experiences with his daughter he believed depression was real and that he suspect my doctor would want to treat me for depression and that I should at least consider it. I suspect most people who are depressed and are not treated were like me they believed it was a made up condition, that it wasn’t real, that people who claimed to be depressed are just weak minded. I remember watch Mike Wallace on 60 minutes talking about his depression and the time I just didn’t believe him. Thanks Mike, I was wrong, within a week of treatment I felt like at least had my head above water.   Just knowing there might be a treatment seem to help and now I have been treated for six months and while I still don’t like having to take a pill to kept me normal, I dislike even more what I was experiencing before treatment. I am now able to think and I understand that the guilt and feeling of indebtedness are not valid. The people who came to my aid choose their profession and chose to aid me; they don’t expect anything from me other than I live my life well. I know my mother and brother meant well but God doesn’t expect any more from me than He expected at my birth, God expects me to be a good person, do no harm to others, and help others who need my help which is the sole purpose of my post. 

For those who have friends or family who live through near death experiences, I recommend you filter carefully what you say as to not make recovery more difficult than it already is. Do and say nothing that could create guilt of indebtedness as I suspect most everyone will feel it and we all have our breaking points.  Show them my posts, maybe it will help, and try to encourage them to seek help if they don’t seem happy anymore.  It has now been a year and I think I will be okay. I think I can now get on with the rest of my life.