The Extreme Darkness of Depression

Depression isn't just "feeling sad"—sometimes it's a darkness so profound it feels like being shattered. In my latest video blog, "The Extreme Darkness of Depression," I’m opening up about the heaviest chapters of my journey, the reality of living through trauma, and the moment I realized that "better" was a choice.

I’m sharing so others don’t feel so alone. 

Let’s talk about the things we’re told to keep hidden. Let’s choose transformation over silence.

Approximate Read Time: 13 min

Warning: This piece is a raw look at a very dark time, covering childhood trauma, systemic failures, and the realities of survival. If these topics are heavy for you today, please hold off or take breaks. Your peace is the priority.

The ocean saved my life. In my wildest dreams, I never could have imagined that my life would take a turn, and I would find myself living the dream, traveling the world, scuba diving, and teaching others to scuba dive.

One of my very favorite quotes, and I'm not sure who said it, or actually altered it, as I have been told, is “Into The ocean I go to lose my mind and find my soul.”

This quote has more truth in it for me than I could have ever imagined.

I booked my first scuba diving Group Travel trip around 2010. A very good friend of mine said that he was going to the Philippines to go diving. I was desperately looking for a reason in life to keep going on. I was closer to committing suicide than I had ever been before.

This was the time in my life when I was in the deepest depths of my depression.  Spiraling down, out of control, into the hell that was inside my head on a daily basis. I did not have a drug or alcohol problem, and I had not touched an illegal substance since I was 18 yrs old. I was in my early 30’s at this point.  

During my waking hours, which I took a lot of naps, I was crying more often than not. I was living alone, and I had cut myself off from pretty much everyone, because I felt like such a burden on people when I was around them due to the sadness that I felt inside. I didn’t want to bring others down. Anti-depressants didn’t work anymore, and that was if I could even get my hands on them. Plant medicine had recently become available and an acquaintance introduced me to it for treatment of depression. 

One of my worst moments experiencing the hell inside of my head, was when a good friend came to check on me in my home because I was not responding, and he found me hysterical, in a bathtub, naked, shaking, and crying.  I couldn't handle life. I needed extreme intervention, but I had no resources, and due to my past sexual and physical abuse, the idea of going into any treatment center was terrifying. I even started looking into electrical shock therapy treatments out of desperation.

Looking back at this time in my life, I recently became aware that I was “cutting.” This is a whole other topic, but at that point, I was not making the connection that I was literally taking straight edge razor blades to my face and making very small cuts on a very regular basis because I hated what I saw in the mirror. 

I no longer felt broken in life, I felt shattered. 

I had zero hope that I was ever going to feel happy and the intense sadness and mental pain that it brought would ever leave me. I didn't feel like a human being anymore. I had zero self-worth. I hated myself. I hated myself for letting people fool me, and for how my choices had affected my children. I was trying so hard to do better than my family had done, and I did do better in many ways, but in my mind, better was not good enough. I had zero compassion for myself, even though I showed so much compassion for others. 

I had been exploited by predators repeatedly, from a very young age. They could see me coming a mile away. I grew up with them. And then into adult hood, I kept finding myself living with them. I got to see inside of their twisted minds. 

My grandfather was a convicted pedophile. 

My father-in-law was a pedophile. 

My ex-husband is a convicted pedophile.

One of my step-sons is a convicted pedophile.

And my partner's brother was a convicted pedophile.

I haven’t even touched on the rapes, or the torture.

Each time another traumatic event happened to me, it became easier for the next predator. I could not see the red flags that others see, because I lived among the predators, and the way they did things was “normal” in my life.  I was very “injured prey.” 

The realization that no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t seem to escape predators, was horrifying. I felt like they were everywhere that I turned. I trusted no one. I felt like I couldn’t go anywhere alone and I needed to live behind a locked door.

I first took antidepressants after the birth of my first child, they were being given out like candy at that time. I believe I had just mentioned some sadness to my doctor, it wasn't terrible at that time in my life, looking back I was very unhappy in my current situation, I probably did not need pills, I just needed a reality check.

I had gone off the pills after a while but years later I found myself making a phone call to Kaiser for a doctor appointment. The woman on the phone told me that the first available appointment was quite a ways out. She asked me what the appointment was for, and I very calmly told her it was for depression. 

She then proceeded to ask me the standard questions. 

“Are you thinking of harming yourself or anyone else?” I was honest with her, I told her “YES.” No explanations, just a very straight forward “YES,” almost like I was excited to spread the news.

I could tell that was not what she was expecting to hear. No one ever says “YES.” She paused for a few moments. Being overly honest has always been a part of me. It is too hard to have secrets.

She proceededed with her questions, and I don't remember exactly what they were, but I did tell her that I was rationalizing in my head that if life is so awful, and I don't want to be here anymore, I can't leave my kids behind, so I need to kill them when I kill myself, because I love them so much, I can't leave them behind in a world full of pain. 

The woman on the phone asked me how fast I could get there, they could see me immediately. The appointment calendar that had no appointments for so long, suddenly opened up, and every single time frame was available for me. 

I told her that I realized this was irrational thinking, and that is why I was calling, and if she could get me in tomorrow I was not going to act on what was going through my mind. 

Thank god they didn’t show up at my door to take me away, this would have definitely been more traumatizing and made my reality worse.

I had left my 2nd marriage where my children had been sexually abused. 

I was still very broken, and fell into another unhealthy relationship of abuse again. 

I left him as well, but life took a fast, unexpected turn and I found myself and my children homeless. 

This is when I decided to become an escort to survive. 

Custody disputes were ongoing between me and my children’s father. 

I lost the “unloseable case” in court and lost physical primary custody of my boys shortly before they were in high school.

I have never felt grief like the loss of my children in my life on a daily basis. In my mind, they were almost dead. My heart had been ripped out of my body. I didn’t know that a body could cry non-stop for so long. I would literally cry all day long, and then cry myself to sleep, just like babies do. When I would wake up, my eyes would open, and I would look around the room, as the reality would set in, and the tears would start pouring from my eyes again. The man I was with at the time, who was not very nice to me, was so fed up with my crying he literally looked at me one day and begged me,” please stop crying, I will do anything.”

I cried for 3 weeks straight. The depths of heartache that I experienced were so intense that I could not handle it. Elizabeth Stone wrote about “becoming a Mother, is making a choice to have your heart walk around outside of your body.” I don’t think I have ever read anything that I felt was more accurate, and spoke to me personally, than this person’s writing about being a Mother.

As far back as I can remember, I didn't want to be alive, I am talking even around 5 years old. I used to dream and hope that one day my real family was going to come and find me and take me away to a wonderful and happy life, where I was not being abused in any way.

Don't get me wrong, my family did love me, but we were all very damaged and broken as well from the cycles of abuse, and struggling to survive life.

Not feeling loved was my depression speaking.

When my good friend told me about his scuba diving adventure, I asked him if I could go along. He said that would be great, but I needed to learn to scuba dive first, and I should do it in cold water, because if I start in warm water, I probably won't ever dive cold water and there's a lot of amazing stuff there as well.

I took his advice and I started asking around for the best and safest scuba instructor in my area. Since I had decided that I wasn't going to kill myself, at this point anyway, I wanted to make sure that if I was going to do such an intense sport, I wanted to be as safe as I could be for my children. 

They were my only reason left to live at this point. Without them, I would have ended my life many years ago.

 At this point in my life, scuba diving was not something that I had thought much about. I had grown up with my family not having much money on one side, and the other side of my family, who I didn't have very much contact with, living a more affluent lifestyle. I never thought I would leave the country. This was just not even in my realm of reality.

I was introduced to a long time scuba instructor in my area. We became close friends very quickly. What he saw was a beautiful woman, the happiest, smiliest woman that he had ever met. The mask that he was seeing was only something that I could keep up for a few hours at a time, and if anything happened in life, I immediately fell apart.

Choosing to learn to scuba dive and go on a once in a lifetime vacation to the Philippines was my first step in making a conscious choice to be happy in life. I didn’t care what it took. I had told myself that if I wasn't going to kill myself, because I couldn't do that to my children, I was going to be happy at any cost, even if I had to lie to myself.

The other turning point in my life at this moment was my commitment to myself to 10 minutes a day. I had been reading books about how to be happy and how to overcome depression and one of the books suggested meditating. There were numerous studies showing that this could help. I knew from my experience with nutrition and losing weight, and reversing my type 2 diabetes, that changes needed to be small in order to stay consistent.

I promised myself that I would take the first 10 minutes of every single day to start meditating, and if after the end of 10 minutes I wanted to stop, I would stop. The next day, when I awoke, I grabbed a cup of tea or coffee whatever I was drinking at the time, and I went to sit in front of a small electric fireplace that I had.

I set a timer on my phone, and I started looking through guided meditations. At this point in my life, the flashes of trauma and the voices in my mind were too much for me to control on my own. I had been using music to drown the voices out and lift my spirits.

This was the beginning of my healing journey. 10 minutes a day eventually turned into 4 hours a day. It became my favorite part of life. 

I found healing, I found peace, I found clarity, and for the first time in my life, I felt whole! 

I love life, and I want to be alive for the first time ever!

Truly,

Margot X. Sterling

Author | Speaker | Transformation Expert

Conflict Resolution | Resilience Strategist

Mastering the X-Point: Where shadow meets strength.

One of my many photos used for advertising as an escort.