Detox from the Shame and Blame of Mental Illness part 1

I have family members who spent a lifetime being depressed and using alcohol to kill the pain.  Two have recently died of their disease.

What is going on here?  So many of us are suffering from depression, anxiety and addiction or some combination of the three.

I spent a lifetime blaming my father and then myself for his mental and addiction problems and how they affected me.  I believed that he personally switched on the depression/anxiety button in my brain.   Now I am faced with the very hard facts that this combination of diseases which are undoubtedly related (connection in the brain to be discovered in the future) has killed three of us and could kill more.  Blaming my father for my disease fails when I look at the facts of what has happened to other relatives who did not experience life with Dad.  I realize that I have been telling myself and others that depression/anxiety is a disease but I have never internalized it.  Inside shame and blame still hold court.

Something is sifting.  I came back from this latest family moment feeling just horrible.  I wanted to throw all my clothes away and take everything out of my bedroom so that it would be empty and be white.  It felt like depression in full force.  As the week passed I knew that before I could blame the feelings I was having totally on my depression, I had to examine what had just happened with my family.  Was it time to internalize the reality that I have a disease and not a personal weakness?  Was I feeling so down because to face this, shifts my whole perception of who I am.  Giving up shame and blame feels like my guts are being taken out.  Am I addicted to shame and blame just like an alcoholic is addicted to liquor?  Am I going through the first days of detox?  Detox from the shame and blame of mental illness.  What a concept!  Well if that is what is going on I am definitely not through it yet.  I feel agitation and great discomfort as I write this.  But the reality door has definitely been opened and it will be hard to shut.  By writing this I am taking a few tentative steps down the road that is reality.