Showing posts with label depression. Show all posts
Showing posts with label depression. Show all posts

Monday 17 September 2012

You Need To Know This About Depression

A couple of hours ago, I felt lethargic and was very much in my "Daze" state (hey, it's the morning and I don't do mornings well). I sat at the computer just clicking link after link until my brain got used to the fact it wasn't asleep any more.

Situation normal then.

The link-train ended at this blog post by Dan Pearce: That's Just Depressing.

I have felt ALL of the feelings expressed here. Done everything everything in this post, and it made me want to explain why to those who cannot yet understand. Because you do get people telling you to snap out of it - those who think your depression is like their "down mood". Cheer up or look on the bright side my arse! Get over it and you're making everyone else depressed too are phrases that need a slap in the face.

If you know someone who is depressed and have ever said those words, then you need to know this.

If you ARE depressed and you can't see the point (you know what I mean), then you definitely need to know this.

To be depressed can be likened to being morbidly obese.

One is no more "a mental thing" than the other. Or less, for that matter.
It is impossible to "get over" or "snap out of" either of them.
Neither is a conscious choice.
To heal is always possible, but will require effort. Sustained effort. Learning to know yourself better and how to take care of you.

For those with depression: can you imagine being morbidly obese and just wishing it away, hoping as you go to bed each night that when you wake up in the morning, you'll be slim? Would you awake each morning expecting to have the energy to run ten miles and be surprised and upset when you can't?

Those with depressed friends, would you tell a morbidly obese person that their problem was all in their head? Would you expect them to overcome it without the support of those close to them, without involving a GP, without involving a personal trainer, without care and encouragement and love?

You're damn straight you wouldn't.

But these two problems are incredibly alike.

One is the exhaustion, the overloading, the almost impossible heaviness of the body.

The other is the exhaustion, the overloading, the almost impossible heaviness of the emotional mind.

Both can be overcome with help and determination and with a lot of self-kindness.

Depression is not a choice. It's incredibly frustrating for everyone involved. And this misery doesn't love company. Like the morbidly obese, depressed people most often cut themselves off from the world, whether through shame, or fear or simply not having the emotional/physical energy to shower that morning.

Depression can't be seen. But it causes years of existing instead of living.

Be gentle with yourselves and with those you love.



Knight N Daze.



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