Depression: (major depressive disorder or clinical depression) is a common but serious mood disorder. It causes severe symptoms that affect how you feel, think, and handle daily activities, such as sleeping, eating, or working. To be diagnosed with depression, the symptoms must be present for at least two weeks.
It’s taken the form of a serious epidemic and things are looking bleaker as we lose further touch with ourselves in this age of digital exposure and complete lack of privacy.
One has thousands of Facebook friends and millions of Instagram followers, but not one to talk to, to tell them yes, you are loved, you don’t have to do this alone.
And worse, there are people around who will trivialise your condition and ask you to “suck it up”.
Thing is, the problem is so subjective and particular that it is indeed hard to understand just what that dreaded word stands for.
Here we have tried to distill some essential things about what you might be feeling. And needless to say friend, you are loved; this too shall pass.
I have gone into first person in some places because I couldn’t help it.
1. One does not choose to be depressed and neither did you. And there is no reasoning with it
No, the love of my life dumping me didn’t make me depressed. Yes, these things triggered and pushed me over the edge, to overthink till I can feel the thoughts crossing my nerves and leaving trails of smoke behind, but I did not want it this way.
It wasn’t a choice.
2. “Ask me to suck it up one more time! I dare you! I double dare you!”
Asking me to “suck it up” and try and see the positives in life is as useless as asking me to drink soup with a chisel; it doesn’t work that way.
It isn’t logical. There is no method in this madness.
3. The brain is the enemy
Like a tiny alarm clock, every minute of every hour of every day it reminds me of how inadequate I am. Just how futile my efforts are to stay well and happy.
4. People can try, but they can’t fix it
From the second point, there is no hard set logic to this disease. It’s ever-evolving and adapting.
And now it’s so tricky that after a good week I become wary thinking if I would be able to survive the next storm.
5. It sucks to date me, really
The person dealing/in love with a depressed person has it really hard.
To all those helping their significant others deal with their demons successfully, I have unconditional respect for you all.
Read After: Being Too Nice Can Contribute To Depression, And It Makes A Lot Of Sense
6. It sucks to have your life dictated by something as insignificant as a pill
This doesn’t need elaboration does it?
7. Finding the right medication makes me feel like a guinea pig
I hardly have any respect for my own body left.
8. Depression makes me a selfish person
I have supportive parents and had a wonderful person who loved me and understood my condition because she shared it.
And it’s the same condition that made me doubt her and has made me time and again doubt my friends and their intentions.
It is sad that I am never what I want to be, to the people who love/loved me. And that surely doesn’t help the feelings of inadequacy.
9. I start depriving myself of the things I love thanks to my depression
Simply because I don’t think I deserve anything good.
Same reason why I doubt the love people have often times given me, simply because the notion that I should be loved has become alien to me.
10. Not living anymore sounds like a lucrative deal
Because even a cliff sounds better than a windowless room.
But hey I know that my life is not mine to take and that makes me feel even more inadequate.
In conclusion, the reason that I didn’t change the first person in this article for one reason: To relate to all those lost souls who are reading this and feel a little less alone myself.
Friend, if you face the pangs of pain, talk; don’t bury yourself before it’s time.