Been diagnosed with depression, family has a history of suicide, which has been frighteningly close over the last few years. As usual, the inimitable Nexxo speaks the truth: See a psychologist. And if you don't like him/her, find another one. You need help and rationalising that other people might have objectively more reasons to feel crappy won't get you out of this. Admitting you need help is the first step; finding it is the second.
Please don't take this offensively but my opinion is... People who suffer from depression love being depressed hence this post, if you don't want to be depressed don't be you can decide. In other words if you aren't doing it for attention get over it.
If I wanted attention I would have said something sometime in the last 8 years, as it is the onl reason people know is because I had a nervous breakdown. I don't like being depressed, it has ruined a lot of things in my life and if you actually decided to think before you spoke you'd read about it and learn that's it's a disease, no different to a physical disease. I think you are going to annoy a lot of people with that comment...
Just ignore him mate. That kind of ignorant moronic attitude is unfortunately quite common in people who... shall we say... lack a certain quality.
I think it's more that he simply hasn't had personal experience or had people close to him go through it. I feel pretty crap some days because of the monotony of my life at the moment, and typically I bottle up my feelings. I let them out every so often, having a drink tends to cause that but I rarely get drunk. As stated, drugs and alcohol are not the way, they just make you feel piteous during and after, but letting your hair down with a drink or two is perfectly healthy.
I personally don't suffer from depression although we all get depressed at some time or other, But I know someone that does suffer badly from it I can assure you they don't do it for attention. I've heard it said some people are just too stupid to get depressed I'm guessing your one of those people. Oh please dont take it offensively.
I won't get into the fact depression runs in my mothers side of the family, that I started to show signs but I saw how it affected me so I just decided not to be depressed I went out and did things, enjoyed myself, simple as. Everyone can do it mind over matter. But however everyone's going to tell me that I'm lying because they obviously know me and my family better after reading one post so yep I am obviously that stupid...
Have it ever occurred to you that different people handle and experience situations differently? It's good that you were able to find a solution that worked for you. Don't expect everybody else to be able to do the same thing, though. And you may be right that it's in many cases are a matter of "mind over matter", but some people need some external help to get their mind to behave properly. Sadly, the attitude you are expressing here is the reason why many people find it very difficult to talk about their problems and seek the help they need. Try to think a little further than the tip of your own nose.
You appear to be confusing depression with feeling a bit crappy. You can no more just decide to not be depressed anymore than you can just decide to not be schizophrenic or just decide to stop having a broken leg. One might be longer term than the other, and one might be a physical affliction but they are all severe issues and if you can "just stop being depressed" then you weren't suffering from depression in the first place.
I was kind of expecting a post like this to push the thread down this road. I used to get annoyed by it, but I've learned to accept that some people just don't/can't/won't understand what depression is and how it differs from normal moods. Some times it's because of lack of experience with depression, or conversely having a very negative experience with a depressive person. The important thing is not to fall into the trap of letting the fact that some people don't recognise there is actually something wrong make you feel worse. Depression is an illness.
Are you one of those people who think that counselling basically consists of telling people to get a grip and pull themselves together? Yes, depression can have a secondary gain aspect to it, and yes, people can decide how they think and feel about things. But it is much more complicated than that. Depression is on a continuum with our 'functional' range of feelings. This is what makes it so hard to spot at first --there is no clear boundary between feeling really crap and starting to feel depressed. There is, objectively speaking, also a lot of reasons for feeling crap. Take a look around you. Suffering is wired into the very fabric of the universe. Every world spins in pain. And at the end of all our struggling and suffering is the certain knowledge of inevitable loss: decline, decrepitude and death. Some psychologists argue that happiness is just as much a mental disorder as depression. Depression is, in the most basic sense, a form of learned helplessness/hopelessness. The keyword here is learned --real, repeated, unavoidable, devastating crap that life can capriciously throw at us has taught the person that there is no solution, no control, no change, no escape. In becoming depressed people behave in ways that maintain and reinforce depression. They stop eating (or occasionally, start over-eating) and washing, their sleep becomes disturbed. Brain function is affected, so it becomes increasingly hard to think their way out of the rut. They socially isolate themselves. Depressed mood is contagious, so other people start avoiding them after a while. Depression is also stigmatising. It is seen as weak, self-pitying, self-indulgent. Feelings of shame, guilt and self-loathing ensue and feed the cycle further. Sometimes people need help to break damaging cycles of thinking, feeling and behaviour. They need someone who stands on the outside to reach in, drop an interrupt in the cycle and help them step onto a different branch of the program, so to speak. This does not apply just to depression, but also, say, smoking, drinking, unhealthy lifestyles, or being a bit of a dick lacking in social awareness. So, Boscoe, what would you prefer? For someone to say: "Stop being a dick"? Or for someone to ask you: how helpful do you think it is to tell a depressed person that they can just decide to snap out of it? Do you think that will make them feel better or worse? Do you want them to feel better or worse? If you want them to feel better, what can you do or say instead? See? It is good to have a bit of empathy, and to explore things a bit before forming an opinion.
boscoe is a boss =] noticed some people know how to deal with things better than others.. maybe he's just one of those people when I was a teenager I used to think.. what if we could bottle up all the emotions you feel and want to express and then let it all out at home.. it's not healthy to keep your feelings capped- think that's where compulsive lying comes in too.. nexxo might know more about these assholes
Okay this thread has gone down a somewhat iffy route, which I suppose I should have guessed might happen. I just want to say thanks to all those who have said nice things and also for opening up about their own experiences with something which can be very debilitation. Some people deal with things better than others that's true, but some people never have, do or will understand exactly how depression works and how it can trouble people so much. As Nexxo said, it's very misunderstood on a professional level, let alone to every day people. I wasn't doing this for attention, far from it, but I don't feel like I should be defending myself for coming on here and just sharing a little bit about my life because it helps me feel a little bit better. It's actually very helpful to know just how many of you do understand and it makes me feel a little less alone in the world, even if it is just on the bit-tech forums
yeah far as I know, everyone gets depressed at some point in their life.. my gf doesn't get depressed in the sense that you and I would think.. in her culture there actually is no word for depression.. and she really doesn't understand why people would get depressed, sort of like boscoe.. I told her it's a white thing and her culture is just more evolved xD they must be doing something right.. her great grandad was still dating and looking for another wife at over 100 and her grandad and grandma lived well into thier 90's..
Some people cope better for a given value of 'coping better'. One man's stoic coping is another man's repression. Mental health problems generally follow the stress-diathesis model. People have vulnerabilities or predispositions for developing mental health problems to different degrees. Some of these may be genetic or congenital (e.g. temperament); some may be vulnerabilities acquired by childhood circumstances (environmental, socio-economic, cultural) or parenting. Life is capricious, so some people also are subject to different stresses to a different extent. Some people are more easily knocked of balance by stressors than others. Moreover people differ in what they consider stressful; what one person shrugs off with relative ease is quite challenging to another. It is all about how equipped one feels in coping with it, and that depends on one's emotional ability to roll with punches in general as much as one's available coping resources and coping experiences with the specific stressor at hand. This whole dynamic is recursive: the more experiences one has of coping effectively, the more confident one feels that one will cope with similar situations in the future. So it is not straightforward. A person may cope with one thing, but not another. Some people appear OK because they have been lucky enough not to get tested by life. Others have had a phenomenally crap life and somehow are still functioning. But all of us can find ourselves confronted with something that exceeds our ability to cope. It is different for each of us. Room 101 is personal.
Although I've never been depressed I've had my bad days. Just want to say be positive and always know that there are people that care for you, even if you don't know them and they are on the other side of the world - such as most of the people on this thread (and this forum). We all strive for a better world and you've taken a brave step in admitting depression on a public forum.
