Weathering Depression

Struggle

Depression is something that a lot of people may not understand, generally these people are the ones who do not suffer from depression.  These people are the ones that try to tell people who are depressed that “it’s not that bad” and that the person considering suicide should consider the consequences of their actions.

Yes, actions have consequences.  If I learned anything from Physics, is that there is always a reaction.  But another thing I have learned, is that everything is in perception and everyone has his/her own perception. 

I have learned that you cannot tell another person how to feel.  You, also, cannot tell a person how to feel about something happening to them.

A depressed person is not looking at killing themselves as a bad thing.  They do not think about how it will affect other people. Often, the only thing that comes to mind is the urge that they must satisfy.  I said that they do not think of it as a bad thing and that is because if that person is at this point, then they have come to believe that they are a burden on others. 

There is something about having depression and anxiety that makes you feel like you are a burden on others.  You may become convinced that all failings are the result your actions or you directly.  The people around you will reach out to you to try and make you feel better, but that only makes you feel more like a burden. 

This is why a lot of people who suffer from anxiety or depression hide from the ones that the love and need.  They withdraw into their own self pity and loathing trying to find a way to make things better for the ones they love. 

There may be that voice that tells them that if they just break up with their boyfriend/girlfriend, that they will relieve that person of the burden of caring for them.  In the confines of his/her mind, the depressed person concocts ways of breaking things off and creating space between themselves and others.

Losing interest is something that depression websites talk about, but I’m not sure I would call this a loss of interest.  The person who is depressed is trying to create distance, but that does not mean they stopped liking things that they liked before. 

Depression makes you want to push away everything and everyone from you.  You just want to get away and be free of everything.  But when the distance cannot be created that’s when things take turns.

Release

Suicide, self-mutilation,  eating disorders… I could go on… are ways that people suffering from depression or anxiety try to find release. Notice that I used the word release, not relief.  I chose this word, because these mechanisms are an escape and are an outlet for the tempest of emotions within a person.

Suicide is the most permanent and most socially despised forms of release for a depressed person.  It is an extreme action and if it has come to the forefront, then that person has worked every avenue and cannot find an escape.

People with depression and anxiety want to escape.  They want to escape the turmoil of their own minds and from being a social pariah.  

There are organizations and people that will say that they are there to help someone in this situation.  Though the intentions may be good, some of these people will not understand what the person is going through.

In modern society, if someone ‘attempts suicide’, the police are brought in to negotiate with the person who is standing on the ledge (literal or not).  These people go through special training to learn how to deal with people in these situations, but often they truly do not understand that person’s thoughts or feelings. Which may mean that even though they talked that person off the ledge, the discussion is not enough to keep them from going back to it or over it.

Feelings

Feelings of depression or anxiety are not easy to explain. I think that they make explaining feelings in generally difficult to explain. 

People ask you how you are and you wonder if they want the truth, or the generic response.  The generic cover all response is what most people with depression and anxiety are going to supply.  The most common response of course being “fine”. 

Depression and anxiety make you feel so trapped within yourself that you do not know how to escape and tell people how you truly feel.  You become afraid that if you tell the truth that you will be ridiculed or thought of as a lesser person.  

The truth is that when you do open up and start telling people how you truly feel, you will find out who the people are that truly care about you.  It is a struggle, but being true to yourself and how you feel is the best form of release.

EVERYTHING IS FINE…

WildRoamingMcShovel

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26 responses to “Weathering Depression”

  1. I am blown away with how well you describe depression. Everything you mentioned is absolutely on point. When I first opened your blog post I was expecting to see a massive amount of comments and likes because this post is top quality. I’ve tried to put into words what you’ve just written. I really don’t know what else to say. I can’t really add anything to what you said, but I can’t get over how good it felt reading those words. I hope I don’t come across as over enthusiastic or disingenuous, but I can only use one word to describe it: respite.

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  2. I have not read any others yet, but I plan to. One thing I would recommend is organizing your posts. It’s a little hard for me to find posts besides the home page. But that is a point about presentation rather than content.

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    • WordPress’s design makes it difficult to do things the way I would like. I’m still trying to figure out how to organize things. For example, I would like to file interest posts on one page and rants on another.

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      • Yeah. I can do that. Click on my site. Then scroll down until you get to customize. Click that (customize not themes). Several things like “Site Identity” and “Colors and Backgrounds” will show up. If you click on “Menus”. The Sidebar will update. Click through to “Primary”. If you knew how to get there already then you can ignore my specificity. When you get here all of your top bar tabs show up. If you have categories (I can explain that too), then you can click “add items” an additional side bar shows up. Click on catagories, then pick the catagories you want to add. If you go and add catagories (like “all”, “depression”, “art”, whatever you want to have) then they will be in a list of by themselves. This is a good way of split up posts into different catagories (duh), but also making it easier to find all previous posts. I hope this helps.

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      • Oh. Huh…well I guess try it on the computer if/when you can. But that’s how I do, so if that doesn’t work I don’t know. I am not that knowledgeable about wordpress, I just know that.

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      • It looks nice! It might look better if the home page title was shorter, so they are more evenly distributed. You can have hover over information, but again, I only know how to do it on a computer. But I like it.

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  5. I just downloaded this app for this sole purpose – to find and read about depression, to see if anybody could describe any of what I’ve been feeling. And when I got to the bottom, I was hoping it would’ve kept going.

    Thank you. For putting this in words for me.

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