I have to admit that until about a few months ago, I had no idea what depression really was. As a matter of fact I would be one of those persons who used the word depression very lightly. I was also one of those persons who thought that depression was something you could just snap out of if you just started to think more positively.
I have to admit I was so very wrong! And now that I have learned more about depression, I feel the need to apologize to those who suffer from it. So here it goes: I am sorry guys. I didn't know how an ill brain worked until I started reading about it. I have to admit that I did not start involving myself in learning about depression until after I found out that someone I love very much suffers from a mental illness that has cycles of depression. I decided to learn because I wanted to understand them as much as I could. I figured that understanding them would better equip me to help them.
What did I find out once I started learning about depression? I found out that every time I have said "I am depressed" I really wasn't. I was sad and I can say that I have had many periods where I have been sad, but being sad is not the same as being depressed. I can tell you that because the depressed brain does not really snap out of the thought process. The depressed brain is constantly thinking about what the person did wrong and how they did it wrong. The depressed brain has an extremely hard time finding the good even when there is nothing bad happening. The depressed brain does not like any kind of interaction, not because it is trying to sort things out but more because it does not feel like it deserves it.
With that said, I have not ever been depressed. The times I have been sad and wanted to stay in bed all day without any contact at all was because I needed to sort through my own emotions and thoughts. It was because I needed to recharge myself before going back out there and talking to people again. Each time I have been sad and have taken time for myself I have come back with solutions to whatever issue was the one that made me sad. Each time I have been sad I didn't get stuck in feeling like I always do something wrong. Each of the times that I have taken a time out from people, each of the times I take a time out from people is because I need to sort through my own thoughts and feelings and not because my thoughts and feelings are taking over my entire life.
That's the difference with depression. A depressed brain is an ill brain that takes over an otherwise healthy person. The depressed person does not just simply snap out of the depression; if they force themselves to do things, they do so while constantly thinking that whatever it is they are doing is not good enough. The depressed person cannot just simply grab a self-help book, follow its guidance and suddenly see life differently. I know that they will want to and that when they can't often times they feel more of a failure. I cannot possibly imagine how that must feel to someone because to me is very easy to find the positive in any situation. I know that if I am not finding it, then all I have to do is stop talking to people about it and sort through my brain on my own. A depressed person can't really do that... Being alone trying to sort things out only makes depression worse, not better.
So, why did I want to talk about this today? This is simple really... Because of stigma. There is so much stigma out there about mental illness and there are too many people suffering from it. The stigma we have about mental illness and our lack of education on it is making people not seek help for it. The stigma we have about mental illness is making people suffer in pain alone. The stigma we have about it is making us treat those who have a mental illness without kindness and compassion.
Now, I am not saying that a person with mental illness does not have some responsibility in seeking help and learning to manage their illness, what I am saying is that a person with mental illness has a harder time seeking help because we stigmatize their illness. In this sense, we also have a responsibility to educate ourselves and to talk about mental illness in a different light.
Why I say this? Because the person I love has tried to seek help in the past and was confronted with that stigma and with very little support. Once I found out that they were suffering from a mental illness and I started to learn more about it, a lot made more sense to me. I have to say that I offered help and I offered support. I offered to be there... My offer was not taken and in turn what I have seen is a decline in their mental health. I know that I cannot force them to seek help. I know that I cannot make them accept my support and I know that seeing the path they were taking (as much as it pained me to do so) I had to do what they were asking of me (even though I didn't want to) and walk away. This didn't make me love them any less, but it made me think about how society views mental illness and how stigmatizing mental illness is not helping many people.
In learning about mental illness, I found that those who had good support from family members and friends have been the ones who have successfully learned to manage their illness. Those whose families didn't stigmatize mental illness and whose families were open to learning about it are the ones who have had more success than others who did not have the same support. It seemed like even though it was hard for them to get up and seek help, once they did (because they had the support of others) they stuck it out and led as normal a life as they could.
So maybe we all need to make a little change in our lives. We should all talk about mental illness like we talk about any other illness, because that's all it is an illness. We should talk about it openly and focus on educating ourselves and others about it. We should learn to separate the illness from the person. Mental illness is the only illness that is used to describe someone. I don't know how many times I hear people say "she/he is just depressed" or "she/he is bipolar" or "she/he is anxious." Imagine what would happen if we separated the illness from the person, what would happen if instead we said: "he/she has depression" or "he/she has anxiety." How different does that sound? How easier it is to then see that it is not that the person is that way but that the person has an illness that they are dealing with and need to learn to manage. If we did that, the person would be looked at with more compassion and more support.
I imagine that if my loved one would have had more support. If more understanding about the illness would have been there, then my loved one would have an easier time dealing with it. Then maybe they would have an easier time seeking help, accepting their illness, taking responsibility and learning how to manage it. They would have an easier time accepting help and support when it is offered and would not be suffering in silence and alone. Yes, I am fully aware that once they have been offered support and help that it is their responsibility to take it and no one can force them to... but I am also aware that an ill brain that has constantly seen the stigma of mental illness being used against them has a harder time accepting the illness and taking the necessary steps to seek help and support.
It is time we stopped looking at mental illness with fear and looking down at people who have it. It is time we stopped stigmatizing it. It is time we stopped making it controversial. All we are doing by that is making things worse for everyone who suffers from it and making it worse for those who have a genetic predisposition to it. There are great things that can happen when you are open about it and educated on it, therefore it is time we all learn about mental illness and became more educated about it.
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