"Smile and think positive"
So many time have I heard these words often spoken with will meant intentions, but anyone who believes this is good advice does not understand depression and has not suffered from its crippling effects.
In my view, depression is such an insidious illness because it creeps up on us so stealthily. I thought I was able to handle problems and situations that I was being confronted with. They were similar problems that I had faced before and had successfully overcome. Suddenly a wave of setbacks knocks me down. Normally this would be only temporary and in the past I would have dragged myself back up and kept on going. This time, the termites of other problems in my life erode the platform of my self-confidence that falls away as I grasp to hold onto sanity. I look to the lifeguards I trust to help rescue me but it seems my trust was misplaced as they look at me and decide to leave their posts and head to the pub instead. My fingers claw at the railing as I try to pull myself up. So many times have I been here and dragged myself back up, battered and bruised but victorious. Today, maybe it was the alignment of the stars and the moon, maybe it was because everything had aligned so perfectly, I could not hold on and I plunged into the deep dark depths of depression.
Telling someone with depression to snap out of it is like telling someone who is drowning at the bottom of a 100m ocean to take a breath of air. Actually, since depression is an illness, it's like telling a paraplegic to just get up and walk. It's not realistic advice and it isn't considerate. Recovery from depression is a hard process that requires effort from the sufferer and, unfortunately for the friends and family, if someone is not willing to be helped, it is difficult for others to help.
In the darkest, deepest depths of depression, it is difficult to do anything. Everything seems so worthless and pointless, even the thought of moving an inch after realising, with great disappointment, that I had woken up again in the morning. (Ironically, I spent many teenage years praying to wake up as a female and after that I spent many years praying that I didn't wake up at all.) When I was able to pull myself out of bed, the mind still refused to work. Where I once was able to spend hours or entire days absorbed in work or hobbies, now I couldn't focus on anything for more than a few minutes. I still retained my ability to act though, so I could pretend I was concentrating or listening to someone while a drifted in and out and tried to piece together what I missed before I drifted out again. My memory became non existent to the point where I would look at the calendar to find out the date and then when I looked back at the form I was filling in, I would have forgotten the date already. My eyes would dart back from the calendar to the form before I threw the pen down in disgust and went back to bed. Depression is insidious because it is situations like this that my self confidence was eroded even further and I would slide deeper into its clutches.
to be continued...
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