We Need to Have Sympathy for Those With Depression. It is an Illness

Having experienced a couple major depressive episodes, I have no desire to ever go back, and I've built myself a sort of mental fortress to hopefully withstand whatever shocks I'll experience as I keep on living. I'm fortunate in that in both of my cases, I was able to emerge and put the depression behind me. I can't imagine chronically feeling the way I did.

Imagine being so emotionally hurt that it feels like physical pain, long after you were able to mentally process what initially upset you. Like a pain so chronic and awful that you're willing to do just about anything to make it stop. Imagine how frustrating it is to want to be over something and to think you are mentally past it, but the emotional side of your brain (i.e. most of it) just won't budge. And then on top of it, you feel guilty for being such a drag on people around you. And you also feel paranoid that even when you're not dumping on them, you're alienating them in some way. So you mostly just suffer in silence. It's terribly debilitating.

A friend of mine who undoubtedly would be reading HN today if he were still around evidently felt this way pretty much his entire life. I don't think I would have been able to take it either.

it's what I've told others too, it's like living behind a filter, and every thought and every idea is focused on the negative and false. and the thing is, that I've had it for so long, a decade maybe? probably was there before I even recognized what it was.

but for me it comes and goes, and when it comes I've learned to see the filter, it's just harder to remember what things look like in reality.

but I'm doing well, I dont have it quite as bad as some, and it goes away and I've learned to cope and figure out and get past it, but...

it's never going to stop coming back, and I also know it brings back a kind of brightness and sharpness when it leaves, something I actually do enjoy. I'm sometimes dysfunctional because of it, but mostly... I'm just me, I do alright and I'd rather not change me just yet, so for now I'll deal with it, because it helps me help others.

We need more compassion in general - not just for the outlier cases - but society in general can be a pretty mean entity.

I've been thinking lately how sad it is that so many of the younger hackers in my local scene (metalab.at) are not as familiar with John Lennons' World Peace movement as they should be. That light was snuffed out, but John (and Yoko, and many, many others) were really trying hard to get a world peace movement established, that would bring more love to the world.

If you turn on the TV today, you don't see much love. Most "comedies" are little more than 30-minutes-ridicule+laughtrack. In fact, remove the laugh-track from most TV shows and you have a banal hate festival.

I think depression being treated poorly, in general, by society is symptomatic of a larger maladay - which is that we humans simply don't trust our neighbors. We don't communicate freely and honestly with each other. You can't smile at a stranger in Vienna, for instance, just for the sake of the happiness - there always has to be the inference of an alternative, sinister, motive. Why is that?

Its because, fundamentally our cultural veigns - the mass communications networks of PR, Advertising, News, TV - don't profit from happiness and good times. They profit from the "black blood cell" of intrigue, controversy, synthesis/anti-synthesis. All we really see on TV is conflict this and that, and if there is some sort of consolation, its usually couched as "irony" or some such emotion.

But what of true Peace, where people are getting along great? There is a lot of that in the world, and it goes under-reported, and just not noticed by the majority. Its possible that depression is a social disease, and is contagious.

But, so is happiness.

We need more overt acknolwedgement of the good times, too, in my opinion - the truly good times, real progress. The aversion of the average citizen towards sharing good news and good times needs to be overcome.

We miss you, John Lennon.

Without death of loved one, without death of friends. Without these a lot of revelations and emotions would be locked in you forever.

They spark humanity, they unite, they bring forward topics that usually no one would want to discuss.

And when all your fears will be dealt with, maybe death will stop be so scary.

I am said to suffer depression myself, which BTW I would deny as I would say its "realism", but I really have an issue with it being described as an "illness".

It seems to be that this definition is more about giving depression PR parity with actual illnesses, rather than a correct label. Its like the public will accept an "illness" as real, but a psychological issues as not real. There for making the public see depression as "illness" helps get support. See what I mean?

From what I can make out, depression is a state of mind. Its a psychological thing. Ie, its a sort of loop people get themselves in to. That, to me, is not an illness. Not more so than arrogance, confidence or anger. Its an emotion. Is love an illness too? I realise that can be debated, but I don't think its helpful to redefine things for PR reasons. To me that cheapens it.

I'm not saying depression is there for less valid, clearly its as debilitating as what I would think of as real "illness", if not more so, but I do roll my eyes and switch off every time I hear the word "illness" appropriated for things that aren't really "illnesses". As I say, the lack of the word illness doesn't, to me, make it less serious. To me, using that word is not necessary, it just blurs the lines and can put people off caring. It make it sound exaggerated or a bit "me too".

Should add that I do understand that there are different types of depression. Perhaps using the single word depression to cover all cases is more the problem that the word "illness".

I'm by no means unsympathetic, I know how it can effect people. I've seen the results of suicide. Hell, my mum's other half had to cut the bloke down while the wife screamed in the street. But I worry that re-defining things puts the general population off.

No idea if these definitions are different each side of the Atlantic. Heh, no idea if its just me who thinks this either!!!