Roses are red, violets are blue. My heart is dead, I don't know what to do.
Clinical depression is not so simple or as the other conventional diseases like for example a cold.
It is much more complex than that.
Catch a cold and the things one would do to get cured ASAP include staying home, warm, drinking herbal tea with honey & lemon, swallow some antibiotics, sleep longer...and in a day or 2 all will be fine again.
Depression is nothing like that. The hardcore depressed people have figured that long ago.
Ironically some have gone as far as seeing for example unfortunate events as laughful or humorous. That's how twisted a mind can get due to long term depression. This turns as one of the few sources of joy they may perceive in desperation. I know I sometimes had it.
So there is being sad - I describe it as the usual and normal cycle of emotions. We all get sad at one point or another. This one may be "lifted" - at least at a 100 times easier rate compared to depression.
Then there is being depressed - I describe it as being unable to defeat the sadness. Possibly for quite a long while. It feels not just sad but quite horrible.
Then there is being trapped in a major and suicidal depression, that just won't go away. It shrouds the emotions, impairs movements and thinking, makes us lethargic, makes the victim feel physically and psychologically disintegrated. This is the highly destructive level, which goes as far as committing suicide.
Here are the keypoints, that mostly only the seriously depressed folks will understand and can relate to.
"Aw come on. Just stop being sad. it's just stupid thoughts. Think of something else!" = another step towards alienation
That is the number one rude thing to tell them. If only they knew...
It's not coaching minds or helping or anything. It's isolating them even further.
These clouds in the minds are staying. Have you ever tried to extinguish a fire by yelling at it?
Whoever said anything like "I'm a psychologist/I have studied psychology [...]" were not able to help
We have seen false hopes so often, that we can identify them early on. These words mean nothing to us. It's like a false rescue alert for us.
For a similar example of how we perceive it I can bring up the fact how the media and news stations back in early 2000s claimed, that violent video games are making gamers violent amok runners, who go out and kill. The reporters on TV blamed video games for the cause of deadly amok runs. It was a somewhat popular belief back then - in my experience at least. It was "big news" in Germany and the work of the USK.
Yeah. This is how the psychologists or former students of psychology sound to us.
Official psychologists in hospitals may have been consulted with also. The outcomes didn't change.
"Do X, Y, Z and the depressions will go away. (It has helped me)"
These common everyday life things like eating healthy, exercising, taking care of yourself, hanging out with friends (if only we had them hahaha), listening to (cheerful) music and so on... The thing is, that we either already do it or we did them but the results are the same.
And just because it has helped someone doesn't mean it will help everyone.
We get it - people are trying to help somehow but they couldn't.
For a similar example of how we perceive it I can describe these words being to us like an internet ad banner, that has these words written on it "OH MY GOD, I CAN'T BELIEVE IT! THIS IS HOW I MADE $1000 IN A WEEK AND YOU CAN TOO. NO EDUCATION REQUIRED. NO WORKING EXPERIENCE NEEDED."
People don't listen or don't want to understand
We end up expending our valuable and limited energy explaining to people, who won't even bother listening to us when they ask us about our depression.
People also don't like complexity. At least normally. Depression is complex.
Usually this ends up with us not wanting to talk about it just to keep things as they are now before they get any worse.
There is no cure - except for death
Because if there was a cure or vaccine for depression like there is a cure/vaccine for chickenpox, then virtually nobody would be depressed. Just think about it: Are there many people suffering from chickenpox today? According to the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), about 9,000 people are hospitalized for chickenpox and about 90 people die from the disease each year. Meanwhile there are almost 350 million people suffering from depression globally.
For the depressed, the depression seemingly stops only after their life stops. We have realized that.
Everything possible was tried to combat the depression
And there was nothing too different before or afterwards. Except for a few substances to mitigate the severity at least temporarily (more on that a bit later).
There is no escape.
Nowhere to hide. Nowhere to run. The depression follows us everywhere.
It may stay out for a while when we enjoy something, that we have craved like a vacation at the beach for example. But it will wait for our return.
Some describe it as a dark tunnel network labyrinth with no exit.
Depression shaming
It's a thing. We may be insulted for "not wanting to stop being depressed". But then again people get shamed for anything, so it's not that surprising.
In a way some depressed people just become stronger and live with it
Stronger as in dealing daily with depression, avoid social situations that are likely going to trigger the "depressed talk", that will lead to any other keypoint above (it is a vicious cycle! and only we may put a stop somewhere in it.). In our experience dealing with depression alone is the most effective way quite often.
It is like living scarred or kind of impaired. We just learn how to live with it and how to deal with it. We might never get cured of that nasty mental disease.
Substance consumption
I can't call it substance abuse. Whether it be drinking alcohol or swallowing some pills, some have the nerve to say, that this is the reason we are depressed when in reality sometimes it's actually the other way around. Substances are just the stronger reliefs. These may help to a certain extend but that's as far as we can get in today's times.
In other words: If we were not depressed, we wouldn't get drunk or swallow these pills. It's kind of that simple, really. Sometimes it's one of the things, that is holding us together.
These feelings are inevitable
We won't even try to fight it because there is no use or difference for us in doing so. It unsurprisingly to us always finds a way to makes us weary, tired and done. Which leads me to...
...It feels like our fate is sealed
Sometimes it seems like it is our fate and our destiny and we have accepted it for the sake of having at least a bit of peace.
Having no future, perspective or reasons to live at all
This is the toughest of all.
We feel like we don't belong here or have to be alive. We feel, that our only natural value is being fertilizer. This happens when we are broke and have either a low paying job or no job at all. Ironically this problem feeds the depression and in reverse.
We sought ways of getting up in life but none was found. No betterment options are available.
Finally we ask ourselves "Why am i here? Why am i alive? What am i?". The answers collect but the accepted answer is something like "Because 2 people were too horny one time to keep their legs closed" or "No reason. I'm just here and that's it". Not, that a purpose in our lives matters (stoicism).
And this is the prison holding us in a cell together with depression.
Related to the next keypoint...
One of the main cause of depression is not living up to one's own expectations or wishes
Even the fighter types of the depressed don't have the resources (and money!) to get out of depression.
Nothing matters
Some just turn stoic, apathetic, cold and unemphatic due to us having our big problems. Nein, it's not, that we don't have the new iPhone. It's something much more fundamental at this point.
There may be 100 problems (corruption, starvation, inflation, potentially war threats) but none of them matter to specifically us. We are already almost dead ourselves. Which also leads me to...
Is life an illusion?
We are dead inside but we are not dead. But we certainly don't feel alive either. We feel like walking bodies with some bodily functions. We don't have a soul. It may make us feel and act like robots.
We question life and whether we really are alive or just moving bodies.
---
But how do I know?
Take it from me, battling depression for over 12 years long and still on it (at 24 years at the time of writing this).
I believe patients know the diseases in first hand while doctors (who possibly didn't had those diseases themselves) may have tricks for known cures - and in this case depression (or cancer) currently has no known super effective cure for the extremely depressed. Depression is still undergoing active research by the scientists.
I conclude this article now with one related video here:
Thanks for reading!
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