Depression Deluxe!™️ (Now Including Self Awareness!)
Mental health is a funny thing. We live in a time when we're more open, more honest, more willing to learn and listen about people's experiences, but it's still not enough. There is still a massive stigma attached to talking about mental health, admitting that you have a problem; or, in my personal experience, disbelief that I could have a problem, because on the surface, I have everything that someone needs to be happy. So, it's easier to not saying about it. It's easier to let people believe and say whatever they want, because they don't want to be educated. They say they do, but as soon as you mention you struggle mentally, suddenly, you're someone they don't know. You're an alien. And, I've been guilty of this too, I have been guilty of treating people differently when I find out that they may be struggling. And that's difficult. It's difficult to know how to treat them, because the dynamic will change, there's no way to get around it. It's easy to think they are somehow lesser because of how they struggle, and there's no advice or an easy solution. The only way to stop thinking that way is through educating yourself, through challenging your own ideals and values and seeing where you can be better, where you can be a true advocate.
I have had depression since I was sixteen, and that seems like such an awful long time that I actually don't remember what I was like before I felt like this. And when I think about what kind of person I could have been if I didn't have this thing holding me back makes me angry. Angry because I don't get to see that person. I won't get to see the things I could have achieved. It makes me mad because depression robs you of so much, and it's a constant uphill battle to consistently manage to keep your head above water. Even the bare minimum is so much more than the average person would have to do. I have often wondered if we're never really cured of depression, if it just gets easier, but never something that you could consider a memory.
I wrote this two weeks ago, and now I'm of a different mindset. Now that I've started seeing a new therapist, who understands and listens and constantly asks me for my own input and feedback-I do wonder if I was wrong. If depression and anxiety is something that can be fixed. I imagine that it must be. As I'm writing this, I've just come out of my second session with my new therapist. One of the things that always catches me by surprise is how in control therapy makes you feel. When you look at mental health as a concept, it feels like a faceless demon, who's only purpose is to steal and feed on you indefinitely. But when you go to therapy, you put a face to it. You put a face and a name to it. You can then look at a criminal line up and point out exactly who and what it is that's giving you so much grief. And the thing that I've learned, is that depression and anxiety is rarely ever genetic. I mean yes, if it runs in the family then you might be more predisposed to it, but overall, depression and anxiety is something that is made not born. Through therapy I've learned that triggers aren't just the way we treat ourselves and the mean things our brain tell us, it's actually other people. And maybe that sounds selfish and horrible, but it's true. Other people more often than not make the situation worse rather than better. And the worst thing is when it happens by accident.
The problem, the crux, of mental health, if you will, is that people who don't have it will always hear what they want to hear. Their minds will block out the nasty things that you tell them, because they might not be able to match it up in their minds. In their minds, if you're well collected and funny and kind, how could you possibly be depressed? If you get out of bed everyday and go to work, how can you be depressed? The answer is the same regardless of whether or not you're high functioning. I consistently find it very difficult to talk about my mental health with my family. Over the years, it's gotten easier, but it's still very much a case of pushing a boulder up a hill. Because they won't understand, because they might pick and choose with symptoms I have. And I know, and understand that they mean well, which is why it makes me feel selfish.
Something that I struggle with, is how to separate myself from my depression and anxiety. Because they aren't personality traits. They aren't a part of our DNA. I have what I think are plenty of excellent personality traits. I'm funny, and I'm kind, and I'm determined, and yet, I can't stop thinking of myself as depressed. As someone who is the physical manifestation of depression and anxiety. I know it's not all I am, but sometimes when I look in the mirror that's all I see. And it scares me that mental health takes away who you are so that you feel like a shell of your former self. Something else that I've been thinking about a lot is what'll be left of me when I get better. To me, depression seems to make up such a large proportion of who I am and what I do, that I worry that when I get better, I won't recognise the person that I am. And maybe that won't be so much of a bad thing. Maybe when I get better, that gives me the chance to become someone better. But here's the thing. I do feel like depression has made me more empathetic. I feel like it's made me more understanding because when I'm at my lowest, I feel like I can better understand other people's lowest moments. And that's the really screwed up thing. And yet, I don't know who I would be without these negative thoughts. And I know that I am not them and they are not me, but here I am, wondering what'll happen when they leave. It becomes so easy to use mental health as a blanket, to blame all of your problems on it so that you don't have to deal with them, and the scary thing about being in therapy is needing to stare at yourself and your behaviours under a magnifying glass. It's to stare at them and analyse them, and think: Is this really what I want to keep doing? It's looking at how you're currently living and admitting that you can't go on. And I think what's scary about that is that we are all, on some level, afraid of change. I'll admit it. I'm scared of change. I'm scared of failure, and change and failure often seem to go hand in hand in my mind. But the brilliant thing about therapy is the liberation. It's the knowledge that yes, things are bad now and you might not have the most healthy coping mechanisms, but that that will only stay like that for as long as you let it. This was something that I spoke about with my therapist, about my fear of not exerting the work necessary to get better. And I know, for myself personally, that looking at my own triggers is something that is difficult for me, and it makes me feel sort of attacked, because when they're presented as facts, I see that I really don't cope nearly as well as I think I do. And part of that is that I am deeply incapable of accepting criticism about myself and my personality. And that for me, makes some therapy very difficult, because I need to accept that some changes will be necessary in order for me to get better, and when they're pointed out to me, they're not pointed out in a malicious attack, but as fact. As a bullet point, so that then I can decide what I want to do with it. The other thing about therapy and especially about recovery is that you takes a long time. I often go into therapy thinking that it'll be an easy fix, and am often clobbered with the amount of time and effort it'll take for me to reach a semblance of a fix. And that's a common misconception about therapy, and it's one that I still struggle with. I think what people often forget, or don't think about is that therapy is more about you than the therapist. In order for it to be successful, you need to put in a lot of your own energy, because therapists are not magic workers. They can only work with what you give them. Which leads me onto my next point, I truly believe that therapy and recovery only work when you feel ready to face everything. If you try and go through with it before you feel prepared, then it'll never work.
It's one thing however, if you're depressed, it's something else entirely when someone you know is depressed. This is because depression is wholly unique to the individual. Each person thinks and experiences it completely differently, and this means that there might not be the same type of coping mechanisms that work for two people. I am someone that has always wanted to help people. This means that until recently, I would often project my own coping mechanisms onto people that wanted help, I would suggest what worked for me, without truly considering if it would work for them. And the hardest thing of all is that you can't help someone who doesn't want to be helped. Until they become ready to ask for help, all you can do is be there for them when they want you. And it's hard to watch people suffer, and that's something that I really struggle with, because I want to intervene, and help them and give them advice, and look after them, regardless if that's something that they want. And sometimes it's hard to take a step back and admit that you were being far too constrictive. Sometimes it's hard to watch people fumble their way through things without support, but for some people, asking for help is even harder. And that's something very important to bear in mind when people come to you asking for help. It's about finding out what will help them, and not what will make you feel better. And this is something that I am eternally grateful to my boyfriend for. That he has never assumed that he knows what's best for me, and has always asked me what he can do to help. And sometimes, that's the best you can do, because sometimes, people don't know what they need to get better, and until they figure it out, you can't force your own methods on them. You need to let them figure it out on their own, and not force them into doing things your way because it's what you think you would need someone to tell you if you were feeling like they are.
Struggling and being high functioning is something that is incredibly difficult. It's difficult because on the outside, there doesn't seem to be anything wrong with us. But it's there, it's constantly there and it's building so when we get upset over something that seems very mundane, to us, it seems like the end of the world because there's been so many other things that we've felt responsible for, that we've been blaming ourselves for that when we seem to blow up over something seemingly small, it isn't small for us. Before I told the people in my life that I was feeling depressed, I was so scared that they wouldn't take me seriously. That because I didn't act exactly like the textbook definition of being depressed, they would think I was putting it on for attention, that it was a phase, and that everyone gets sad sometimes. In fact, I often thought the same thing. I often questioned whether or not I was actually depressed, or was I just going through a bad time in my life? I invalidated my own feelings because I didn't have anyone to sign post me. When I first started getting depressed, I was all alone. I didn't really understand what depression was, and I was too scared to come forward and explain that this was what I was feeling, because I wasn't given the tools. I didn't have the words to describe what I was going through, and I was frustrated that the people in my life couldn't see it, even though for me, it was so obvious. And when I was in school, and it was at its worst, when I went to teachers about it, they didn't know what to do because I didn't know how to describe it. It wasn't taken seriously because if someone had listened to me and said, hey you might be depressed, it would have made sense to me. It was just something that I went through on my own, until I started making sense of my own feelings. All I knew was that something most definitely was not right. Thankfully, I was met with a very good support group of friends, and family, who took me seriously, even though they didn't really understand it. But it was nice to know that they were there, even though I never truly spoke about the worst feelings because I knew how it would make them feel. And being truly honest about your feelings is very difficult. It's difficult because they're ugly feelings. They're feelings of worthlessness, of being let down, or being abandoned, of not wanting to live, of wanting to hurt yourself. And there's no easy way to say this to someone you love. In fact I was even hesitant of calling myself depressed because I had never been to the doctor, I had never been diagnosed with anything, and it felt like I was taking an illness that wasn't really mine, because nobody had ever told me that I had it. I felt like an imposter. And sometimes I still do, because even after all this time, nobody has given me a diagnosis. I just do the best I can with what I have, and that's enough.
So what can you do to help someone who has depression? The first thing is to never walk around them like they're fragile. Don't take away opportunities from us because you're afraid we might not be able to handle them. Listen to them, make sure that when they open up to you about what their triggers are, that you're actively listening, and appropriately change your behaviours. You have to change so that they can get better. If you actively refuse to change, even after they've pointed out how you make them feel, then that's on you, not on them. You should never assume that you know what will help them. I wrote a whole paragraph on this, so I'm not going to go into it again, but always ask before you give them unsolicited advice, because sometimes, all they want is someone to listen. Sometimes we don't need advice. You should never invalidate their feelings by saying that someone else has it worse, because that doesn't matter. Depression isn't a competition of who can be more sad. What matters is that we don't feel good, and we just want you to tell us that you understand. Don't point out things that we should be doing, because that's no good. We know we should be doing those things, but then we feel so alone and so empty and numb, we don't have the motivation to do those things. Instead, support us, let us know that you're there for us and you're not disappointed in us for not being able to complete tasks. Be kind, think about what you say; do you have to say it? Are you phrasing it kindly? Remember that phrasing things badly can make us spiral, because suddenly we're right. We're right when we think that everyone is ashamed of us and they hate us, so simply: if you don't have something nice to say, don't say anything at all. There's so much more you can do, these are just things that I can think of off the top of my head. Educate yourself on their mental illness, and understand that you don't know exactly what goes through our minds. You don't know what's best for us more than we do. But most importantly, just be kind and supportive. Sometimes that's all it takes.
I wrote this two weeks ago, and now I'm of a different mindset. Now that I've started seeing a new therapist, who understands and listens and constantly asks me for my own input and feedback-I do wonder if I was wrong. If depression and anxiety is something that can be fixed. I imagine that it must be. As I'm writing this, I've just come out of my second session with my new therapist. One of the things that always catches me by surprise is how in control therapy makes you feel. When you look at mental health as a concept, it feels like a faceless demon, who's only purpose is to steal and feed on you indefinitely. But when you go to therapy, you put a face to it. You put a face and a name to it. You can then look at a criminal line up and point out exactly who and what it is that's giving you so much grief. And the thing that I've learned, is that depression and anxiety is rarely ever genetic. I mean yes, if it runs in the family then you might be more predisposed to it, but overall, depression and anxiety is something that is made not born. Through therapy I've learned that triggers aren't just the way we treat ourselves and the mean things our brain tell us, it's actually other people. And maybe that sounds selfish and horrible, but it's true. Other people more often than not make the situation worse rather than better. And the worst thing is when it happens by accident.
The problem, the crux, of mental health, if you will, is that people who don't have it will always hear what they want to hear. Their minds will block out the nasty things that you tell them, because they might not be able to match it up in their minds. In their minds, if you're well collected and funny and kind, how could you possibly be depressed? If you get out of bed everyday and go to work, how can you be depressed? The answer is the same regardless of whether or not you're high functioning. I consistently find it very difficult to talk about my mental health with my family. Over the years, it's gotten easier, but it's still very much a case of pushing a boulder up a hill. Because they won't understand, because they might pick and choose with symptoms I have. And I know, and understand that they mean well, which is why it makes me feel selfish.
Something that I struggle with, is how to separate myself from my depression and anxiety. Because they aren't personality traits. They aren't a part of our DNA. I have what I think are plenty of excellent personality traits. I'm funny, and I'm kind, and I'm determined, and yet, I can't stop thinking of myself as depressed. As someone who is the physical manifestation of depression and anxiety. I know it's not all I am, but sometimes when I look in the mirror that's all I see. And it scares me that mental health takes away who you are so that you feel like a shell of your former self. Something else that I've been thinking about a lot is what'll be left of me when I get better. To me, depression seems to make up such a large proportion of who I am and what I do, that I worry that when I get better, I won't recognise the person that I am. And maybe that won't be so much of a bad thing. Maybe when I get better, that gives me the chance to become someone better. But here's the thing. I do feel like depression has made me more empathetic. I feel like it's made me more understanding because when I'm at my lowest, I feel like I can better understand other people's lowest moments. And that's the really screwed up thing. And yet, I don't know who I would be without these negative thoughts. And I know that I am not them and they are not me, but here I am, wondering what'll happen when they leave. It becomes so easy to use mental health as a blanket, to blame all of your problems on it so that you don't have to deal with them, and the scary thing about being in therapy is needing to stare at yourself and your behaviours under a magnifying glass. It's to stare at them and analyse them, and think: Is this really what I want to keep doing? It's looking at how you're currently living and admitting that you can't go on. And I think what's scary about that is that we are all, on some level, afraid of change. I'll admit it. I'm scared of change. I'm scared of failure, and change and failure often seem to go hand in hand in my mind. But the brilliant thing about therapy is the liberation. It's the knowledge that yes, things are bad now and you might not have the most healthy coping mechanisms, but that that will only stay like that for as long as you let it. This was something that I spoke about with my therapist, about my fear of not exerting the work necessary to get better. And I know, for myself personally, that looking at my own triggers is something that is difficult for me, and it makes me feel sort of attacked, because when they're presented as facts, I see that I really don't cope nearly as well as I think I do. And part of that is that I am deeply incapable of accepting criticism about myself and my personality. And that for me, makes some therapy very difficult, because I need to accept that some changes will be necessary in order for me to get better, and when they're pointed out to me, they're not pointed out in a malicious attack, but as fact. As a bullet point, so that then I can decide what I want to do with it. The other thing about therapy and especially about recovery is that you takes a long time. I often go into therapy thinking that it'll be an easy fix, and am often clobbered with the amount of time and effort it'll take for me to reach a semblance of a fix. And that's a common misconception about therapy, and it's one that I still struggle with. I think what people often forget, or don't think about is that therapy is more about you than the therapist. In order for it to be successful, you need to put in a lot of your own energy, because therapists are not magic workers. They can only work with what you give them. Which leads me onto my next point, I truly believe that therapy and recovery only work when you feel ready to face everything. If you try and go through with it before you feel prepared, then it'll never work.
It's one thing however, if you're depressed, it's something else entirely when someone you know is depressed. This is because depression is wholly unique to the individual. Each person thinks and experiences it completely differently, and this means that there might not be the same type of coping mechanisms that work for two people. I am someone that has always wanted to help people. This means that until recently, I would often project my own coping mechanisms onto people that wanted help, I would suggest what worked for me, without truly considering if it would work for them. And the hardest thing of all is that you can't help someone who doesn't want to be helped. Until they become ready to ask for help, all you can do is be there for them when they want you. And it's hard to watch people suffer, and that's something that I really struggle with, because I want to intervene, and help them and give them advice, and look after them, regardless if that's something that they want. And sometimes it's hard to take a step back and admit that you were being far too constrictive. Sometimes it's hard to watch people fumble their way through things without support, but for some people, asking for help is even harder. And that's something very important to bear in mind when people come to you asking for help. It's about finding out what will help them, and not what will make you feel better. And this is something that I am eternally grateful to my boyfriend for. That he has never assumed that he knows what's best for me, and has always asked me what he can do to help. And sometimes, that's the best you can do, because sometimes, people don't know what they need to get better, and until they figure it out, you can't force your own methods on them. You need to let them figure it out on their own, and not force them into doing things your way because it's what you think you would need someone to tell you if you were feeling like they are.
Struggling and being high functioning is something that is incredibly difficult. It's difficult because on the outside, there doesn't seem to be anything wrong with us. But it's there, it's constantly there and it's building so when we get upset over something that seems very mundane, to us, it seems like the end of the world because there's been so many other things that we've felt responsible for, that we've been blaming ourselves for that when we seem to blow up over something seemingly small, it isn't small for us. Before I told the people in my life that I was feeling depressed, I was so scared that they wouldn't take me seriously. That because I didn't act exactly like the textbook definition of being depressed, they would think I was putting it on for attention, that it was a phase, and that everyone gets sad sometimes. In fact, I often thought the same thing. I often questioned whether or not I was actually depressed, or was I just going through a bad time in my life? I invalidated my own feelings because I didn't have anyone to sign post me. When I first started getting depressed, I was all alone. I didn't really understand what depression was, and I was too scared to come forward and explain that this was what I was feeling, because I wasn't given the tools. I didn't have the words to describe what I was going through, and I was frustrated that the people in my life couldn't see it, even though for me, it was so obvious. And when I was in school, and it was at its worst, when I went to teachers about it, they didn't know what to do because I didn't know how to describe it. It wasn't taken seriously because if someone had listened to me and said, hey you might be depressed, it would have made sense to me. It was just something that I went through on my own, until I started making sense of my own feelings. All I knew was that something most definitely was not right. Thankfully, I was met with a very good support group of friends, and family, who took me seriously, even though they didn't really understand it. But it was nice to know that they were there, even though I never truly spoke about the worst feelings because I knew how it would make them feel. And being truly honest about your feelings is very difficult. It's difficult because they're ugly feelings. They're feelings of worthlessness, of being let down, or being abandoned, of not wanting to live, of wanting to hurt yourself. And there's no easy way to say this to someone you love. In fact I was even hesitant of calling myself depressed because I had never been to the doctor, I had never been diagnosed with anything, and it felt like I was taking an illness that wasn't really mine, because nobody had ever told me that I had it. I felt like an imposter. And sometimes I still do, because even after all this time, nobody has given me a diagnosis. I just do the best I can with what I have, and that's enough.
So what can you do to help someone who has depression? The first thing is to never walk around them like they're fragile. Don't take away opportunities from us because you're afraid we might not be able to handle them. Listen to them, make sure that when they open up to you about what their triggers are, that you're actively listening, and appropriately change your behaviours. You have to change so that they can get better. If you actively refuse to change, even after they've pointed out how you make them feel, then that's on you, not on them. You should never assume that you know what will help them. I wrote a whole paragraph on this, so I'm not going to go into it again, but always ask before you give them unsolicited advice, because sometimes, all they want is someone to listen. Sometimes we don't need advice. You should never invalidate their feelings by saying that someone else has it worse, because that doesn't matter. Depression isn't a competition of who can be more sad. What matters is that we don't feel good, and we just want you to tell us that you understand. Don't point out things that we should be doing, because that's no good. We know we should be doing those things, but then we feel so alone and so empty and numb, we don't have the motivation to do those things. Instead, support us, let us know that you're there for us and you're not disappointed in us for not being able to complete tasks. Be kind, think about what you say; do you have to say it? Are you phrasing it kindly? Remember that phrasing things badly can make us spiral, because suddenly we're right. We're right when we think that everyone is ashamed of us and they hate us, so simply: if you don't have something nice to say, don't say anything at all. There's so much more you can do, these are just things that I can think of off the top of my head. Educate yourself on their mental illness, and understand that you don't know exactly what goes through our minds. You don't know what's best for us more than we do. But most importantly, just be kind and supportive. Sometimes that's all it takes.
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