Depression

Clinical depression has no rhyme or reason to it. What others who don’t suffer from it don’t realize that you could have everything going for you in your life, and still be depressed. And it doesn’t just make you ‘sad’ sometimes it makes you very irritable. It can cause insomnia, or extreme fatigue. And just because you’re depressed, doesn’t mean you lay around in bed all day and are sad all the time. And it isn’t a constant thing, it can come and go. Mine will come and go. I’ll have periods where I’m perfectly ok, then times where it hits. And what people don’t understand is that when you are going through an episode, things are just HARD to do. It’s HARD to get out of bed. It’s HARD to get yourself showered and dressed. It’s HARD to feed yourself. It’s not laziness, it’s just fucking HARD to do anything. Mainly because you’re just so emotionally drained.

Medication does work for many people, but as crispy says: it’s usually trial and error. If you find the right meds/dosage initially, then you’re very lucky. It took me almost 9 years to find the right medication/dosage. I think a lot of people give up and trash medication therapy for depression because they try one or two and it doesn’t work for them and they just give up and think ‘medication is a scam.’ It isn’t. Some people really do need medication. Without mine, I’m a mess, and yes I have been in therapy! Even my psychologist who is very anti-medication wrote a letter to my psychiatrist saying I really should be on medication. And even WITH medications, you can still struggle. Just because you’re on medication, doesn’t mean you aren’t going to have shitty periods (so fuck off with the ‘have you been taking your medication?’ comments — just because you’re taking anti depressants, doesn’t mean you’re going to be miss sally sunshine 24-7).

And no, you can’t just ‘snap out of it’ or ‘try really hard to be happy.’ All those stupid memes on Facebook that are all “choose to be happy!”…. for FUCK SAKE who CHOOSES to be depressed or sad? Uh huh, that’s right — I’d much rather be depressed and feel like shit than be happy. Go fuck yourself you optimistic smarmy ‘snap out of it!’ arseholes.

I’d wager that most people with clinical depression of any sort are stronger than those without issues with mental illness — not only do you have to carry on with the business of living (mainly holding down a job and keeping yourself clothed, fed, alive, etc…) when it’s incredibly difficult to summon any amount of energy to do so, but you have to ‘pretend’ to be fine because a) your friends don’t want to deal with that shit; b) your family doesn’t want to deal with that shit and most of all c) your employer doesn’t want to deal with that shit. Employers don’t want people with mental illness, no matter how hard mental health organizations and corporate organizations that have latched onto mental illness as their ‘feel good’ excuse for a tax deduction try to de-stigmatize it (because as we all know: mentally ill = batshit fucking crazy and ready to snap at any time *eyeroll*) So you gotta essentially put all your time and energy into making it seem like you’re not mentally ill so you can keep your job.

So essentially, when you’re having a particularly awful time, your friends and family are all “pfft you’ve always seemed fine — you’re just sad — snap out of it! How can you be depressed when you seem fine most of the time! Just get out of bed and you’ll feel fine!” — hint: sometimes we are fine and sometimes we’re faking it.