What If You’re Wrong About Depression?

Depression is a mind game. If you stop thinking about it then it will eventually go away.

I read that on Instagram this morning, but I see the same comment in various iterations on a daily basis.

Just think positively!

Look at all you have to be thankful for!

Step out of the darkness and into the light!

Well meaning, to be sure, but it’s not as simple as that.  It’s just not.

And we could debate all day about the causes and treatments of depression, and whether or not it’s even a real thing.  It’s a chemical imbalance.  No, it’s all in your head (side note, I saw a cute meme that retorted with something along the lines of, “Well where do you expect it to be, in my kidney?”)  It’s all just a state of mind.  It can be fixed with diet.  You just need more sunshine.  You just need drugs.  Drugs make it worse.  You need therapy.  Psychiatry is just a bunch of pseudo-science quackery.  Just stop thinking about it.

Etc

Etc

Etc

But the thing is, for the purposes of my point here, none of the above really matters.  It doesn’t.  Because just pretend for a second, just for a second, that you’re wrong, and that the person in question truly CAN’T just positively think their way out of depression.  Do you know what comments like yours do to a person with depression?  They minimize them.  They invalidate them.  They make them feel – when they are already at their most desperately lowest point – that they’re doing something wrong.  They make them feel worthless, and they make them even less likely to seek help.

At best, comments like these are annoyances… thinly veiled insults wrapped in a pretty bow of concern.

But at their worst?  They can be the very last thread on someone’s already rapidly fraying rope.   This is going to sound harsh, but your comment could literally mean the difference between a person’s choosing to tread water another day, or letting the rope slip through their fingers.

I think that of all the ways we hurt each other as human beings (and boy howdy, are we good at hurting one another), one of the worst is simply when we don’t see each other.  When we don’t listen.  When we tell each other, through actions and inactions both that we don’t matter.  That our feelings and experiences are not valid.  Are not real.

IT HURTS TO BE MINIMIZED.

In fact, at this moment in time, I can think of few things that hurt more.  I’ve always known that I was more sensitive to this feeling than most people, and I only recently learned why.  In a lovely twist of irony (because what is life if not a giant example of irony?) deciding to open up about this painful facet of my life earned me nothing more than more flippant dismissal.  “Pfft. Oh, that.  We all feel like that.  That’s just being a human.”  So now?  Once again, I feel unsafe sharing.

IT HURTS TO BE MINIMIZED.

Be kind.

If you’re wrong about this (and hell, even if you’re right), you need to know your words matter.  Your words hurt, not help.  Because even IF you’re right?  Even if the depressed person CAN just think they’re way to happiness?  At that moment, that moment that they’re choosing to invite you in… they’re not okay.  What they feel is real.  They need your friendship, they need your love, they need your support.  What they do not need is for you to tell them that they’re wrong to feel what they feel, that they’re wrong to not have pulled themselves up by the bootstraps and fixed it already.

If someone had (fill in the blank with a physical illness – cancer, diabetes, meningitis, asthma) would you tell them it would go away if they would just hurry up and stop thinking about it already?  I’m guessing you probably wouldn’t.  You know that illnesses, from the common cold to leukemia, are complex.  That they’re unique and multi-faceted and require different approaches for each individual person.  You realize this.  You respect this.

It’s 2018.  Can we please start giving mental illnesses the same consideration?

I have written a lot about mental health, especially over the past two years, but this issue is one of the most important, and one of the most personal.  Ironically (see above comment about irony), I’m doing well at the moment.  I’m in balance.  Which is… unexpected, given everything that I have going on right now.  I feel good.  But when that changes – and it will change, because that’s the beautiful cyclical nature of mental illness – please don’t tell me I just need to stop thinking about it.  Please don’t minimize me.  Please don’t tell me what I’m feeling isn’t real.

As anyone with depression can tell you, it’s real.  If nothing else, it starts and ends with being REAL.

P.S.  I just posted an update over on Patreon if you want to know what’s going on in my 3D life at the moment.  🙂  It is set to public, so you don’t need to be a Patron to read it.

(Visited 237 times, 1 visits today)

1 Comment

Filed under bipolar, depression, kindness, life, mania, mental health, rant

One Response to What If You’re Wrong About Depression?

  1. Brenda

    Yes! You have nailed it! This is exactly how I feel. 💜💛💙💚❤

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.