Depression is a serious problem and, despite the great progress that has been made, there is still a strong stigma towards those who have the disorder.
Beliefs such as that they are just sad, or that they are that way because they want to, become comments that patients with depression have to hear day in and day out. People who have never suffered from this don’t know what it’s like to have clinical depression nor does he give it due importance.
Next we will try to put ourselves in the shoes of a person with depression going through each of the moments that she has to endure in her daily life, the comments from her closest environment and situations that sink her further, in addition to describing, in broad strokes, what clinical depression consists of.
You wake up, but you are not able to move. Maybe you were awake before the alarm went off, maybe it was the ‘pee-pee’ that woke you up. Be that as it may, you are not able to get up. It is not laziness, nor is it waking up too early. The problem is that we don’t feel like starting a new day again, a day that we will see as wasted when the sun sets. There is no energy for it. The only thing you want is for the day, which has just begun, to be over, so you can go to sleep again.
You’ve been waiting a long time for this to pass. You wish it was just a seasonal thing, a bad time. You believe that time heals everything, but the more time it seems, the less convinced you are of it.
You manage to stand up. You start, but at forced speeds. You have to go to class or work, but because they are obligations. You don’t feel like it at all. Your family, roommates or your partner force you to get out of bed. They tell you that you should put on a better face, that it’s not a big deal, that maybe you’re making a mountain out of a molehill. There seems to be no one who is able to understand you, and that doesn’t help.
Other times, It is you who makes sure that others do not understand it, because you do not express it directly You think: what’s the point? Why waste your energy over and over explaining something that you think they won’t understand? In the eyes of others it is that you are just a little down, at most a little sad because of something bad that has happened to you.
You’re afraid that when you explain it, they’ll think you’re crazy, broken, that you’re never going to recover. You think that being like this is only for the mentally ill, people who you think are no longer like people, people who can’t thrive. That is why you hide your feelings, your worries and your tremendous suffering under the façade of a smile.
In popular culture, depression is synonymous with sadness. as children We learn that laughing is synonymous with happiness, and that crying is synonymous with sadness So, based on these ideas, we hide behind a forced smile. People do not pay enough attention to the nuances, to the laughter that, behind it, hides a deep discomfort. If we don’t cry, if we don’t look worried, then we are not depressed. That’s how simple people think.
We may say that we are depressed, we express our discomfort. But, in the worst cases, people are not able to put themselves in our shoes. If we are not crying all the time we cannot be depressed, and if we cry, then we are dramas. Depressed men, weak, depressed women, some exaggerated.
But is that In most cases, there is no energy even to cry We think that it is of no use, not even to let off steam. In our childhood, crying, although it did not solve things, did satisfy us later. We released sadness, anger, rage, tension. Now, we have to make an effort to even shed a tear, leaving ourselves halfway. We are left halfway, making our situation worse.
This difference between one’s own propensity to smile and laugh on the part of others and on one’s part makes many depressed people feel even worse, because of the emotional gap that is formed and that separates them from the rest of society. . This situation makes it even more difficult to have incentives to socialize and, by extension, to expose oneself to stimulating situations.
The melancholy
We are a shadow of what we were. Our day to day It is characterized by our absence We may be physically in front of our friends, talking, or next to our partner in bed, but our minds are far away. We think about other things, and they are not good: will I get out of this? Why am I doing everything wrong? Am I a failure? How should I commit suicide?
You look at old happy photos. When you went to the gym, when you met up to party, when you went to class and had your group of friends… In the photos you can be seen smiling, and you remember how you felt back then. Some days you may have been sad, but other days you were also happy.
You were a normal person who, perhaps, complained about some things. The normal. Something was bothering you, like everyone else. You were happy without knowing it, like everyone. The person in the photos and the one you now see in the mirror although the body and its memories are the same, they seem to be two totally different individuals.
Personal relationships get complicated
Those who don’t understand you enjoy making hurtful comments, taking advantage of your total inability to be and feel as normal as others. They say: “you are like this because you want to” They tell you this, but you don’t have the strength to respond, in a well-argued way, how wrong they are. You also don’t have the strength to ignore them. If they felt the same way you feel… if it was as difficult for them as it is for you to see the light at the end of the tunnel…
When you get home you remember these malicious comments, which are repeated over and over in your head. They make you spend long hours thinking about how to tell them how things are, that this is not a decision.
Depression is unlike any other experience that can be experienced by those who do not have a diagnosable psychological disorder, and this contributes to the fact that depressed people also have to face the fact that others do not understand them.
Poor management of emotions
You can’t decide one day to stop being depressed, I wish! All day you ruminate on arguments that you would tell him to convince him and seek a little empathy from him, instead of simply ignoring them and letting the day flow in a healthier way.
Instead, you start hurting yourself, physically. You make fists and hit yourself behind your head, or you grab a box cutter and start cutting yourself. You don’t know exactly why you do this: Are you punishing yourself for not knowing how to deal with the problem or is it that what makes you feel this way lives in you, possesses you and you want it to go away?
Be that as it may, this surge of energy, which instead of using it for something beneficial you have used to hurt yourself, goes down, and the lack of desire to do anything returns, the inability to feel pleasure in the things in life. You go to the mirror and think, why did I do this to myself? You convince yourself that they are right, that you are the problem and that you don’t want to stop hitting rock bottom. These ideas become a dangerous vicious circle.
Depression is serious
All of this described here serves to understand what it is like to have clinical depression. It is the daily life of thousands of people around the world who, for whatever reason, have not received the appropriate treatment Family support can be of some help, or it can sink us even further. The days begin as they end: with the desire to go back to sleep and not wake up.
Despite the great advances that have been made to destigmatize people with mental disorders, there are many who face the ignorance of people, who, mixing myths and lack of empathy as ingredients, They blame them or belittle their emotional state They believe that it is simply having a bad time, that there are no reasons to give it more importance and that if it does not improve, it is because it is not wanted.
To be clear, depression is a mental disorder and, as such, should be treated as the disabling and damaging condition that it is. Depression, as a mental disorder, is as serious as medical conditions, such as cancer, and disabilities such as tetraplegia or intellectual diversity. The patient cannot enjoy a full life, interact with others or go to work.
Sadness, hopelessness and general malaise become so serious that they affect not only psychological integrity of the person, but also to their physical health. You notice body pain, dizziness, nausea, loss of strength… How can this not be taken as something serious?
In addition, the person may suffer changes in their sleeping patterns and eating behavior. He may sleep less, waking up too early but being unable to go back to sleep, or he may sleep more, perfectly reaching twelve hours of continuous sleep. As for food, you can completely lose your appetite, which will cause you to lose weight and become malnourished, or, otherwise, you can binge eat, with consequent weight gain and body dissatisfaction, worsening the course of depression.
Pleasure is lost for things that were previously enjoyed It can be banal things, like listening to music, playing video games or taking a walk, or more complex things, like studying, participating in sports tournaments, restoring a car… The person no longer feels pleasure in things that were previously a source of joy, that They kept him alive.
Studying and going to work become titanic tasks, because the person loses concentration very easily. He cannot study because he does not understand what he is reading, and at work he may be more prone to making mistakes and having accidents. He loses the thread of conversations, which can seriously harm his social sphere, making the person he was talking to think that he simply does not want to listen to them.
Your self-esteem is at a minimum You can’t look in the mirror and think that you are a failure as a person. He doesn’t think it’s going to get better, he doesn’t see the light at the end of the tunnel. This is one of the main reasons why depressed people end up committing suicide, believing that no matter how hard they try they will never feel good again. He believes that he has hit rock bottom, that he is not going to go down any further because there is no further down, but it is impossible for him to rise to the surface. He only sees the bad, being a victim of the negativity bias towards himself.
