After my TV interview on Wednesday, a lady came up to me and asked if my depression is always with me. I must admit, I was a little taken back. I told her it was. She was a little taken aback - appalled that it would be constantly with me.
When I got home, I started thinking about it. I'm still amazed that anyone would think that the illness of clinic depression is only temporary or something that goes away.
I didn't explain it to her as clearly as I would have liked to. So I have continued to think about her question and how to make my answer make sense to someone with no personal experience with depression.
As I thought about this lady's question, I thought about my mom - she has MS (Multiple Sclerosis). Most of the time she lives with a constant pain that is manageable. She takes pills to help manage the pain and reduce the progression of her MS, but it is something that is always there. Then sometimes she suffers from attacks. These attacks have temporarily blinded her or caused unbearable pain and numbness. Each attack takes a toll on her body.
Depression is very similar to that. Most of the time I live with a pain that is manageable. Sometimes I'm sore/achy all over, but it's manageable. The pain of the depression is always there, but is usually manageable. I take two types of medication to help manage my illness and most of the time it does an okay job. The side effects of the medications suck, but I must admit that the side effects of my mom's medications suck too. Weight gain, dry mouth, nausea are all side effects we have commiserated over together.
Then there are times when I have an "attack" or a relapse (as depression suffers usually refer to it), which is similar to my mom's experiences with MS. We don't know when it will happen, or what exactly will happen, but when it does, it's debilitating.
What we need to do is take the "mental" out of "mental illness". It's just like any other chronic illness and should be treated as such. It's odd that my experiences with my illness are so similar to what my mom experiences with MS, and yet her illness is treated differently than mine.
Great explanation. How did the TV interview go?
ReplyDeleteWow. You just answered the question I having been asking myself for quite some time. I so hoped that depression was just temporary. But I have been struggling with it for over 2 1/2 years now and often ask myself if it will ever go away. I've tried many meds but the depression is still there under the surface. It just won't leave completely.
ReplyDeleteI just came off a weekend where I was contemplating going to the hospital. Followed by a Monday where I felt okay. If I could just bottle up how I felt yesterday, all would be well.
Anyhow, I like your idea of taking the mental out of mental illness. I so worry about people (those I work with) finding out about my depression and thinking I'm crazy. So many times I've wanted to say to them... "This is not me! If you only knew me when I wasn't depressed!" I have developed debilitating self esteem issues due to my depression and it's symptoms. Sorry, I'm rambling...
Just wanted to say that I think you have answered my question of "When will it go away?" It may never go away completely. All I have to do now is figure out how to enjoy life along the way. The way I used to. I so want to feel that joy again...
Thank you for this blog..
Molly
Thank you for posting this. I am currently having one of the relapses. I am 15 and I usually have one every Monday and they carry on for a few days. I have a hard time talking to my friends, not even about my depression,. I mean talking to them at all. Every Monday after school I go to a club I used to love, but now I get depressed during the meetings around my friends and I'm not even sure why.
ReplyDeleteI just wanted to thank you for writing this post. I really relate to how you have explained lifelong depression. I posted it to my facebook page as well.
ReplyDeleteThanks
Laura
Really really great post Jamie! I don't think I've ever seen it explained so clearly... I may just have to blog about this one!
ReplyDeleteThank you all for the comments.
ReplyDeleteAdam, the TV interview went well. Glad it's over though :-)
I had the exact same discussion with a close friend of mine a few weeks ago (in fact after starting my own blog on, among other things, depression -- which was the first he knew of my having it). He imagined that depression was something you had once and it went away and couldn't imagine how I could deal with viewing it as something that was always there in the background.
ReplyDeleteI guess I would express my experience of it a little differently, though your analogy with your mother's MS is a very apt one. I see depression sort of as a graph of peaks (depressive periods) and troughs (less depressive periods) with the peaks getting a bit lower each time. Each time I have a bout of depression I try to learn new techniques for dealing with it and try to catch each bout a little bit earlier.
At least, I try to convince myself that there is this narrative of progression going on because, whilst I'm sort-of-ok with the idea of always having to be on my guard for another bout, I hope one day to feel longer bouts of relief and less terror that the next awful 'peak' will be just around the corner.
I've experienced the same thing. Often times people want to believe that depression is something that just happens every once in awhile and that everyone feels "depressed" at times. This isn't true and needs to be stopped. I really enjoy you being so open and honest about your depression; there is a terrible stigma attached to this, suicide, and other mental illnesses and that needs to change. Thank you for spreading awareness and writing.
ReplyDeletehttp://silencehurts.wordpress.com
It's amazing how ignorant people can be, isn't it? Give my best wishes to your Mum.
ReplyDeleteThat was a great post. I'm suffering from depression as well, and I can't operate at all. Constantly, there are these disgusting thoughts meddling into my mind, grasping my soul, and draining me of energy. I need to visit a psychologist, but I just don't have the time.
ReplyDeleteI don't know where to turn.
Thanks for the analogy, I used it today with a bit of variation in an explanation to someone who was confused about depression and how I've been feeling.
ReplyDeleteI've just started reading blogs and writing my own again. I've spent the last hour or so reading through your archives... Thank you for writing! Keep going, you're doing a great job!
(http://thinking-about-leaving.blogspot.com/)