Depression - mine and others

Depression is a deceptive liar. Depression convinces you that you are worthless, and your actions, past and present are not what they should have been.

Depression convinces you that you had no good intentions, only selfish ones.

Depression whispers in your ear that the world is against you. Depression convinces you that you are your own worst enemy. And it insists that you are alone.

But it does it subtly.

It does it by taking away the joy in your life. By filling your life with boredom, and hopelessness. It does it by shutting all the doors and windows, pulling down the blinds, shutting the curtains and leaving you in darkness. By leaving you alone.

It doesn't matter that there are many people around you, who profess they love you, who do kind things for you. All that matters is that nothing matters.

Don't tell a depressed person to go for a walk, to eat something, to cheer up, to look at the bright side. I have said all of those things, and I have had all of those things said to me and, at that moment in time, it doesn't help. In fact, it hurts.

It hurts because intellectually you know all of those things will help but you don't have the where-with-all to do any of them.

Sometimes depression will lift on its own, and if you have lived, like I have, for your whole adult life with depression you start to recognized the cycle and trust that the you will cycle out of it. Eventually.

For some people, like myself, medication helps. Not a lot of medication, but a small daily dose. If you know someone like that, like me - don't judge. The judging of SSRIs and other anti-depression medication by those who do not suffer is such a difficult thing.

It makes those of us on medication not want to be honest about our need for it, it makes us try to get off of it (to horrible results), it makes us be less then our authentic selves.

People with depression need to be authentic. Because often those who aren't, those who hide it, those who try to deny it, those who don't talk about it end up making a difficult and devastating decision.

I young man I knew, only a little, killed himself last month. I didn't know he struggled with depression. People who knew him better than I didn't know he struggled with depression. We. Didn't. Know.

Maybe he didn't know.

But if you are reading this, and you feel helpless, joyless, stuck, that life is pointless, then hard as it may be to do, go and talk to someone: a doctor you trust, a friend, a family member, someone.

Someone cares.

Depression will tell you that no-one cares.

Depression lies.

I know.