I never acknowledged how little I thought about depression until I ended up being stressed. I had no idea how depression can take away your sexual life, leaving you asexual. I never knew it interferes with your ability to be attentive, your energy and your drive to complete things. Not long ago, I was unable to finish watching movies and newspapers. I sent less and fewer emails and daily tasks felt like a burden.
What surprised me, even more, was my emotional breakdown. I wasn’t prepared coming face to face with my 2-year-old nephew during this period, or being surrounded by the somber funeral mood and feeling very little of it.
This went on for weeks as I was undergoing depression. Political news that previously increased my adrenaline rush had no effect on me. I tried music, nothing still. Jokes weren’t funny anymore. Books had nothing exciting. Food tasted horrible.I couldn’t feel anything, just the way Philip Lopate Wrote in is the poem “Numbness”, “Totally nothing”
To me, this was news. I had experienced depression before, but still, just like other individuals, I understood nothing about a condition that affected 16 million Americans in 2015 (More people than the total population of New York, Los Angeles and Chicago.)
The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders states that, if you have to be diagnosed with a Major Depressive Disorder, they need to undergo depression for the better part of the day, each and every day or “especially decreased intrigue or delight in all or practically all, activities most of the day, almost every day, for a fortnight.
This is the benchmark. For a full diagnosis, you need to report four other signs and symptoms from a preset list and include loss or increase of weight, lack or too much sleep, hyper or minimal activity, frequent tiredness, feeling guilt or low self-esteem, lack of concentration and suicidal thoughts.
“I find it very fascinating, despite how long I have been in the field, the numerous types of depressions a body can have,” Says Jennifer Payne, a professor of psychiatry and director of the Women’s Mood Disorders Center at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. From headaches to GI issues, to pain Syndromes, and worsens existing conditions like high blood pressure and diabetes.
If for example you have two women, both with breast cancer, but one with depression, the depressed one has double chances of dying from cancer” Payne says.
Having Discussions with Payne and other medical experts, I finally understood how wide this illness is.
It can be visible or not to the ones you care about. It is capable of lasting weeks, years or even decades.
It also affects concentration, how you sleep, eat, energy and even writing skills.
It’s very scary that lack of hope and not being able to help oneself are signs of this illness.
Stanford University’s David Spiegel, an educator of psychiatry and behavioral sciences and executive of the school’s Center on Stress and Health, discloses to me that depression is a typical, treatable mental disorder, and individuals it besets can blame themselves for things that aren’t their fault. “Thus depressed individuals frequently feel regretful about being depressed and not performing how they should,” he says. And that’s what prevents them from finding a way out or getting help in fighting the depression.
The cause of illness varies a lot, just like the symptoms. Emory University’s Nadine Kaslow, a teacher of psychiatry and behavioral sciences, discloses to me that, with a few people, depression is more of hereditary, while others experience it as a response to outer pressure. She lists multiple conditions that can trigger depression ;loss of a friend or family member, occupation, or key character; things that bring about feelings of disappointment, disgrace, or humiliation; a catastrophic event that upsets your life, like the typhoons in Texas, Florida, and Puerto Rico; money related troubles and tension; child abuse; and violence at home.
We are aware that depression can be impenetrable to cheerful occasions. William Styron’s Darkness Visible: A Memoir of Madness, narrates how he portrays getting a lofty prize in Paris, a check for $25,000, and illustrious treatment from his hosts, all while feeling what he depicts as “panic…dislocation, and a feeling that my points of view were being consumed by a dangerous tide that wrecked any great response to the living world.”
The deeper I dived into this, it turned out to be clear depression is not associated with. It isn’t the blame of the individual affected, nor is it essentially in their control to “wake up” or “pull themselves up by their bootstraps. And it unquestionably isn’t just feeling sad. “Individuals who have never experienced depression think, ‘Well, I got a hold of myself after a harsh time,’ and they don’t comprehend the extraordinary physicality, the quickness, and the authenticity of the condition,” Solomon says. It’s enticing to imagine depression as an outrageous point on a scale, he adds, yet it’s just the disposition range closing down. The word he utilized often in our discussion was a feeling of “nullity.” And in his TED talk on depression, he stresses on the phrase, “The inverse of depression isn’t bliss, its vibrancy.”
The British writer Matt Haig, tweeted, “Everybody is okay as long as talk about mental illnesses in the past tense.” And I concede, it’s less demanding for me to compose this piece after undergoing depression. When I share it with individuals I know, I can honestly say, “I feel quite okay now,” and spare both of us the uncomfortable talk. Being out of depression (for Now) provides me with a very fascinating perspective as a writer.
Very important point: and I state this in disregard to my religious inclinations, emotions are sacred, weird thing. You understand this when you lose them. I don’t think I’ve at any point felt so upbeat to feel furious as the day when, in the wake of finding out about some ongoing political troubles, I felt my first stirrings of good shock in months. I felt offended, and it was great.
Other moments followed, like electrical devices switching back on after power loss, laughter after jokes, and so on. I found myself, enjoying the music I recently discovered.
Even after I ended my depression, I still feel for those who are stuck there. I have a good idea on how to fake a smile for a photo yet deep inside you’re hurting. I know what its like to search for videos on the internet with the hope of getting solutions to your problems.
This is where family and friend s come in. chances are you either know someone who has, who is or who will be depressed at some point. Therefore being a friend or family means looking out for socially inactive members. Keep in touch with them, give them a call. Spend time with them.
The human brain is a complex yet very important organ that differentiates humans from other animals, says Spiegel. Sometimes it fails and you can’t really blame the owner, it’s a common issue when learning to use a complex organ to handle complex life scenarios.
Unlike fixing a broken car or bike, your brain is not that simple. It’s okay to seek to help it its having issues.