There is a lot that I could write about depression. It's a topic that I know quite a bit about personally, because I suffer from depression. Depression is a very complicated ilness, so I will try and give a bit of information from my experiences.
Depression can affect people in very different ways. For some, they are incredibly moody, and they don't enjoy life any more. For other people, it can be a rollercoaster ride - up and down- life is great, then life is awful. It's like a pendulum that never stops swinging. The moods can make you suicidal. One popular relief for people with depression is self-harm. I have been down this road, and have the scars to prove it. It is NOT an attention-seeking activity like some people believe. It's a way to help deal with the emotional pain in a more real way. It's a topic that no one wants to talk about, and no one wants to deal with. People believe that you should keep things like this to yourself because it's embarassing, but I honestly believe that if these topics are talked about it may help come up with a way to stop it.
However, there are other symptoms of depression that aren't spoken about as often.
Inability to sleep is one. Sleeping too MUCH can also be a symptom though. For example, when I first got depression, I couldn't sleep. I was moody, and cranky, and upset all the time. I was mentally and emotionally unstable. For years my depression went undiagnosed. The school psychologist put it down to normal teenage angst. My parents thought I was just being immature and attention-seeking.
When I had Master C 17 months ago, there were massive complications and I nearly bled to death. One of the side effects of nearly dying was memory loss. The stress of my time in hospital gave me a HUGE relapse of my depression. I had almost no memories of the first 12 months of my baby's year.
I went to see a psychologist for awhile. She believed that my memory loss wasn't permanent, and that if I learned ways to de-stress that I could even get some of the memories back. Due to my depression at THIS time, I slept like the dead. I was put onto anti-depression medication - Zoloft. It made me extremely drowsy, but once it settled into my system I was a lot better. I wasn't so depressed all the time.
Another side-step of depression is anger. I'm not talking about getting annoyed. I'm talking about "THE KIDS ARE DRIVING ME INSANE, even little things are setting me off, and I just want the whole world to FUCK OFF" sort of anger. I snapped at the tiniest little inconvenience, like being interrupted when I was watching a movie, or when I feel like Mum's treating me like a child instead of the adult that I am.
The anger can be scary, especially for the person with depression. It comes out of nowhere, and sometimes straight after you do it you want to take it back. But by that time, the person you've yelled at or screamed at does NOT want to hear your apology.
There are a few things that family and friends can do to help people with depression.
For starters, accept the fact that they have depression.
Accept the fact that most depressed people once they're on medication are CONVINCED that they don't need the medication, that they'll be fine without it. If they make this decision, love and support them. Point out to them gently when you believe that they're slipping back into depression. Don't yell at them when they frustrate you - understand that they have an illness. That ilness can be treated, but one of the problems with depression is that you are CONVINCED that you don't need help to deal with it.
Depression can be a scary thing. We need to feel loved and accepted irrespective of the fact that we really don't feel like we deserve it sometimes. A lot of people (I would say almost all people) with depression feel worthless, or that they don't deserve nice things and good people. So we seek out people who accept us for who we are, and that's not always a wise choice. Sometimes we get people in our lives who just make the depression tenfold worse. They pick us up and make us feel great, but we become reliant on them to cheer us up. We have to feel happy within ourselves, and that's something we find hard to do.
It's not always the parents' fault. Parents cop a lot of blame for kids making stupid mistakes and falling into depression. Depression is a chemical imbalance in the brain. It is no one's fault. However, the depressed person must take a certain accountability for their depression - it needs to be treated properly, and us depressed people really need to learn that meds are GREAT and that we need help. We seem to have a hell of a lot of trouble accepting that we need help. We're stubborn people!
So hopefully I've given you all a bit of insight into depression. And hopefully I've given you some tools on how to deal with it, and how to help people you love who have depression.
As always, drop me a line jenna_cooksley@yahoo.com.au or post on the blog (you'll need a gmail account).
If you email me, we can talk privately or I can post your comments onto the blog for you.
Very well written!
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