Handling Depression
I read one of those feel-good articles the other day about a woman who suffers from depression. One day her depression was bad and she asked her boyfriend to cancel their plans for that day and she curled up in bed. Her boyfriend then did a series of silly, goofy, jokes that made her laugh and then she was able to get out of bed and take a shower.
The moral of the story was her boyfriend was so nice and understanding of her depression, and helped her laugh and shake it off (somewhat), which is very nice, and clearly it worked for her.
Two problems.
First, in the comments section, among the “Aw, he’s a keeper!” comments were a number of variations on, “Wow, you’re lucky, I couldn’t handle that shit…” as in, I don’t want to deal with a person’s depression symptoms.
So… I get it. Depression sucks. It interferes in your life, it makes people hard to be around. Yep. It sucks. Imagine actually HAVING it, you assholes! In addition, I doubt that social convention would allow for anyone to post a comment anywhere near, “I couldn’t deal with that shit,” in response to someone writing about dealing with cancer or chemo symptoms… They’d be shredded by others at least if they did try it. Yet, if it’s about depression, nobody blinks an eye, in fact a number of people nod and fist bump the sentiment. So fuck all of you assholes, as well.
Secondly, while this was just an anecdotal story about one woman’s experience one time, and is not intended to represent anyone but her or anything more than a one-time occurrence. But, stories like this reinforce a misunderstanding that people can be “joked out of” their depressive moods. It reinforces a misconception that depression is emotional.
Sometimes you can, and it is. But other times not only is trying to “cheer up” a person with depression invalidating to their experience and the reality of their disease, it can make it worse, it can make the feel guilty that they can’t “cheer up” for your comfort.
It struck me today because my depression hit really hard. The type (because there are a lot of types) where your body get heavy. Literally, it feels like my limbs are slowly filling with sand until I can’t stand or lift my hand, or even lift up my head…
And it isn’t sadness. People think all depression means is feeling down or sad. Sometimes it is sadness, but sometimes it’s no emotion at all, it’s feeling like your entire body is filled with sand, or buckshot, just heavy… so heavy it is literally exhausting to move. And it hurt, today, when I did try to get downstairs. Depression can hurt. Not like hurt feelings, like physical pain my my joints. As I tried to walk down the stairs, my knees hurt, my wrists hurt, my elbows hurt, my ankles hurt, my hips hurt. I hurt.
That’s depression.
And no, I can’t be cheered up or joked out of that.
And it’s weird, it can come on out of nowhere (apparently). I was just sitting at my computer upstairs writing down some recipes and I started to feel discouraged and hopeless. Then I realized my eyes were burning. Then, my hands started feeling heavy, and within the space of five minutes I’d gone from relatively normal to barely able to hold my head up.
Sir, fortunately, was upstairs with me and he said, “Food. You haven’t eaten enough today.”
Food isn’t always the answer, either. Because NOTHING is ALWAYS the answer. Depression is a bastard. But today, I hadn’t had enough calories (though I had eaten breakfast and lunch… just not enough calories at either meal.)
When he said that, I thought, how ridiculous that sounds considering how fat I am… But I was too heavy to talk, so I didn’t. He helped me stand up and walk downstairs. He sat me down in the armchair in the living room. Sub brother made me some sausages and a bowl of granola. Sir turned on Red Dwarf on the TV, and put a blanket over me.
Nobody joked or poked or tried to cheer me up. There was relatively little talking at all, beyond Sir telling me to eat the food he put in front of me.
Within about twenty minutes, the heaviness had lifted enough that I could function again. I had been too short on calories. It shorted out my brain.
The depression isn’t gone completely, it hovers like a ghost. I’ve been too long without routines, I’ve had disrupted sleep for several weeks, I’ve had some major stressors for my anxiety, and work is starting back tomorrow… Depression isn’t going anywhere. But it is pushed to the edges for the moment.
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