Okay, so this is massively important. [cn: depression] Something that doesnt get said enough is that depression doesnt always feel like sadness. Sometimes and for some people, yeah, it can come as an unbearably low mood that knocks you off your feet and leaves you crying in bed for days at a time. But sometimes its more like an overwhelming numbness that makes sadness just as inaccessible as any other emotion. (I recently saw someone on the internet describe it as the emotional equivalent of watching paint dry which resonated with me a heck of a lot.) And however you experience it, depression is not going to be the same all the time - someone can feel horrible one week (or day, or hour...) and great the next and that does not invalidate their depression. Some days are better than others, and some days are not any better or worse but very different. None of this makes the depression any less real or the person any less deserving of treatment. There are as many ways to be depressed as there are people with depression. Restricted narratives of what depression is or should be like are massively unhelpful, erase and undermine the experience of anyone whose depression doesnt fit that, and run the risk of preventing people from seeking help when they need it. As the article puts it, insisting that someone is not actually depressed just because of a show of something other than deep, entrenched sadness is actively harmful.
Posted on: Sat, 03 Jan 2015 18:07:01 +0000