“We all feel depressed at some point”

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By Alan D.D.

There is something I’m sick of hearing. It’s something that keeps coming up and up whenever I say that I suffer from depression. The usual response I get is a look as if I were speaking nonsense. That’s then followed by a comment like, “We all feel depressed now and then, that doesn’t mean we’re all sick.”

Being Sad vs Having Depression

First of all, I want to remind anyone who’s reading this that I am not a professional. I have not studied psychology or psychiatry. This is just my personal experience and bits of what I’ve read here and there. However, having had depression since 2012, I guess, gives me a minimum credit to know what I’m talking about, at least in terms of the basics.

I accept that we all have feelings of depression. Life is not always happy. It’s not always sunshine with candy cotton clouds, ponies and sugar rain 24/7 (do let me shudder at the idea). It is totally okay to feel bad, to feel sad, disappointed and tired when something negative happens. Having emotions is what makes us human.

However, being sad is not even near to being the same as having depression, not even having feelings of depression. The three are totally different things. Since we all know what being sad is, which is the opposite of feeling happy, I will focus on the remaining two options.

Depressive Periods

When something terrible happens, like being fired from a very good job, losing a family member, or breaking up with a significant other, be it a relationship or a friendship, or even cutting ties with a family member, maybe even when you have to move to another place and leave it all behind, you are probably going to go through a depressive period. Consequently, you will feel depressed.

When life becomes difficult, challenging, harder and things don’t go the way we want them to, we are going to feel bad, more than bad. And we’ll feel worse if things don’t change soon enough. That’s normal and common. It’s a natural response because we expected them to end differently. While it may be still bad, not THAT bad.

I felt depressed when I changed school, I felt depressed when I was fired, and I felt depressed when I couldn’t keep writing when several problems, one after the other, prevented me from doing so. Yet, that didn’t stop me from going on. Being depressed, being sick, is much worse.

Depression

To have depression is to be your own worst enemy, to not be able to tell yourself that everything’s going to be fine, that it will be alright, and, if not controlled, that you deserve to live. Being depressed means that you are disconnected from reality and are able to see only the bad, the negative and the fails.

Being depressed is not being able to get out of the bed in the morning, not calling a friend, not getting out of the house, not thinking about something else besides how miserable you are, because you cannot find a reason to do so. In your own eyes, you are the worst thing that could have happened. You think there is just one way to make things right and erase such a mistake.

To be depressed is to go on, to keep living and laughing, smiling, joking, kidding, having a good time with family and friends, and all of sudden, you feel bad, and then you feel worse, and worse, and worse, until you need to lock yourself up in the bathroom, trying to figure out what caused that reaction. I’ll give a clue: most of the time, nothing caused it.

Not Knowing When I’ll Fall

Right now, as I write this, I am not depressed. I feel positive, creative and optimistic. Yet, I know that at some point, today, tomorrow, or any day of the week or month, I will feel like trash, garbage, useless, and think that what I do is pointless. Why? Because I suffer from depression. I have depression. I am sick. Despite this, I’m making progress and know that there will be a day when I overcome this sickness. Yet, that day is not today, or tomorrow, or any day of this week or month.

Having depression is not knowing when you will fall and feel like s**t again, for no apparent reason, and remember all the times you were wrong, when you failed, when you said something you were not supposed to, when you broke a promise, when you forgot something important. It all comes back over and over and over and over again until you’re left black and blue on the floor, your bed, the sofa, or a chair.

It’s Not Pretty, It’s An Illness

It is not, is it? I always say that I have never been diagnosed by a psychologist as being depressed. First of all, because I cannot afford one. Secondly, because I know myself. After 11 years fighting it, I don’t need anyone to tell me what I have and have not. I know who I am and what I deal with.

So no, being depressed is not pretty, not one bit. Trust me on this one, despite TV, movies, comics, books, poems and music making it look nice, although everyone tries to romanticize it, it is not pretty to wake up feeling like you want to cut yourself. It’s not pretty. It’s sickness.