'you Enjoy Being Depressed'

[Sandoval]

I've been thinking today - do people who haven't experienced depression actually think that we choose to be depressed? I'm sure some do.

When I've spoken to some friends about how bad I feel, or what I feel like doing sometimes, they bring things into it that to, hve no relation.

'But you're so intelligent... so because I'm supposedly intelligent I shouldn't suffer from a mental illness?

Because I'm not stupid, I shouldn't say stupid things like 'I feel like ending my life'?

If I chose to be like this, I wouldn't have sought help. I wouldn't take pills everyday that make me sick, that give me nightmares, in the hope that I can feel a tiny bit more normal. I wouldn't sit in the Doctors feeling totally ashamed as I try to explain to him that I dread waking up everyday, that I'm living in a bad dream, whilst he types into his computer silently, with smiling family photos around him.

As my friends went out last night, I lay in bed, in my dark room staring at the Tv all night. The programmes triggered me. Random things like people being in a pub in Hollyoaks brought back memories which I couldn't escape from. Finally, I fell asleep, with my heart palpitations occasionally waking me up, in between dreams of hell.

How do you escape from your own thoughts?

[Anahita]

Sandoval,

i dont agree with your friend . my family still (after 13 years) say similar things to me. they always say i am not ill !....just recently they are going to accept it. mum used to say i am selfish and want more that what life gave me. she said:why do you think people must be nice to you?????????????who do you think you are?!!!...............she is right,cause she never treated me well or never saw me as a special person.

funny is that all my psych s surprised when i told them about my life,especialy my childhood...a total hell !!!....i havent told my close friends aboutr my illness,cause i know they cant understand. they may be kind and protective but they simply ARE NOT ABLE to feel what i feel.....because none of them is depressed.they are active and ordinery. they would say : but you are inteligent!...but you can do this to have a good life.....but you can enjoy life if you want!!!!!...........blah ..blah...blah.....

i dont put the blame on your friend....she just cant understand,i think.............

but, i understand that suicidal thoughts,risky behaviours , severe depression, and trying to be isolated.....and things like that, are RESPONSES to those pains and fears in my life(may be yours too).so i dont say"enjoying depression" . i say it's a way to avoid those fears and pains AGAIN . so,you can say: i enjoy being depressed, cause it is much much better than those that i mentioned(depends on your life ofcourse)!!!!!!!!!! but it's deep down...it's not that we sit and think about it,then we decide to be depressed...no way.....

take care

Anahita

[realscape]

Hi Sandoval

Regarding your last post, absolutely this is the telling point of how people don't understand because if you turn that comment "you're so intelligent" on its head then what is the opposite of it?

I am frequently confronted by acquaintances and friends who say "you're so talented", "you're so beautiful", "you're so intelligent". But so fucking what? What the fuck does that MEAN in terms of whether or not I have emotional damage and mental health problems?

Does it mean that in their minds ugly and not particularly bright people who have no special talents ought to feel shit and depressed about themselves? Because that is the only logical conclusion? I mean, where does that leave ugly or disabled or scarred or injured or learning disabled people in their minds? As lesser beings not deserving of happy life? Shocking prejudice.

And the freezing out I get from various MH services, as if I should count myself lucky and jus get on with it. If I broke my leg and had to check into A&E would anyone tell me "but you're too intelligent / talented / beautiful to be treated for a broken leg"?

In fact it makes it all worse by in terms of society and western global media influence, we have got apparently everything that a person needs to have got on the surface. But underneath we haven't. I don't choose do be depressed, I don't choose to be emotionally damaged, I don't choose to be in mental pain. I didn't choose to have two mentally ill parents who treated me wrongly. I don't choose to be completely emotionally incompetent and to not know how to not be incompetent.

As someone said "the worm inside an apple doesn't know there's anything else except apple". We are born into and trapped into our illnesses, not picking and choosing them. We need someone to show us that there is more than the inside of an apple because from where I'm standing life's a heap of shit and I want to die. If that's not really how life is, then someone outside of that needs to baby step me into a different reality. I'm not choosing it, I'm IN IT.

Sorry, hun ramblingggggg........

[Micheal]

"You enjoy being depressed" sounds to me like someone either having a go or they are just ignorant and/or bad with words on this occasion. If the former then tell them to kiss it he/she should have kept their screwed up hate words inside their own head.

Depression can often have a melancholic component anyhow which is a known part of some depressive states, and if you have had a bad time in life you might well feel sorry for yourself so what? These things just kind of happen anyway you don't put a reminder in your diary to feel sorry for yourself on Wednesday between 2pm and 4, mind things often just don't work like that.

I'd say consider in the broader picture whether this is a friend that yow want or not? I'd also say from bitter experience that if you can manage it somehow try to leave other people to it, just let go of what they think or what you might think they think it's just not worth it.

Most of the time humans think in emotionally biased ways and tell themselves they don't i mean happy people tend to be optimistic and unhappy people tend to be pessimistic, so what's either got to do with any postulated 'truth'? It's all bollocks.

Not me though i'm pure anti-reason keep it contradictory i say especially if that's what they want to see.

I hope this helps.

:)

[~ Mandy ~]

I hate people who say things like that.

Most of them are people who have never suffered from depression and from their perspective it might just seem like you're feeling sorry for yourself.

Which you're not, clinical depression is a completely different thing.

[samsung]

i would not wish depression on my worst enemy.

that 'friend' doesnt know what he/she is talking about .

[paddypotty]

depression is maybe a little self indulgent,its hard to step away from the rules you impose upon yourself because of the condition.

But then there is bipolar,they cant step away from their lows or their highs,my dad was a severe bipolar when low he couldnt use the toilet,he didnt know how to eat,he was catatonic,when high he was well just beyond this world,sounds negative maybe but God I yearned for highs like his and hid from his lows cos they were so damn scary.

I think maybe we should bear in mind that depression for every individual comes with a different set of rules,we might have all of the symptoms or only some of them,our life experiences shape how we will get through the depression too.

Patricia

[constantly_confused]

Hi Real, you haven't 'hijacked' the thread, I've been reading yours and others posts, and they're really interesting. My main thought when I posted this was that I feel ashamed of what my friends think of me.

Well, what I percieve.

To think that people think I'm attention seeking, and perhaps pathetic makes me feel even worse, it's just a downward spiral.

I know my friend didn't mean to offend me, but I don't think she really understands how I feel. I don't like telling people how I feel, not in 'real life' anyway.

I have hardly left the house this week, I have been lying in bed. It took SO much effort to wash my hair yesterday.... things like washing my hair seem totally pointless. Which makes me feel disgusting.

Eating seems pointless also, and I just can't do it.

Sometimes I think - maybe I'm not 'mentally ill' .. perhaps I'm just trying to persuade myself that I am, as an excuse for the fact I can't handle life.

Does anyone understand?

Completely. I think this way all the time. Actually I found the responses that your friends remark was reasonable extremely upsetting. Despite my depression I have been spending hours listening to my mum talk of how tough things are at work, had to watch my dad grieve & struggled to be there but I just couldn't, not that I didn't care & would rather be wound up in my depression but because I was afraid of making him feel worse as I couldn't think of a good thing to say.

I too still question my diagnosis, theres no solid proof, no blood test, no operation, nothing. Few symptoms for me are physical & those that are are 'only in the mind' so its hard to believe its really an illness. Plus, lets face it, its not socially acceptable to be unhappy & simpleminded non-depressive people will not be able to understand us being unhappy without some logical/scientific explanation e.g. getting dumped. I guess thats why people say why are you depressed & not why are you diabetic or you enjoy being diabetic.

I think it is wrong to categorise all of us as being the same & I strongly disagree with the selfishness theory. My God if there is one person I don't care about, its me. May I point out that people who have struggled out of suicide will often have thought about their families & the pain they would go through?

Or perhaps I'm not depressed as I care too much about others.

Sorry.. this brings back horrible memories.

The only person you need to answer to is you. Lets keep it at that.

Take care. x

CC