Ah, depression. The utmost in depressing topics, right up there with the stock market, America's current president (at time of writing), and oh, right, Lyme Disease.
Lyme Disease can without question cause depression. Understandably. Depression probably doesn't cause Lyme Disease. They can exist separately though, too, and you certainly don't have to be suffering from any sort of physical illness to get depression. This is one of the reasons depression is depressing: it's one of the least understood mental illnesses because of this. Famous stars who seem to have everything can even get depression. The latest star being treated for depression is Justin Bieber himself.
My experience with depression started when I was a preteen. I exhibited some symptoms beginning middle school but a fall-out with my friends instigated a full-on clinical diagnosis of Major Depressive Disorder. I don't really remember what happened at the time but I think I was just going home and going right to sleep, maybe getting up for dinner or homework, then going back to bed. I was put on antidepressants as a preteen. To this day I think they are what put into motion my bipolar diagnosis, but at the time that was the only option. Therapy wasn't cutting it. I also had to change schools.
Depression can be acute or chronic, and like I said, there doesn't have to be anything specific causing it. In a lot of cases it can be resistant to treatment. Chronic depression is usually a neurotransmitter problem and that can be corrected with medication potentially, but finding the right medication is another problem in itself and can take years of trial and error. Conjunctive therapy can help but if your brain isn't operating it's not gonna do a whole lot.
The major depression subsided but I continued to have low-key depression throughout high school, and it affected my self esteem which affected my ability to make friends, and that became a vicious cycle. I had to switch schools several times and was home-schooled for two semesters.
That's the thing about depression, it is a cycle. Your depression causes low self-esteem, loss of motivation, loss of interest in doing things, isolative behaviors. And these cause withdrawal from society and formerly enjoyable activities, and then you lose your sense of purpose because nothing makes you happy anymore and that's even more depressing. It's as much a physical illness as a mental illness. Your brain just is not functioning properly and the happy parts aren't responding, to put it in very un-scientific terms.
I went to college and again had trouble there. My roommates did not like me for whatever reason. I was still struggling with an eating disorder which worsened notably during that period. I had to drop out within a month and spent the rest of the semester at home doing nothing. I slept from 4am to 4pm for months. I eventually went to city college the following semester and made up for lost time by taking a ton of units, but the friend thing remained a chronic struggle.
School and work are two major things depression impacts. Teachers lose their patience when students are chronically late, miss assignments, and seem uninterested in the subject matter (because nothing is interesting anymore and why bother). Bosses lose their patience when employees are unmotivated, potentially unfriendly, and don't get their work done on time. Dropping out of school and quitting work are unfortunate consequences of an illness you really have no control over but for some reason are blamed and shamed for having.
I was in my last official year of college when I started smoking weed for depression. I don't recommend this for obvious reasons I'll get into right now. First, weed is not a magical cure-all for everyone. One of the most annoying groups of people are the marijuana evangelists. There is no such thing as a cure-all drug. If it sounds too good to be true, it is. Everyone knows about weed and its existence, and the reason not everyone uses it is because it's not for everyone. Well, eventually, this weed caused me to stop sleeping, which of course caused me to be delusional, and then I was put in a hospital and diagnosed with mania and bipolar disorder. That instigated a two-month long inpatient stay where I put on 30 pounds due to being drugged up so I would fall the fuck asleep. Queue relapse of eating disorder and I think I explained the rest in my first post.
This is the problem with diagnosing depression. Often other illnesses are mistaken for depression. Bipolar 1 and 2 have major depression components. Binge eating or restricting can be a symptom of depression but also an eating disorder in spite of a healthy weight (my views on eating disorder treatment warrants a whole 'nother post). PTSD is majorly rooted in depression. But even physical illnesses like hypothyroidism, chronic fatigue syndrome, any chronic illness really - the fact that the body slows itself down or is spending all its energy fighting a virus or bacteria or parasite or what have you, means it's not focusing on, well, making you happy. The bacteria invading your brain can fuck up all the wiring up there too. Hell even having shitty gut bacteria can mess up your happiness signals. Junk food diets aren't exactly known for making people happy.
In conclusion. Depression is depressing. The politics of depression is depressing. The treatment and outcome for depression are depressing. Did you know it's been established that there will never be a cure for depression? That's depressing. But that doesn't mean you shouldn't keep fighting. Not everyone is depressed, most people have had a life before depression, many have lives after depression. It's possible. It's hard. Do I have the answer? No. I'll always struggle with it and it's why I'm mistaken for an introvert which again is a whole 'nother rant. I've been told it's almost a part of my personality at this point by a therapist, and a psychiatrist said I'll need to be on benzos for the rest of my life (again, a whole 'nother topic for another time), because depression often comes with anxiety. I've tried treatment after treatment, neurofeedback, TMS, drugs, illegal drugs, no drugs at all, eating healthy, exercising, meditation, socializing. Some stuff works sometimes, some stuff doesn't work at all, it's a crapshoot. Is there a point to this post? No. But hopefully something in here has been relatable and maybe even made you feel a little better that you're not the only one suffering.
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