The Intricacies and Difficulties of Depression

I'm not one to hide the fact that I was diagnosed with clinical depression around the age of 16 or 17. And that was after a few years of believing I was depressed with the fear of reaching out. Contrary to what society may still believe, this should not be taboo. Millions, I'd venture to say billions, suffer from some form of depression at some point in their lives, whether clinical/chronic depression or situational. And often, those same people suffer from its partner-in-crime, anxiety.

Now, in my own life, I've experienced many perspectives on this topic. I have personally suffered through excruciating bouts of depression and anxiety myself. And I've watched others do the same. But depression is a tricky bitch to express it mildly. In my experience, and what I've certainly witnessed in others, is that when you're depressed, you're focused on yourself. You think about your shortcomings, how the world has let you down and you feel it must be your inadequacies that led to such a thing. You blame yourself while also blaming the world, the circumstances, and even those around you.

Depression isn't solely mental either. Depression has various symptoms, sometimes symptoms completely opposite of what you'd expect, and opposing each other. Your own symptoms may change and morph into different symptoms than before, different symptoms at different points in your life. Your symptoms may be opposite of a friend's and they may not even see it in you and you may not see it in them. 

For me personally, depression comes in waves. Sometimes I'm happy-ish for a year at a time, then suddenly it creeps in and doesn't creep back out for 6 months for no understandable or discernable reason whatsoever.  And often when depressed I reach out for advice from those I know understand, I use friends as a crutch. I  complain more than anyone I've ever known in my life and expect them to listen, help, and give me all of their attention and support (whether I know that is what I'm doing or not). And in my worst times, I've had people say to me that they could no longer stand me, that my negativity was bringing them down, draining them, and they needed to distance themselves from me. In those times, I thought "What horrible people! How could they abandon me so? Don't they care?!" And that's what depression does. It warps your mind so that all there is you, you and your hurt. And, at times, you have a moment where you realize you aren't the only one hurting and then you feel immensely guilty and blame yourself, but in the blame, you still feel bad for yourself. And what you have to really understand, to continue with the above analogy, if you put too much weight on the crutch, it can collapse. And then you blame it for not being strong enough to hold you up. 

I've reached out to those nearest to me that suffer from the same affliction. And it can be very comforting to know that you are not alone. It can be comforting to see that others experience that same creeping monster that may hibernate or wake up at any given time. But what comes along with these friendships is that you are not alone- meaning they suffer too and need the same love, care, and warmth that you desire when you are depressed. And this can get even trickier.  

You may spend a year feeling horribly depressed, spend the next year taking medication, attending therapy sessions and finally feeling better. But then someone in your life may have their depression monster wake up and pull them down into a year of depression. And you so want to be there. You want to be the support, the love, the tenderness. But you can't or you do for awhile and then you burn out with bitterness. Some people interpret depression as present and then vanished. But in my experience, it doesn't vanish, it is simply at bay, waiting to creep back in. When you spend a year fighting that monster and finally feel good again, it waits for the triggers, it waits. Depression is a daily battle, and sometimes you can't win. And the external struggle on top of the internal struggle makes it harder. 

You wake up every day fighting it, fending it off, sometimes with vigor, sometimes barely holding it back, sometimes giving in and not fighting at all. But while you watch someone else you love go through it, you so strongly empathize without noticing it as an imminent danger to yourself. You see the same signs, the same feelings-- of course, it is different and evolving and changing all the time-- but there are moments where you recognize it in others. And you want to fix that friend's world because you've fixed it for yourself, for a brief time, and you feel strong again, maybe strong enough for both of you. But the problem lies here: if you drain yourself, if you give all that energy to someone else, you lose the energy to fight your own depression monster and then he comes creeping back in. But it's such a difficult, tumultuous thing because you so want to help, and you feel selfish not helping. But if you don't focus on yourself enough, you may fall back into a losing streak. And what makes it even more vicious is that whatever friend is suffering deeply, is so into their own pain and suffering, so overtaken by their own monster that they may not recognize all of your efforts. They may not see all of your attempts to alieve their pain and you don't blame them. They may only see a couple of times you couldn't be there because their depression monster has taken hold and changed their perspective. And when you give so much of your energy that you start to lose again, you start to fall, and that person doesn't even see it or the immense effort you've spent helping them, they only see your moments of absence, it just feeds your monster. 

One thing I've learned in therapy, with the help of medication which allowed me to see more than just me, is that you can react to your depression differently. It's not your fault you feel depressed but you can make changes in how you respond to it, how you react to it, that part is more or less in your control. Definitely sometimes less in your control. But once I started to slowly modify my reactions to my bouts of depression, modifying my behavior, I pushed people away less because I started to see what was pushing them away. I noticed that I was draining their energy for their fight. But we all come to this realization at different times, so while you see it, your friends may not or may have seen it years before you. And of course, you can lean on them sometimes, because they empathize. And they lean on you because you empathize but there must be a balance to keep us from draining each other. This is certainly confusing when you're at your worst because you think they must not love you if they are not there at every moment, but that's not it, they just can't fight for two, not continuously.

This post isn't a post filled with answers. This is a post of confusion and uncertainty. I'd like to say the answer here is to set up clear boundaries. But what do you do if the other person's monster intimidates you so much you can't suggest boundaries? What if you're losing the battle with your monster so hard that you can't push yourself to try to ask for boundaries to help you both be stronger? How do you continue to fight for two? What if that person stops being there when your monster comes out after you've been there for them? What if your monster is too much for you and them?

Depression is a monster that takes all shapes and forms and differs from person to person. It's a daily battle and anyone suffering from it should truly be proud of any small advances on the enemy.