It's Personal: A Struggle with Depression

The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines depressed as being in "low spirits, sad."¹ Medterms.com gives a more in-depth definition, "an illness that involves the body, mood, and thoughts, that affects the way a person eats and sleeps, the way one feels about oneself, and the way one thinks about things."² Those are just words, while they can't convey a depth of meaning they give a general idea of what depression is and how it affects a person as a whole. Most of us have seen commercials for the treatment of depression and some of us have even witnessed how it affects the people around us. Neither of the definitions nor the commercials explain how it affects an afflicted individual.

Depression is personal. It affects different people in different ways. Nonetheless there are key things that help diagnose depression. The Diagnostic Statistical Manual (DSM) fourth edition lists several points for diagnosis a few of which are, "³ There are also self-tests online to help you decide if you do or do not need some form of help with your depression, however these are all objective tests for a very internal and necessarily subjective feeling.

For myself depression is a daily event, some days I manage to go through the motions as though nothing were wrong and fooling a great number of people around me all the while feeling like a footnote. What does feeling like a footnote mean? It's being there, present, but easily ignored. It's being passed over as unnecessary. It's feeling like a waste of space. The footnote is generally that extra bit of information located at the bottom of a page or the back of the book. I've spent the majority of my life feeling like I was a waste of space, an oxygen thief, and generally unworthy of anything from praise to even standard acknowledgements. That is not, however, to say that I don't crave praise, or standard acknowledgements, because I do.

It doesn't matter that there's evidence to the contrary, or that people assure me otherwise, depression is far from logical. No matter how many times people tell me that they enjoy having me around there's always that little voice in the back of my mind telling me that they're just being nice. The negative self image feeds my depression and my depression that feeds that self image. I've never really felt like I belong, and when I do go out I feel like an imposter imposing myself on whomever I'm with at the time. As a child I was treated with Prozac, which is now known to have adverse affect in pediatric patients. The drug and the depression caused me to lash out at others and at myself. I was unaware that Prozac was making me feel worse. All I knew was that this little green and white pill was supposed to make me feel better, and it wasn't. That scared me, and I turned angry.

It was important for me to realize that depression wasn't my fault. According to allaboutdepression.com "the causes of clinical depression are likely to be different for different people. Sometimes a depressive episode can appear to come out of nowhere at a time when everything seems to be going fine. Other times, depression may be directly related to a significant event in our lives such as losing a loved one, experiencing trauma, or battling a chronic illness."⁴ While knowing this doesn't alleviate depression it did allow me to seek help. If you believe that you suffer from depression, or have thoughts of self-hurt there are people and websites out there to help. Please, remember that you are not alone even though it feels like it.

http://www.twloha.com "To Write Love on Her Arms is a non-profit movement dedicated to presenting hope and finding help for people struggling with depression, addiction, self-injury and suicide. TWLOHA exists to encourage, inform, inspire and also to invest directly into treatment and recovery."

Suicide Prevention Services has three separate lines to help you 24 hours a day, seven days a week.⁵
Suicide Hotline: 1-800-784-2433
LifeLine: 1-800-273-8255
Depression Hotline: 1-630-482-9696

http://www.depressionhaven.org/phpBB2/index.php "a depression community where you can receive support among friends."

http://communities.healia.com/?q=communities/depression "Through this Depression support group, you can get Depression information, share experiences about Depression, connect with peers, and get answers to your Depression questions from health professionals."

_{1 http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/depressed}
² _{http://www.medterms.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=2947}
³ _{http://www.mental-health-today.com/dep/dsm.htm}
⁴ _{http://www.allaboutdepression.com/cau_01.html}
⁵ _{http://www.spsfv.org/hotlines.htm}