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I really hope I don't piss anyone off with my post. However, I first read this thread earlier today and here I am about 12 hrs. later feeling the need to comment because of the ill-informed or just downright ignorant things I've read on this thread.
Clinical Depression is notsomething you can control. There is a hugedifference between just being "depressed" and being "clinically depressed". I have experienced both. People need to understand that when a person is "clinically depressed", the chemical's in their brains/bodies are screwed up. They need medication to help stabalize their minds. There is a massive gap between someone who says "I'm bummed" because a chick they asked out said "no" and someone who has just lost an extremely close family member, or a job when they have 8 people to support or something along those lines. Tough life situation's can trigger real depression.
To all of you who have never experienced being "clinically depressed", you can't possibly have any concept of what it is like.
If you can, try to imagine feeling like your entire being is nothing but cosmic dust. You don't count in the grand scheme of things, because you really might not exist. Your whole life and existence might really be a hoax. You feel like there is no point in being on this earth because you're just going to die anyway. O'kay, that might be exaggerating (and simplified at the same time because there just is no way to explain the depth of your thoughts/pain/feelings), but the feeling of your life being surreal seems just like that (I'm sorry for using "you", "your" or "you"re" in place of "I', that's just the way I word things). You feel so numb to life that it seems like you are not really here on earth, you're just some celestial ooze that thinks it's actually been in physical form for some time. This is just my experience and certainly not something I felt all the time (maybe 30%). I can't even put into words the helpless feelings I experienced when I was clinically depressed (and I certainly don't mean to imply that other's have experienced the same things). I felt utter hopelessness and helplessness about my place in life and the world, and it was certainly not something anyone could fix by just talking to me. I was never suicidal because no matter how low I got, I loved my family and husband too much to want to leave or hurt them, and I'm a complete wimp when it comes to pain or death. Not being able to check out almost made it worse to deal with.
It's awful to experience clinical depression. It only hit me about 4 yrs. after my first and only child died. I started working full-time for the first time ever in my life three days after his funeral because we really needed the income and the job opportunity was there for me. I was never really fully able to grieve for him because of starting work, therefore I think the grieving was delayed and it (nature, life) caught up with me.
My Mother is Bi-polar and I won't even go there (because I could literally write a novel). I think I inherited (genetic and lifestyle?) the tendency towards depression ,although, after being on some unbelievably strong drugs for 8 mths. and quiting them, I havn't had a day of depression in the 3 yrs. since.
Tinfoil: I don't quite agree with you but I have been in your sister's shoe's. I had been on one anti-depressant for three yrs. that wasn't cutting it. I went to a so-called "psychiatrist" (sp?) (I called the office three times to confirm she was one and it turned out later she wasn't) who freaked out on my first visit and said she could'nt help me and that I should check myself into the (right next-door) hospital. I did so the next day and (like your sister) had an interview that maybe lasted all of 15 mins. They checked me in and within 40 mins. I heard my name being called to the desk. I went there and was told to swallow about 6 pills in a paper cup. Mind you, I had only taken one anti-depressent for the previous 3 yrs. I took the pills (including anti-psychotic's!) and proceeded to be stoned out of my mind for about a month until my Hubby, Dad and Sis put their foots down and said "something's not right here". They came with me to the "psychiatrist's" office to confront her and it turned out they had screwed up the dosage on 3 of the drugs I was sent home with. As I said above, I only took the drugs for 8 months before quitting them. I don't know if I naturally came out of the depression (some never do like my mother) or if the drugs knocked something right in my brain, just that I havn't needed them since.
Depression is a huge quagmire that needs to be delt with on an individual basis, and not treated lightly or just shrugged off as something people "just need to get over with and buck up"! My $0.02.
Ali
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'Beware the Jabberwock, my son! The jaws that bite, the claws that catch! Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun, The frumious Bandersnatch!'--Jabberwocky, Lewis Carroll
"You cannot do a kindness too soon because you never know how soon it will be too late."--Ralph Waldo Emerson
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