Defining depression better
Depression is one of those words that’s lost its meaning in many ways, like love or mindfulness. It’s over used and diluted, and to be honest I’m unsure as to why depression and OCD seem to have jumped to the forefront of mental health labels and made their way into everyday discourse as they have.
Perhaps it’s a reflection of our growing comfort with mental health, a way of normalizing the challenges we have, or maybe it was just a random occurrence. Still, “I’m so depressed” can mean anything from ‘I feel sad’ to ‘I am struggling with debilitating mental health challenges’.
The truth is however, that this obscurity blocks meaningful dialogue and can make it very hard to really know when sadness is more than just typical sadness.
How depression manifests
Depression is not feeling down for a day. It’s an enduring state that lasts most every day for a period of at least two weeks without relief.
Mood symptoms, which are an aspect of depression, but not the whole piece, are more than sadness. Mood issues, especially in adolescents, can take the form of irritability or sadness. Unlike a bad or sad mood depression also includes a very real drop in energy and motivation.
One of the most distressing symptoms of depression is anhedonia, which is the inability to feel pleasure. As you can imagine, the result of this is that life ends up feeling like you’re playing a part in a movie, it’s your life, but you’re not really in it — a truly disconnecting feeling.
When the reward circuitry in our brains stops working optimally we stop feeling the pleasure of our life, which is the moment you realize how pleasure driven we are. Without it, everything is a grind. Life becomes a series of the things we know we like, know we should do, but don’t feel it anymore. The lack of drive, energy and motivation to do it creates a painful void. And this is where hopelessness comes in.
Nothing feels the same, we can’t do the things we know we should do, we are disappointing others. We pile on with negative self-talk to the point that we can’t ever imagine being better. Hopelessness is the seed to suicidality.
THIS, to varying degrees, is depression.
What can we do about it?
Compassion is the key to enduring and healing from depression.
Self-compassion is predicated on understanding that you have depression. You didn’t cause it, it’s not your fault, and you’re not doing anything wrong. It’s one of the only conditions where we somehow imagine it’s our fault if we’re not ‘getting better’. Is there any other physical condition where we think this way?
The answer is no.
That’s why compassion from others is critical. Surrounding yourself with people who are supportive, who don’t think they know how you’ll heal (Let’s stop saying ‘I know exactly how you feel’), and who encourage you to take the time you need to take care of yourself is true compassion.
So what does working with a professional look like? It means having someone who has walked this journey before and can offer you what may be helpful. It’s also a place where you can feel safe to explore depression and understand what it means to you. Medication? Maybe, but that is a discussion to have with your doctor and is completely up to you. Lifestyle change? Probably, because while we didn’t cause it, there are often things we can do differently to support our recovery.
Working through our beliefs about ourselves and the world, or self-talk, and our self-compassion is one of the greatest doors we can open for ourselves.. But let’s be honest, depression or not, we could all benefit from this as a way to bring forward a more connected, compassionate, and accepting community.
