Depression

Depression can hit anyone. Some people are more susceptible to periods of depression than others but it can come seemingly out of nowhere and attack your brain.

Depression involves more than just feeling depressed. It can cause physical pain in the body. It can cause feelings of worthlessness and hopelessness. There is often a feeling of darkness that feels like it has settled around your mind and even around you in a physical way.

It is hard to be in a state of depression because many people around you will not understand what is going on with you and it is very hard to describe to people who have not experienced it. 

Depression can often happen to creative, intelligent people and to people who are sensitive to their feelings and the feelings of others. 

Many things can trigger depression.

With some people it is linked to organic differences in their brain. People with bipolar disorder, for example, have differences in their brain that cause depression to come on suddenly and last for long periods ot time or sometimes shorter periods of time. Different people are different and their brains are wired differently.

I mentioned the problem of people not understanding and there are other very painful things about depression. The lack of understanding from people can cause self isolation on the part of the sufferer. The depressed person can feel like they are being injured by the suggestions of the other people.

When people do not understand depression they tend to offer “unhelpful helpfulness” and if you are a person that has struggled with depression before then you know what I mean.

People will tell you to just shake it off, to get some exercise, and they will try to force you to go out into social situations that may be traumatizing to you. People get offended and take it personally when you do not feel like socializing. This creates a feeling of being an alien that does not fit in with the other people on this planet.

You can feel like you are the only person that is incapable of interacting with other people. You may feel like you are bringing other people down with your mood. There is a feeling that you will lose relationships and actually there is a possibility of actually losing relationships with certain people, but those people were probably not worth keeping on your friend list anyway.

You are not alone. There are many of us who have suffered from depression. If you feel alone, then please search the tag depression on wordpress and connect with other people who will validate your feelings. You are not an alien on the planet, but you may feel that way in your immediate social circle and in your family.

Sometimes periods of depression need to be gone through in order to get to the other side.

There can be reasons that we are not even aware of for the depression we are in. Betrayals, disappointments about life. disillusionment about humanity, can all cause us to become in a period of needing to reflect and re-evaluate our purpose and our lives.

We can become aware that our original “map of reality” does not match the actual reality of the world we are living in. This concept of map of reality is something that I heard on the Spartan Life Coach channel. He has many helpful videos that I recommend for people with C-PTSD from childhood mental abuse.

If you came from a disordered, mentally abusive childhood or you felt invisible during your childhood, then you are prone for depressive episodes. In very disrupted childhoods, there are certain developmental stages that can be missed and the mental software for dealing with certain situations and certain kinds of people in the world, was not given to you.

Depression can occur after an abusive relationship, even if you do not see the relationship as having been abusive. If you were emotionally abused as a child or a teenager then you will be prone to see certain treatment as just the way it is, whereas other people would see them as inappropriate or abusive.

When you long for certain things to be true in the world and they turn out not to be true, then this can cause a major depression. Some children of alcoholics and other mentally abusive childhoods have trouble accepting certain aspects of reality to be what they are. Your reality was confused and interfered with as a child. 

You may have been taught that you have to tolerate abuse in order to show your love for other people. You may also have been conditioned to continue on in situations that make you miserable. Your capacity to  make changes for your own benefit may have been interfered with.

You have the right to make changes for your own mental health and happiness.

You have the right to feel depressed if that is how you feel.

You have the right to refuse to socialize or to choose how, when, where  and how long you want to interact with others.

Being forced to socialize, under someone else’s terms, is being manipulated.

Being forced to hide your emotions, and to seem happy in order to make other people comfortable can be retraumatizing.

Feeling invisible is bad. You should not go into situations where you feel like no one sees the real you, or cares about what is going on with you.

Reaching out to others is good, especially if they have experienced depression and can validate what you are feeling.

Being yourself is critical and the right to feel what you feel is necessary.

Grieving for losses is necessary. Losses can include…

relationships

loss of youth

loss of a job

loss of loved ones who died, even if it was years ago

loss of innocent beliefs…such as the world is a wonderful place and everyone is basically good

loss if previous identity…you are who you are now…there will be times for changing and growing based on experiences and learning more about the world….of your identity needs to be altered that is okay…but we can grieve for a past identity also

loss of comforting surroundings

loss of anything that you feel was a real loss, no one can tell you what is more important to you that something else should be…your feelings are valid

You have a right to your feelings and the depression will continue to get worse if you try to deny your feelings, avoid processing losses, or allow others to try to force you to pretend or to act the way they want you to.

Your depression is unique just like you are unique

People cannot tell you that you have a great life and that you have no reason to be depressed. They do not know all of the things about you, or what could be causing the depression. You may not even be aware of all the things that are going on in your brain. 

It is a time to get to know yourself better and to care for yourself, and to grieve over losses. It is a time to give yourself permission to feel things. It is a time to draw boundaries with other people about them telling you that they know what you need.

Think about what you would say to someone if the asked you “What can I do to help you?” 

You may not have an answer right away, but I want you to think about that answer to the question. If you can identify things that would be helpful to you, then it might be a way to communicate with certain people who may be able to help you in a real way. 

In the mean time you can help yourself by thinking about what you can do for yourself and what you need.