Feep said:
I partially understand...there are days (not so much anymore, though) where I would feel miserable for really no apparent reason, and it's tough to snap out of.
But the logical "half" of your brain and the emotional "half" of your brain aren't in some separate containers. If your brain is constantly feeding in negative feedback and emotion without real logical cause, that's a medical disorder, and should be treated as such. If it isn't, you *can* fight back, because those feelings shouldn't be there 24/7. I have a few friends who have, and I also have a few friends who do indeed have clinical depression, and are being treated for it.
I suppose you're right. It definitely isn't as black and white as some people like to paint it. For some fighting through the misery is an option, for others it's so debilitating that they simply can't and for many, many people in between they'll spend months or years slowly gaining or losing ground to their negative emotions.
I feel as though a lot of people who simplify depression to 'well just fight through it! there's no reason for suicide!' don't understand how completely draining it is to spend every day over months or years fighting your emotion. You eventually run out of fuel - and
that's the point at which a lot of people consider suicide. It's a last resort measure to end a misery and hopelessness that seems insurmountable.
For most people depression can be conquered with psychiatric or therapeutic help. But it is a very, very difficult battle.
I find that I tend to avoid discussing depression with anyone other than close friends and family - people who haven't experienced it often try to draw a parallel to their own experiences with sadness. A lot of those people pop up in these threads on GAF telling people to 'man up' or 'deal with it' or calling suicide 'selfish' or what have you. They don't understand what it's like to have emotions that cease to respond in a logical or reasonable way because they've never been through it.
It sucks that depression is such an invisible struggle.
People learn at a very young age how to deal with the sensitivities of the physically handicapped. You don't see people going up to someone in a wheel chair and telling them to 'quit being a little bitch and just walk!' or something of that ilk. We all understand that it is out of their control, and perhaps with medical and therapeutic help they can regain some of their physical ability. Nobody can really
understand what it's like to lose the ability to walk unless they've been there, but we all know that it is a legitimate disability and treat it with respect.
Nobody really learns about the emotionally handicapped, though, unless someone close to them is going through an emotional struggle. It's largely swept under the rug in our society. Just like physical handicaps, you can't truly understand an emotional handicap unless you've been there. I can't understand what it's like to be schizophrenic. But I've been through enough of an emotional struggle that I'm able to acknowledge it as a legitimate handicap and respect those suffering from it.
Society (and GAF) at large often don't extend any respect to emotional disorders. They think depression is just being sad, and since they've been sad and gotten over it they simplify and generalize it as a non-issue.
Same with suicide. Since they've never lost all hope they think those that do are just weak. I often find myself offended by some of the responses in these threads by people who aren't willing to try to understand a problem that is beyond their scope of experience.
