Educate Yourself

I came across this quote on Tumblr  the other day and it spoke volumes to me. It's really hard to describe to people the obstacles I face on a daily basis; the constant struggle I endure with myself. I've tried to explain my feelings on this blog before, but I think this quote says it best. Please take the time to educate yourself on how depression affects those individuals suffering from it so you can better understand them.

"Depression is humiliating. It turns intelligent, kind people into zombies who can’t wash a dish or change their socks. It affects the ability to think clearly, to feel anything, to ascribe value to your children, your lifelong passions, your relative good fortune. It scoops out your normal healthy ability to cope with bad days and bad news, and replaces it with an unrecognizable sludge that finds no pleasure, no delight, no point in anything outside of bed. You alienate your friends because you can’t comport yourself socially, you risk your job because you can’t concentrate, you live in moderate squalor because you have no energy to stand up, let alone take out the garbage. You become pathetic and you know it. And you have no capacity to stop the downward plunge. You have no perspective, no emotional reserves, no faith that it will get better. So you feel guilty and ashamed of your inability to deal with life like a regular human, which exacerbates the depression and the isolation. Depression is humiliating.

If you’ve never been depressed, thank your lucky stars and back off the folks who take a pill so they can make eye contact with the grocery store cashier. No one on earth would choose the nightmare of depression over an averagely turbulent normal life.

It’s not an incapacity to cope with day to day living in the modern world. It’s an incapacity to function. At all. If you and your loved ones have been spared, every blessing to you. If depression has taken root in you or your loved ones, every blessing to you, too. Depression is humiliating.

No one chooses it. No one deserves it. It runs in families, it ruins families. You cannot imagine what it takes to feign normalcy, to show up to work, to make a dentist appointment, to pay bills, to walk your dog, to return library books on time, to keep enough toilet paper on hand, when you are exerting most of your capacity on trying not to kill yourself. Depression is real. Just because you’ve never had it doesn’t make it imaginary. Compassion is also real. And a depressed person may cling desperately to it until they are out of the woods and they may remember your compassion for the rest of their lives as a force greater than their depression. Have a heart. Judge not lest ye be judged."

My Experience: Part II - The Suffering That Depression Has Caused Me To Endure

It’s really hard to put into words how I feel when I’m depressed. There’s no words strong enough to do my feelings justice and if you’ve never experienced depression yourself, you can only try to imagine how terrible it really feels. No one can understand the true horror of depression unless they’ve felt it first-hand. If you’ve never been clinically depressed your body just isn’t programmed to feel such strong negative emotions, to hit a low that reaches deeper than any low you have ever experienced. Lucky you.

I have panic attacks, anxiety attacks, full on mental breakdowns that all occur just out of the blue. I can literally be perfectly happy and not have a worry in the world one minute and then all of a sudden this rush washes over me and I feel scared, although I don’t know of what, my mind is blank yet racing with thoughts at the same time, I forget everything I was doing, everything I should be doing, everything I am and I just become overwhelmed with negativity – it’s like I’m under water, drowning, being tossed around by a giant wave with no way of knowing when it’ll stop, if it’ll stop, if I’ll ever get the chance to come up for air. My chest feels tight, it’s hard to breath. I start shaking and crying, gasping and hyperventilating. I need to get somewhere safe immediately – my bed, the arms of my boyfriend, my mom or my sister. It goes on for hours like this. Every time I start to feel a little calmer and the tears have managed to stop flowing then another rush comes over me. There’s no trying to stop it, to get a hold of myself, my brain can’t even fathom how to go about doing that. All I have to do is wait; endure the pain of it all until it comes to its natural end. Needless to say, I feel off for the rest of the day. I can’t shake the feeling of what happened. I feel sad, down, lonely, tired. I just want to fall asleep and hope I sleep right through until the next day.

I cry a lot. I’ve heard that crying may mean you’re not dealing with depression but simply grief because as I explained in a previous post (Depression vs. Sadness), your mood produces emotional symptoms, whereas the symptoms of depression are more physical. But I’ve always been a very emotional person, I’ve always turned to crying as a way to release the feelings built up inside me and so I think my excessive crying now is due not to the temporary mood of grief, but to grieving for the loss of myself that depression has caused. I don’t recognize myself any more, and sometimes no matter how hard I try, I can’t get back to the way I used to be and this scares me. So whenever people ask me how I’m doing, whenever I’m forced to talk about my depression, I get a lump in my throat and the tears start swelling up behind my eyes and no matter how hard I try, it eventually becomes too much and I break down crying.

Sometimes I’ll be sitting by myself and I just start crying out of nowhere. All of a sudden this feeling of frustration over takes me and I can’t escape it. I bring my knees to my chest, put my forehead on my knees, and grab at my hair with both hands, pulling on my hair because I feel so overwhelmed, so frustrated, so broken.

I get irritated a lot and lose my temper. When people do things that I used to find funny and playful, I now have no patience for them and they cause me to be annoyed. The littlest things set me off and I argue a lot more than I used to. I also can’t concentrate – my mind either feels overwhelmed and jumps from one idea to the next, making it impossible for me to make up my mind or I stare blankly ahead while my mind is off in la-la land, thinking of absolutely nothing, just wasting time away.

Most of the time I have zero motivation to do anything. There’s lots of things I’d like to do, and often I’ll sit there staring at things, willing myself to just pick them up and start doing something, but I just can’t. There’s no explanation for it. There’s just this force within me that is holding me back. It’s terrible, because I’m so bored, but no matter how strong the boredom, I can’t bring myself to do anything. Sometimes I can’t even read or watch TV or do mindless tasks. I just sit there, staring off in the distance. Sometimes I go days without showering because it just seems like such a huge chore. I love to cook but I barely eat decent meals anymore because I just don’t feel like making them. I live for nature and the outdoors but most of the time I can’t bring myself to get dressed let alone leave the house, even to just go sit in my back yard for a bit. It takes me hours to fall asleep at night, usually I’m not asleep until 4am and then I never want to wake up and get out of bed in the morning. By the time I’m up it’s almost lunch time and I’ve wasted half my day just lying in bed. I used to be extremely active (sports, gym, yoga, zumba) but now I do none of that; it’s just too much effort. I’ve become lazy, but not a kind of laziness I can control. It’s not like I don’t want to do these things and rather sit around doing nothing, definitely not! I would love to be my active self again, but I just can’t. Again, there’s that imaginary force holding me back.

Most days I get out of bed and go sit in my recliner, I drink a tea and spend the whole day reading. I only get up to go to the bathroom, snack on something that doesn’t require time to make or to refill my tea. I feel like each day just blends right into the next one, it’s all a blur. My life is passing me by. Days have turned into weeks, into months and now into years of me doing absolutely nothing with my life. It saddens me that I’m missing out on so much, that I’m missing out on being a regular 24 year old girl, that I can’t hold on to a job and don’t even have enough money to live off of let alone go out and have a good time with my friends doing all the activities I dream of one day doing again. I try to get things done each day to change my situation, even if just a little, but it’s terribly hard to notice any progress. I’m determined to turn all this around and be my happy self again but sometimes I just feel stuck. 

Feelings You May Experience If You're Dealing With Depression

Below is a list I created for myself of how I feel on a regular basis. I experience most of these feelings daily, although the severity of the feelings varies from day-to-day. I found it helpful to write all my feelings down – getting everything out of my head and on to paper made me feel less overwhelmed. It’s also great to be able to look at this list from time to time and remind myself that even though I’m struggling, there’s nothing wrong with that, the feelings I’m experiencing are normal for the situation I’m in, and I think recognizing that is an important step in recovery.

I encourage you to make your own list to help yourself better understand the different sensations your body is dealing with. For some of you, creating this list may be easy. Personally, I struggled with it because it was hard for me to accept that this is what I was going through (normally I’d just sweep all my emotions under a rug and forget about them) so this was definitely a good reflection exercise for me. Just remember that there may be things on my list that don’t apply to you and likewise you may be dealing with certain feelings that I haven’t experienced. That’s okay. We’re individuals and that means even though we’re in the same situation we may have slightly different experiences, that’s what makes me, me and you, you. We’re all unique, and you should be proud of who you are.

How I Feel (in no particular order)

• Anxious
• Stressed
• Sore (all my muscles feel heavy and are in physical pain)
• Sad
• Down
• Lonely / alone (even though I know I’m not)
• Like no one understands (even though I know that’s not true)
• Irritable
• Upset
• Indecisive
• Unable to concentrate / distracted
• Like I’m letting people down who are depending on me
• Guilty
• Depressed
• Nervous
• Tired / exhausted
• Burned out
• Unconfident
• Not like myself
• Confused
• Lazy / lethargic
• Overwhelmed
• Unable to sleep at night but then can’t wake up in the mornings
• Restless
• Shy / timid / soft spoken
• Vulnerable
• Easily frustrated
• Scared of conflict
• Emotionally unstable
• Scared
• Lost
• Like my mind is fighting against me every step of the way
• Angry (at other people and at the fact that I struggle so hard at everyday tasks that come so easily to others)
• Trapped

Depression and Stress

One of the major causes of depression, like many other illnesses, is stress. Stress can be defined as our body’s response to a threat, whether it be real or merely perceived.  Stress can be positive such as getting married or having a baby, or it can be negative such as losing a job or the death of a loved one. Both types of stress can overwhelm us and cause health problems if not properly managed.

Being constantly exposed to stress can lead to something called the General Adaptation Syndrome. This includes three stages that people may go through when dealing with a lot of stress and if the stress is not managed properly at the beginning stages, it can lead to depression.

The first stage is the alarm stage. This is your body’s response to a threat. In this stage, your body releases an increase in the hormones cortisol, adrenaline and noradrenaline which leads to the fight or flight response.

The second stage is called the resistance stage. Here your body uses up a lot of cortisol in order to produce more energy so your body can resist the stressor. The problem is that if you’re in this stage for a long period of time then your body is producing an excessive amount of cortisol. This can cause you to feel anxious, tired and have difficulty sleeping since all your energy is devoted to dealing with the stressor.

The final stage is known as the exhaustion stage. This is where your body has produced so much cortisol that it can no longer produce any more, or can only produce a limited amount. Your body has essentially been over-worked and is too exhausted to continue functioning properly. As a result, you may feel fatigued, sluggish, burned out, irritable, cold, sore, more susceptible to illnesses and headaches, have a low sex drive, have a hard time coping, or suffer from depression.

People who reach the exhaustion stage are at risk of becoming depressed because they’ve been exposed to one or more stressors over such a long period of time that their body has depleted all its resources to fight and has essentially just given up, causing the person to feel burned out and depressed.

Another theory of how stress can lead to depression is known as learned helplessness. This is where a person experiences stressful events repeatedly to the point that they feel helpless to change the situation, like they lack the ability to control their own lives. When people start thinking in a negative way like this it can increase their susceptibility to developing depression.

Stress also affects people’s coping mechanisms. When you’re stressed it causes you to have a lower mood which in turn causes you to stop taking part in the activities that you enjoy which ultimately makes you feel worse and decreases your mood even more. This vicious cycle can lead you to feel depressed because the stress is taking over your life, it’s constantly on your mind and it has interrupted your usual outlet for coping.

Some examples of stressful events that may increase a person’s chances of becoming depressed are:

• being in an abusive relationship
• unemployment
• debt
• taking on extra responsibilities at home or work
• choosing a path in life that you aren’t entirely happy with but are scared to change
• going through a transition period in one’s life such as leaving your family home to move out on your own, having a baby, or retiring and having to learn to adjust your lifestyle since you have more time on your hands but a reduction in your finances

It is important to try and find ways to manage or reduce the stress in your life so you don’t start feeling overwhelmed, burnt out, out of control and/or depressed. Some tips are to:

• eat healthy (refined carbs like white bread and sugary foods release insulin which triggers the release of cortisol which causes stress)
• exercise (it helps grow new brain cells and maintain the health of existing ones)
• get at least eight hours of sleep
• do something that makes you happy or relaxes you so you can get your mind off of the stressor
• reduce your caffeine intake since it stimulates the same hormones that increase stress
• try to follow a daily routine to get yourself back on track
• practice deep breathing exercises, yoga, or other forms of meditation

Other Mental Health Illnesses

In my last couple of posts, I’ve differentiated between the different types of depression and the different types of anxiety disorders. Here I’ll describe a couple other common mental health illnesses.

Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder

OCD causes a person to have intrusive thoughts or urges (obsessions) that cause them a lot of anxiety. Many people then have to repeat certain behaviours (compulsions) to try and eradicate the anxiety. From my own experience, I often feel like I have to do my compulsion over and over again until it feels right.

Some common examples of compulsions are feeling compelled to continuously wash ones hands; to move things around until they’re ordered in a certain way; to touch things over and over; to check stoves, door or car locks, or light switches; or to constantly be cleaning things. OCD causes a severe disruption to a person’s life since they spend so much time focusing on and their mind is constantly dwelling on their obsessions. Many people dealing with OCD know that their compulsions are irrational and yet they aren’t able to stop these behaviours or routines.

Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder

PTSD results from the occurrence of a previous trauma. Some common events that can lead to PTSD are: rape, abuse, natural disasters, fighting in the military or a serious accident. A person does not have to experience the traumatic event themselves in order to suffer from PTSD, sometimes witnessing a loved one going through such a distressing event is enough to cause this illness.

People who suffer from PTSD have an extremely difficult time getting over these incidents and it causes them to be anxious and depressed for months or even years after the event occurred. These people may experience flashbacks or nightmares of the event that reinforces the anxiety and depression they are experiencing. Others may avoid any type of activity that reminds them of the event. People suffering from PTSD often feel on-edge, disconnected, irritable, have a hard time feeling emotions and experience trouble sleeping.

Schizophrenia

People who suffer from schizophrenia tend to have disordered thoughts and speech, meaning they have a hard time communicating with other people. They often lose their train of thought and thus their sentences are not formed and instead come out like just a jumble of words. They feel strange and don’t really understand the world around them. People with schizophrenia may experience periods of psychosis in which they lose the ability to tell what is real and what isn’t. This is categorized by hallucinations (hearing, seeing or smelling things that aren't really there - e.g. hearing voices that aren’t real) and/or delusions (believing things that aren't true - e.g. thinking they have superpowers).

People with schizophrenia experience a loss of motivation, a hard time concentrating, a lack of interest in activities and exhibit trouble completing tasks. Schizophrenia causes people to feel isolated so they withdraw and it disrupts their social functioning, making it hard for them to carry on relationships, work or go to school. If someone suffers from schizophrenia, there is an increased chance that they suffer from other mental health illnesses like anxiety or depression as well.  

There are many other types of mental health illnesses that I have not mentioned here, such as eating disorders, personality disorders, ADD or ADHD and dementia. I have not gone into detail on these because I simply am not as knowledgeable on them as I am with the other illnesses I’ve listed. For more information on the different types of mental health illnesses you can visit the Canadian Mental Health Association (CMHA) website. 

Anxiety Disorders

There are many other types of mental health illnesses besides the types of depression. Often, a person who suffers from one mental health illness may have an increased chance of suffering from another one as well, so I thought it might be helpful to give a breakdown of some of the other common mental health illnesses that affect people in our society.

In this post, I’ll give a breakdown of the different types of anxiety disorders.

Generalized Anxiety Disorder

People with GAD worry excessively and continuously and in cases where there is no need to worry. They worry about everyday things and so it causes a disruption to their daily functioning. These people usually expect the worst in most situations, even when there is no reason for concern. This persists for at least six months.

Social Anxiety Disorder

People who suffer from Social Anxiety Disorder have a fear of being negatively judged by others in a social setting. Some people are afraid of being humiliated, some suffer from stage fright and some have a fear of intimacy and so find it hard to carry on relationships or friendships or dealing with the public. Because of this fear, these people tend to isolate themselves so they can avoid dealing with other people and public situations which they find extremely uncomfortable.

Phobias

A phobia isn’t simply being afraid of something; it is having an irrational fear of and thus avoiding a certain object or situation. This avoidance causes a disruption to the person’s daily life because the phobia may keep the person from doing things that are necessary to do. Some common phobias are: heights, going to the dentist, elevators, flying and insects.

Panic Attacks

Panic attacks occur suddenly, out-of-the-blue. Since they come and go at random, a person who suffers from panic attacks often lives in fear of when the next one is going to occur. These attacks are characterized by intense apprehension that causes a person to experience a tight chest and difficulty breathing, hyperventilating, crying, dizziness, nausea, shaking and confusion.

Agoraphobia

People dealing with agoraphobia have a fear of not being able to get help or escape a situation if they start feeling anxious or have a panic attack. This causes some people suffering from this illness to stay at home and avoid public places so they don’t have to risk getting themselves into that type of situation.


Keep in mind that everyone deals with some level of anxiety at one time or another, so the purpose of recovery should be to learn how to manage your anxiety, not eliminate it all together. There are many different treatment options for anxiety, so speak with your doctor to figure out what works best for you. 

Symptoms of Depression

In most of my other posts I have listed many of the symptoms of depression, what symptoms go with what type of depression, and how long these symptoms must be present for. However, for ease of reference, I decided to make a post listing all of the symptoms of depression in one place.

When I was reading up on depression I actually came across this article from the Public Health Agency of Canada that I thought summed up the different symptoms very well. The following list is copied from their website.

“Each person is different and will have unique symptoms, but here are some of the more common symptoms of depression:

• feelings of sadness and loss
• feelings of guilt and worthlessness
• feelings of extreme impatience, irritability, or a short temper
• loss of interest or pleasure in usually-enjoyed activities
• changes in weight or appetite
• changes in sleeping patterns like insomnia
• reduced ability to think clearly or make decisions
• difficulties in concentrating or with short term memory loss
• constantly feeling tired
• noticeable lack of motivation
• anxiety and restlessness, sometimes leading to panic attacks
• muscle and joint pain
• constipation or other intestinal problems
• frequent headaches
• lack of interest in sex
• recurring thoughts of suicide or self-harm
• withdrawal from friends and family.”

These symptoms aren’t to be taken lightly. If you find you are dealing with at least five of these symptoms and they have lasted for at least two weeks, please make an appointment with your doctor to discuss what you’re going through. Ultimately, the choice of treatment is up to you, but your doctor is your first point of contact for discussing your options and figuring out the right path for you to take. 

Types of Depression

There are three main types of depression: Major Depression, Dysthymic Disorder and Bipolar Disorder. Two other types of depression to be aware of are Seasonal Affective Disorder and Postpartum Depression. People may also suffer depressive states due to certain medical conditions or the use of drugs and alcohol.

Major Depression

In order to be diagnosed with major depression, a person must have at least five of the following symptoms and they must be severe enough to cause a disruption to the person’s daily functioning. These symptoms must be present for a minimum to two weeks.

The symptoms include: a depressed mood, fatigue or loss of energy, lack of appetite, gaining or losing a significant amount of weight, a loss of interest in most activities, feeling worthless, feeling guilty, a decreased sex drive, sleep disturbance and an inability to concentrate / indecisiveness. Thoughts of suicide are also a common symptom.  

Some people may only experience one episode of major depression in their lifetime. However, experiencing depression once does increase a person’s risk of relapse.

Dysthymic Disorder

If someone has dysthymic disorder the symptoms will still cause them to experience an interference with their daily life, however not to the same degree as those suffering from major depression. To be diagnosed with dysthymic disorder, symptoms must be present for a majority of days over a minimum two year time period.

The symptoms are generally the same as major depression however they’re not quite as severe. The person may still be able to function but they go through life constantly feeling down, hopeless, having low self-esteem and a lack of interest in activities. A person dealing with dysthymic disorder does have an increased risk of developing major depression.

Bipolar Disorder

People who suffer from bipolar disorder switch between states of depression and mania. When in the depressive state, the symptoms are the same as those experienced by other types of depression. When in a manic state, the person has a greater self-esteem, feelings of grandiosity, they act without thinking and indulge in excessive risky behaviours and they have a reduced need for sleep due to being so hyperactive and having lots of thoughts and ideas constantly racing through their head.

People suffering from this illness aren’t always depressed or manic, often they experience periods of wellness in between their episodes, however this does vary from person to person. Normally people are in a manic state or depressive state for a while, although it isn’t unheard of for people to go through rapidly changing states. The frequency of any one state also varies between people – some may experience more depressed states, some more manic, and some may even live a life categorised mostly by states of wellness but do occasionally experience a manic or depressive episode. This illness is certainly hard for the friends and family members of the person dealing with the disorder because they never know which version of the person they’re going to be dealing with. It’s also extremely difficult for the person suffering because one minute they feel really good and the next minute they feel really down, which can be very confusing and overwhelming.

Seasonal Affective Disorder

SAD is a type of depression that people experience when faced with diminished sun and the constant grey of the winter months. It is not to be confused with the “winter blues”. Most people experience the winter blues as the cold, dark days drag on and people just get tired of it. However, people dealing with SAD aren’t just fed up with winter, they tend to withdraw and miss work, school, social activities, etc. because of the symptoms of depression.

Postpartum Depression

Postpartum depression is a type of depression that can result from pregnancy or child birth. It can occur any time within the first year of child birth and affects mothers, fathers and parents who adopt (although most commonly mothers). Symptoms of postpartum depression include the symptoms described for major depression as well as having no interest in the baby, wanting to hurt the baby or themselves, and feeling like they are a bad parent.

Depression vs. Sadness

As I mentioned in my last post, there seems to be a misunderstanding within our culture as to the difference between being sad and being depressed, and this misunderstanding creates a disconnect between those suffering from depression and the people they interact with on a daily basis (family members, friends, employers, teachers, etc). This disconnect is troublesome because it can create more stress for the depressed person since they find themselves constantly having to explain to people that what they’re feeling is not just sadness, it’s not something they can just snap out of. And if people don’t understand this it can have a negative impact on the depressed person, for example by ruining relationships or resulting in job loss and this just reinforces the person’s depression, digging them even deeper into their hole.

Depression is NOT sadness.

Unfortunately, when people feel really sad, they often say they feel depressed and this makes it confusing to differentiate between the two. Sadness is a temporary state of mind; a temporary mood. You may feel sad for a period of time, but the feeling eventually passes and you forget about it or it isn’t strong enough to affect your daily routine. Sadness is an emotional state. When you’re sad, for instance, if you’re experiencing the death of a loved one, you may cry a lot and feel grief, you may spend more time in bed, you may take a break from your normal rituals and just allow yourself to mourn for a few days, but even then, you can still function as a human being, it may be uncomfortable to go to work or cook your meals or socialize with others, but you have the ability to do so, you can still bring yourself to do these things if you have to.

Depression differs from sadness in that depression produces physical symptoms. People dealing with depression may experience heavy shoulders and other body aches and pains, they feel extremely fatigued, they have a loss of appetite, a loss of interest in activities once enjoyed, an inability to sleep or excessive sleeping or they may have a hard time concentrating no matter how hard they try. They have an extremely difficult time dealing with the minute details of daily life. It’s almost like having a cold or the flu but the symptoms never go away. And since these symptoms are constantly present, the person feels worse day after day. The depression prevents them from being themselves. Everything they used to take for granted now becomes a chore. The littlest of activities, such as showering or walking to get the mail become stressful and overwhelming and can cause a panic attack or mental breakdown in the depressed person because they are so frustrated that they can no longer perform these simple tasks. Depression is just a vicious cycle. People experience the physical symptoms and since they never let up the person starts to feel worse because they get frustrated with the way they’re feeling or they feel like a failure because they can’t function as they feel they should be able to. This causes them to just avoid socializing or going to work or participating in activities altogether because they’re so tired from the lack of sleep that they have no energy to do things or it’s easier for them to just not do them than it is for them to try and not succeed, thus reinforcing the feeling of failure.

It is important to recognize the difference between depression and sadness so people can understand that the depressed person is not just lazy, that it’s not their fault that they can’t do certain things that come so naturally to other people. Without this understanding, people may make comments such as “it’s not that hard, you can do it, you just have to try harder” or “you’d feel better if you just got up and did things”. Although the intentions behind these types of comments may be harmless, they only serve to reinforce the depression by making the depressed person feel inadequate or guilty that they’re not able to do things or cause them to give up trying because they’re told they should be able to control the symptoms but no matter what they do they can’t reduce the feelings of depression.

Depression is a medical condition. People may not feel like they can control the symptoms associated with depression, but with the support from people who understand and with a willingness to make changes in their lifestyle, the person does have the ability to make an impact on their way of life by reducing or eliminating symptoms and finding routines and solutions that work for them. Each approach is individual, you just have to go through the process of trial and error until you find what works best for you.