When I was in 8th grade, I broke my foot. I was in a wheelchair, had a cast put on and then used crutches to help me walk from place to place. Everyone fussed over me and made sure I had what I needed, and helped me to get where I needed to go. When I missed a few days of school because of it, I was given ample time and help to catch up with my classmates. I had a lot of support to get me through the long process of healing my broken bone.
Now replace broken foot with depression, and make everything the opposite.
In 8th grade, I was diagnosed with a few things, including severe depression. I was out of school for almost a month because I was in the hospital, and then out-patient therapy. Each one, designed to help me get back on my feet, only made me feel worse, and medication made me feel crazy. And I don’t think my family really understood what was going on. I tried to explain, and sometimes I still have to try, what was going on in my head and why I didn’t want to do certain things; I had to explain why I lost interest in all of my favorite things, and I’m not really sure I exactly knew why myself.
My mom made sure I went to therapy, took my medicine and all that kind of stuff, but I don’t think it was easy for her to understand what was happening. I think she still has a hard time understanding why I feel the need to sleep in so late or don’t feel the need to do anything while I’m home, instead of cleaning and doing dishes. To her, and so many people I used to know, it’s almost as if it’s a switch I turn off and on at my own discretion.
The truth is, depression itself is like a switch. Some days I feel like I could clean the whole house, read a book, study and write my article for the week. Other days I just want to sleep until noon and paint my nails for the 30th time this week. Sometimes it’s almost reaching the top of the mountain; Sometimes it’s being thrown back down to the bottom each time I get halfway up. Sometimes it’s not even having the will to try. Depression has numerous faces, and it’s different for every single person. It’s not always a switch. Sometimes it’s always ‘on’ or maybe always somewhere in between.
What is constant about depression is people telling you to just do things. Smile more, go out and hangout with friends, just make a quick lunch, just get out of bed, just be happy. Just be happy. Just. Be. Happy. Well gee, Mr. Friend I thought I could talk to, what great advice! Maybe you could take that advice and ‘just lose’ those ten pounds you’ve been talking about. Or maybe if you just walk on that broken leg, it’ll heal itself. Do the thing you can’t do because you have been broken.
If only it were that simple.
Depression is a broken bone. You don’t go back into a football game or track meet when you break a leg. You don’t pick up a gallon of milk with a broken arm. So why do people keep treating depression as if the thing that’s broken can still do all of things it could just before it was broken?
We go to the hospital or the doctor when a cough and fever won’t go away, why are we constantly treating depression like we can sleep it off and be better the next day? Sure broken bones will heal, and you can tell a person they’re eventually going to be OK, but all they feel right now is the loss of use of a limb and a shit ton of pain from the break. Minds though? They take a lot more time to heal than a broken bone and they need a lot more care than someone’s empty promise that it will all be OK, because we’re feeling the pain of a broken bone all the time, so the outlook is pretty bleak.
If you broke a leg, or were stabbed in the arm for whatever reason, would you want people to constantly tell you to look on the bright side? Or to just be happy and make the pain go away?
No one tells you you're crazy when you think you broke a bone, so don't tell me I'm crazy for having a malfunctioning mind. It’s not all in our heads. The problems aren’t imaginary. We are depressed. We are your parents, your children, your friends, your significant others and we deserve to be treated like the person with a broken leg; we deserve the different kinds of support that each person needs. We deserve to be taken seriously, and to be given the crutches we need to support us, until we can eventually walk on our own.
