If everyone decides to hate you and treat you like you’re contagious for having depression because mental health stigma has come back with a vengeance over the past five years, then that absolutely is your problem.
If you can’t land a job because potential employers always ask about that gap in your resume that you can’t explain cause you were too depressed to function, that’s definitely your problem too.
I’m sick of this “Oh just stop caring what other people think of you, it’ll be fine.” It’s no better than saying “Why are you depressed? Your life is fine. Just pick yourself up, dust yourself off, get out of bed, take a shower, eat healthier, get some exercise, find a hobby, go out and meet people, make friends, yadda yadda yadda.”
It puts the impetus on the person suffering from depression to somehow magically bootstrap their way back to perfect mental health by some imaginary force of will as if it were as simple as flipping a light switch, when for many people with depression the reality is that they’ve tried all things and can’t manage to do them with any consistency, the depression itself makes them infinitely harder, and often some of these options simply aren’t on the table (like “making friends” in a word that’s collectively allergic to depressed people). If you cant remember the last time you were genuinely happy, because you were basically a young kid at that time, then your physical brain has developed in ways that leave it deficient in the structures and functions that produce the experience of happiness.
What is so hard to understand about that?
Woht24@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
I always see this argument and think ‘you’re just backing yourself into a corner’.
You seem absolutely sure what the solution isn’t, do you know what the solution is?
wonderingwanderer@sopuli.xyz 2 weeks ago
Is anyone who’s backed into a corner there because they backed themselves into it? Cause that seems concerningly adjacent to victim-blaming mentality.
We don’t do it for abuse victims, we don’t do it for people in poverty, and we don’t do it for people with chronic (physical) illnesses or permanent injuries. So why is it okay to do it for people with depression?
I think that’s the spirit of this post.
And just because I don’t have a viable miracle solution doesn’t mean I can’t tell you what doesn’t work. That’s a silly notion. If the solution is so simple, I wouldn’t have been suffering from depression for so long.
People like you seem to believe we choose to be depressed, because why? You think we just like the feelings of helplessness and hopelessness? You think we enjoy constant despair and don’t ever want to be lifted out of it?
Woht24@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Yeah yeah mate.
I’ve suffered depression on and off for my whole life. Ain’t no one going to get me out of this but me and when I am eating well, exercising, working a job I don’t dislike and being social, I am happiest and my depression is quietest. It’s hard to keep it constant but I don’t post shit on social media making never ending excuses and essentially treating mental health like terminal cancer.
My entire point is your post is supposed to relate to depressed people and you’re essentially telling people who have little to no will power depending on the time of day that everything is useless and nothing helps. I truly don’t understand the point of it…
saltesc@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Yes. The corner doesn’t actually exist. A big mental hurdle is realising there’s nothing stopping someone from doing whatever they want. We have social contracts, but they’re also a part of the problem if taken too seriously.
I frequently remind myself, “If I were born the only human on earth, knowing none of this, what would I be doing right now?” and I aspire to be that person, because that’s the true me.
99% of people’s “life problems” are rooted in other people existing. Others are not to blame, of course, but it’s just something to be aware of when taking care of one’s mental health. The corner only for exists on acknowledgment.