to be sick of all the "tell someone" nonsense following RW's death?

[cailindana]

My fb feed is full of trite messages saying "if you're suffering, talk to someone, we care, we will look after you blah blah blah." Bullshit. When I was severely depressed I did tell people - my GP, my parents, my sisters, my friends everyone. For the most part I got indifference, annoyance, "what can I do?" "get over it" "you're worrying mum," etc. It was only because DH is a bloody saint who spent hours and hours with me that I didn't kill myself. If he hadn't been there then I wouldn't be still alive.
I'm sure if I had killed myself, my family would have done the whole "I don't know why she did it, we had no idea," fuckwittery when in fact they would be perfectly aware of why I'd done it, they just wouldn't think it was a good reason and they would blame me for being cowardly.
Equally everyone else I know who is/was severely depressed is pretty open about it, in fact, I find that depressed people mention their condition quite a lot. The response is generally fear, a sense of not knowing what to say or how to respond, indifference or even disgust.

IME people who are in the depths of depression don't tell others because they have already told them in the past and got nowhere. Implying that if you are in that state all you need to do is "reach out" and someone will be there and everything will get better it totally inaccurate, very few people I know have had that experience. Even the very good kind close friends I had when I had PND last year essentially ignored the illness. They were helpful, very very helpful on a practical level (visiting, sorting out the kids etc) but they never asked me how I was or how the medication was working, I always had to bring it up and then they would just nod and mutter something encouraging. I don't blame them at all for that and I am extremely grateful for the ways in which they did help. It was actually on MN that I got the best support. Here, I met people who had gone through the same thing, who acknowledged my awful thoughts and feelings without trying to change my mind (the whole, "Oh it's not that bad!" that only makes depression sufferers feel they must be mental if no one else can see what they see) and gave me reassurance that yes it was shit but it would pass. They were here whenever I needed them, unlike RL friends who are understandably busy with their own lives.

Depression is a complex illness that requires specialist help. Talking does help, definitely, but a depressed person can't save or cure themselves by just being more open and talking more. Having someone listen is a welcome temporary relief but it doesn't treat the illness any more than talking to a cancer patient would treat their illness.

I find it incredibly judgemental to say that people must have known. My uncle was working, had a huge circle of friends and family and it was a massive shock to everyone. Maybe something snapped and the suicide wasn't premeditated? We will never know. There was no note, nothing. People judging saying that his family must have known and ignored depression in any suicide is just ridiculous and spiteful.

I don't mean it in a judgemental way Ten, though I can see why it comes across to you that way, sorry.

I'm not saying your aunt ignored your uncle. But I do think people see the suffering and just hope it will go away, or get so overwhelmed with it they become paralysed and do nothing. Sometimes, it is clear a person can't be helped and the horror of that just grinds everything to a halt.
I simply find it very hard to believe that a person can fail to notice the person they live with every day is depressed.

Cailindana, wow, Sorry, but I find you way over the line here and not at all well informed of the reality of the different types of depression, and unnecessarily cruel and judgmental to family members of depressed people and suicide victims families. It's like you're saying "if they had just had a decent family there would have been no suicide".

My father could have been fine for months, got up quite the thing, went off to work happy as pig in a bucket of poo, then just crashed at work due to some hurdle or other he had been presented with that sent him crashing down. Same hurdle on another day he would have dealt fine with. The man that would come home from work, in no way even looked like man who had left for work that morning, let alone voice or actions or demeanour. It's impossible to believe if you haven't seen it, but even as a child I would say it was like he became an old man in one day.

Granted my husband is not like that. His is a lot more noticeable, slower to come on, gradually building up sort of thing. I do see it coming on with him, it is on the whole mostly noticeable. Though I am not always right. Sometimes I think he is going into a depression and he's not at all, he is just tired or pissed off. And sometimes I don't notice till he has been depressed for a week or so.

I'm sure my aunt would have done everything in her power to help her DH she just never got the chance.

I believe you. I won't go into details. I went out one day with my friends when my husband was (according to him and his mh team) mildly to moderately depressed. I forgot something and returned to collect it. Thank god I did or I would be in your aunt's shoes.

His condition was worse than any of us thought. I was just on time.

My heart goes out to your aunt (and you are your wider family too of course)

Can't read the whole thread as its a bit raw to me right now, but whilst I sort of see where you are coming from, I also think anything that encourages people to ask for help with mental health issues isn't a wholly bad thing

I had a similar experience to you and spent ages 'telling someone' (drs/health visitors/dh/family /mental health nurse) only for them to not really listen/ not do anything about it

Luckily however just I got to my lowest point I spoke to a friend who had been open about their struggles in the past and they were amazing, took me seriously, didn't try and minimise the issue and advocated for me so now I am finally getting the proper help I need.

So I think the message should be 'tell someone, and keep telling people till you get the help you need' and also, that being open about your struggles (if you can) may help someone else in the future

cali didn't explain that very well - that flatmate was a PIA. She was one of those if you aren't out every night after work and every weekend you are boring and no fun and need to pull your socks up get out and party. She had zero empathy for anyone.

Depression wasn't on her radar...I could have hung a sign round my neck 'suicidal' and she wouldn't have noticed
She would have been the same if I had just had my physical problems - I physically couldn't go out much - this was up 4 flights of stairs (later I had a disabled badge for my car - which I don't have anymore as against the drs expectations my leg improved).
(I do wonder if she actually had a problem - she couldn't be on her own - couldn't just do nothing but veg in front of the tv...did wonder if she did actually liked herself but then she was completely self absorbed )

However I did completely fool my friends/work colleagues - people who knew me very well ...and lots of HCPs - maybe I couldn't have kept it up for 24hrs a day...but avoiding that can be pretty easy. And I was desperate to hide it and devious. And it was pretty rapid from not quite feeling right to absolute despair that I just wanted to stop.

In latter years I have had more gradual 'I don't want to do anything/ can't feel anything type' ...
As Slow and mignonette have said - depression isn't the same for everyone... and just because you had a bad experience with your family doesn't mean that if the families of suicides were more attentive or observant it wouldn't happen...
Ten

Call

I did just say to you that I can vouch for the fact that it does happen. And I do know a leedle bit about this subject.....

Depression is such a bastard. It's the one illness that frustrates and angers me above all others. Cancer of the mind I call it.

Yanbu op. Some people actually have no idea they are depressed. They will find a million other excuses for their emotions or try to push them under the carpet as best as they can and hide away from them. The people who do realise they are depressed, some will blame themselves for feeling that way. "I'm such a weak bastard, why can't I just get over this?" And thoughts akin to that will race through their minds. Much like an anorexic or bulimic sufferer will constantly believe they are fat or ugly or worthless and will continue to be unless they stop eating/vomit food up and if they do cave in to food the disease spouts a load of nonsense into their minds again about how worthless/stupid/unlovable/weak they are. Depression does the same thing. It grinds you down.

When I had severe depression I didn't want to tell anyone because the illness told me I would be seen as weak, a nobody, an idiot. Or even worse that doctors/family wouldn't believe me. And finally that nobody could help anyway. I believed that I was a burden to my family and friends, that it would be better for them if I were dead. There's been a few occasions in my life where I've felt that way, even written out notes to everyone and planned the event out and planned out my funeral! Totally chickened out in the end though, thankfully!

It's not as easy as just telling somebody is what I'm getting at. You may tell someone and not receive much support. There are a lot of people who still believe depressed people can "get over it" or many things will "cure" it such as exercise, socialising, cutting certain things from your diet etc. they fail to see that it's an illness. Or, as I said before, the illness may be spouting shit into their head along the lines of "what's the point in worrying everyone? You're just a burden and will be even more of one if they know the truth. Just end it all, get out of their way." Etc. it's like a monster inside of your mind.

RW is tragic. He was receiving help, his family knew about his struggles and he was seeking therapy for it. It got the better of him even so. The 'help' available doesn't always work. Mental illness is often recurring too. He'd battled many demons in the past also, this one clearly pushed him over the edge. That's not to say you shouldn't go get help if you're struggling, of course you should! Just that it doesn't necessarily mean someone was suffering in silence because they committed suicide.

Ditto what migonette has said

Better if I had managed to spell the name correctly
Sorry

yanbu op

Depression is an awful illness. I have suffered it from initially PND which responded brilliantly to anti depressants and more latterly my depressio is linked to my ill husband and now the grief after he died 2.5 years ago.
I am also a GP. Some depression is easily treated, other people suffer a mix of depression and sad life circumstances and it can be hard to tease out what is normal day to day mood variation which terrifies depressed people as they think they are going back down again and what is depression getting worse.
The support services are pretty useless too. Long waits unless you have PND or fit into a certain category.

YA soooooo NBU!
I told my DM, my dad, sister, doctors, therapists...
and all I got was
"get over it you idiot"
"You're not depressed"
"Stop hurting yourself lol"
or even "do it more lol"
"You've brought this all on yourself" therapist said this
and I was close to killing myself and didn't end up doing because ultimately, I didn't want to die.
But, I told people.
People don't care. They don't want to know, they don't know what to do, and half the time, they don't want to know what to do. Whats the point in telling people? I'd ratehr suffer than be pushed back even more and being made worse to be fair.
I get worse when I'm on my own, I live with my parents. If I go to talk to them, they end up screaming at me and I end up sitting by myself in complete silence. Winds me up and I can't afford to leave. Everything I do, I get screamed at, so I don't talk. I can't afford to do anything about it.
I'm badly depressed and even my wonderful DP doesn't really know what to do. He helps by being there, but it's not what I need.
I need to feel normal, but why tell anyone, when no one will listen? The GP keeps saying it's all in my head and there's nothing wrong with me.
Right!
I'm sorry op. x

OH! and the "stop overthinking" thing. fed up of people saying that, too.

I think getting a negative response is worse than saying nothing, especially where family is concerned, they are the ones who are supposed to listen and when they cant be arsed it hurts even more.

I suffer from depression and did put a message on FB about talking to someone after RW died. However, I deleted it soon afterwards as it didn't feel quite appropriate - I don't know why.

What I will say, on this thread, is that depression is pure hell but can be treated successfully in most cases as long as the treatment is right.

I had a lot of negative responses when I got diagnosed with bipolar. The worst was my sister A PRACTISING GP who told me to "fuck off and kill yourself then" when I was ill with depression.

I'm really truly sorry for your experience, and everyone else who's had similar. But in my experience, when I was feeling that low I sat and wrote two heartbroken goodbye letters to my dc and had three packets of tablets ready to take my sister phoned and I told her. I ended up hysterical and she stayed on the phone to me for four hours making sure I was ok. She phoned me again in the morning and made sure I got myself to the doctors, who put me on anti depressants, put home carers in place to come in every night and every morning making sure I was ok. I was having a full mental breakdown, it's taken me almost a year to get to where I am now (without carers anymore, still regular doc apps and ss only just leaving my life!)

I'm now in councelling, doing much much better but it took for me to tell someone, even though the fact she'd called was pure luck and I've no idea where the ability to get the words out came from, to help me get better.

Sometimes telling people doesn't work, but sometimes it does. If nobody talked about it nobody can be given the support and help they need.

I hope things are better for you now, I know this post is old but these are for you

Just think though, that GP who prescribed you the antidepressants could be the same one who tells people to "fuck off and kill yourself then" when they are off-duty.

That may be so raltheraffe, but that gp helped me at a time I was in such a dark place I honestly thought my dc would be better off with me dead. I didn't even consider how damaged they'd be if they woke up to find me dead.

Any GP who tells someone to fuck off and kill themselves is a truly horrible person, I've had it said to me before and the pain is horrible. But my GP helped me so I won't say a bad word against her.

You do know they get paid, they do not do it out the goodness of their hearts?
I worked as a doctor for nearly a decade before being sacked unlawfully for disability discrimination. There are one hell of a lot of medical practitioners out there who are highly prejudiced against mental health. Not many as bad as my sister, but you would be shocked the number of times I heard doctors joke about mental illness when patients and carers were not present.

Yes I know they get paid. They diagnosed me with depression and treated me for it, what's wrong with that...? I don't understand why you're getting all uptight about the fact that I had a doctor who actually listened to how I felt and didn't tell me to fuck off...

When did I say there was anything wrong with a doctor doing their job? I didn't.

Your attitude has been completely dismissive and condesending about my post and my good experience with the help I received.

I see this thread is an oldie, but having approached my uncle for a favour to do with a family situation that had got out of hand he told me I was fucking pathetic and was making things difficult for my (seriously ill) mum. Shortly after I spelled it out to my gran and haven't heard a thing from her since. The only people worth talking to are the GP and your absolute nearest and dearest.