To say depression is not a weakness

[tamalams]

A friend of mine and I were having a debate about mental health. I've never suffered personally apart from one episode when I nearly lost my son 15 years ago to an illness when he was a few days old - I received prompt treatment to the eyes (how mad!) and all was treated and dealt with.

My friend said that mental health issues are a sign of weakness in that persons brain. It's a topic that's a bit close to home after what happened as I don't feel I was weak.

But she made some points that I couldn't argue (maybe because I'm weak ha!) but they were points like counselling makes you stronger therefore you must be weak in the first place.

I tried saying no counselling gives you the tools to handle a situation and she just kept coming back with "isn't that just another way to say you're stronger"... Said I was bowing to the woke brigade and trying to be PC which I really am not.

But because it may be an issue that's close to home maybe I was a little sensitive about it maybe?

I'm not sure what that person is talking about as they haven't linked to anything and I haven't come across anything like what they're saying, but there's plenty of evidence on a population level backing up the hypothesis that some types of childhood adversity and stress can be linked with physical and mental health problems in adulthood.

Said I was bowing to the woke brigade and trying to be PC

This tells me everything I need to know about your friend. She's a twat. Don't let her and her ill-informed, ignorant opinions get to you.

Deeply uncharitable of me, of course, but I'd love the people who say this to have a bout of depression like my last one. The one that meant citalopram for months (first time ever I had asked for medication, that was how bad it was).

It is the creator of ACEs given the actual study was never meant to be about scoring individuals like that, it is out there in the domain and pretty easy to find and see how labelling people with a score is damaging and shocking to what they are actually being used for.

I think the people who are getting really angry with op’s friend off need to remember this was a discussion as opposed to a ‘popped up in conversation’ thing and she probably doesn’t go about telling people with depression they’re weak!!!

This is true to be fair to my friend. She would never tell someone with depression that they are weak.

It was a conversation between two friends.

She did allude to the time that i had PTSD and said that at that moment in time, because of what I went through seeing my son near death, no sleep and extra worry along with only just given birth 10 days ago therefore hormones were all over the place, that naturally made my brain weaker in order to handle the situation.

I think I was just a bit sensitive about it and yesterday she brought it up again clarifying that they're not weak people but for that particular situation they aren't strong enough to handle it whereas they would be strong in other situations.

The only thing she won't conceed on is that depression can happen to anyone at anytime with no apparent reason. She believes there's a reason, something has happened whether we know it or not, that has made us unequipped to deal with certain stresses and makes us weak in those situations

Your friend likely hasn't lived an expansive enough life to judge this, she's also presumably not a scientist or psychiatrist. Sounds like she is in denial.