To think a lot of people don't understand what a depression or anxiety disorder are?

[darkuncertainplace]

I'm writing this out of both frustration and despair. I have felt for a while that a lot of people don't actually understand what it means to have major depressive disorder, or an anxiety disorder.

I have heard so many people say the following in the last few years:

"Everyone gets anxiety/depression"
"You've just got to snap yourself out of it/get on with things"
"Just do things that make you happy and you'll feel better"
"It's normal to be anxious, we all just have to get on with it"

Etc etc. It makes me feel so frustrated. As someone who was diagnosed with major depressive disorder at 18, you cannot just pull yourself out of it. You are in a dark, dark hole and you can't see the beauty or joy in anything. You feel nothing except emptiness and darkness. It's an medical illness, not a mood.

Same for anxiety disorder. My triggers cause me physical symptoms such as panic attacks, consuming feelings of dread and fear, dizziness etc. It is paralysing and has made my life a misery.

They are both disabilities that seriously affect people's lives. I wish there was a different name for these disorders that separate them more clearly from just depression and anxiety.

I don’t think that’s true about differentiating opinions between physical and mental health, quite often obese people with physical disabilities will be encouraged to lose weight and improve their health.

By the nature of suffering with poor mental health, individuals can lack the will or motivation to seek medical support and improve their condition, caused by the overwhelming exhaustion of their symptoms.

I worry for people being stuck in a societal cycle of being unwell, and improving your mental well-being having real adverse consequences financially.

YANBU

Being anxious or depressed are just two ways our moods/emotions can present. They are a small part of a whole spectrum of emotional states that humans can have, and many animals too. They are normal.

They are different to diagnosed anxiety/mood disorders, but it seems many people often conflate the two. So then you get the silly suggestions like you mentioned.

"Everyone gets anxiety/depression" - yes, everyone gets anxious and depressed, but not everyone has an anxiety or mood disorder.

"You've just got to snap yourself out of it/get on with things" - you can't snap yourself out of a clinical depression anymore than you can snap yourself out of a manic or psychotic episode.

"Just do things that make you happy and you'll feel better" - when you are deep in a depression, the things that normally make you happy just don't anymore. It is not feeling sad... it is feeling nothing. It is horrible.

"It's normal to be anxious, we all just have to get on with it" - yep, it is normal to be anxious is certain situations. It is not normal to be anxious for no logical reason or to such an extent you struggle to function.

Dear oh dear! This kind of thinking is exactly why the OP wrote her post.

Would you tell someone with a broken leg to grit their teeth push through? And do you realise how difficult it is to get treatment and support for mental health problems?

Anxiety and panic attacks have always existed. Things like that were heavily stigmatized so the language was different….. words like hysteria and breakdown come to mind.

I also suspect that kids now have it far tougher than we had it. They have lived through a pandemic, have social media to deal with and exam pressure is now immense.

Please try to find a bit more compassion. It could actually be that the majority of the people who you think are “wallowing” are just not getting the help they need. My friend’s son tried to commit suicide 2 or 3 years ago and he has only just seen a psychiatrist.

Everyone experiences Cancer differently, everyone experiences amputation differently and people cope with it all different but you wouldn't tell a Cancer sufferer they're not disabled or accuse them of playing it up.

The problem with deciding then and now is all about your microcosm is that you can’t generalise based on your life alone. For example, in my day we had suicides at high school. If I thought like you, I would have the opposite conclusion.

I have GAD and it can be debilitating. I still work, I teach adults, 37.5hrs a week and a lot of staying away. My anxiety hits in the middle of the night, I wake up super anxious around 1:30/2am then can't go back to sleep. My stomach is in knots, I replay scenarios in my head.

But lately anxiety attacks have been happening whilst I work. I don't have a job where I can zone out of a while and stare at a computer. I'll be standing in front of a group or have people on line via Teams and I come over all dizzy, hot, my face tingles and I feel like I'm about to pass out. The GPNhad prescribed HRT in case they are hot flushes.

The problem, as has been said before, is that 'feeling anxious', is, yes, something most people will experience in their lifetime, as is feeling a bit low, etc. This is NOT the same as what you are currently experiencing, and what I have experienced in the past as well.
The awful blackness. Every single task becoming a mammoth thing. The wood you can't see because all the damn trees are in the way. People thinking you have 'nothing to be depressed about' when you aren't depressed about a single happening. It makes it worse when you can't link it to anything tangible, it's just happening. Just existing is too bloody hard. Panic attacks feel like you are dying, and sometimes you wish you were.

All of this is now being rewritten by people who feel that perfectly normal human anxiety before a change in life, or an exam, or whatever and pathologise it. By people who have something hard happen in their lives and feel, justifiably, extremely upset by that, but that is not the condition of depression. It's a normal human reaction at certain times and under certain stresses.

What you are going through right now is not a 'normal' experience. It doesn't happen to everybody. It's like saying everybody has experienced lung cancer because most people will have, in their lives, a cough.

To stick with that analogy, imagine everybody who had a cough claimed they had lung cancer. They've probably just got a cold, or some food went down the wrong way, or breathed in a bit of dust, but they'll tell their boss, their friends, their teachers they have cancer, and must be treated like someone with a serious illness. After a while, the actual serious illness is minimised to the extent that time off work for lung cancer is viewed with scepticism by the people who realise that everybody coughs occasionally, that it doesn't equate to lung cancer, but have forgotten that lung cancer is still a very real and debilitating illness.

Most people wouldn't leap to a self-diagnosis of cancer after having a bit of a cough. We'd think they were a hypochondriac if they did. We'd be horrified at someone claiming to 'have cancer' purely because they coughed after some food went down the wrong way. But increasingly, we are seeing this with ordinary feelings of anxiety. And it isn't so much that people are 'faking it', it's more than more and more people genuinely don't get the difference, because we have pathologised a normal human experience to such a level .

I have had both clinical depression and anxiety disorder. 'Getting on with it' meant getting out of bed AND going downstairs. This was the only thing I could do and only if I was having a good day. I couldn't leave the house, everything was overwhelming and frightening. It manifested physically. I only became functional on the maximum dose of my medication, which then took me two years to withdraw from.

People have no idea what it's like @darkuncertainplace. I hope that you can find the help and support you need.

@ObelixtheGaulthat is an excellent explanation 👌

I could have written this myself. I'm currently recovering from a very scary depressive episode and the insensitivity from people who don't understand it makes me try and hide it away even more.

I don't think I would ever be sufficiently sympathetic for this thread.

Tbh I just assume people who say “just snap yourself out of it”/“everyone gets a bit anxious/down” and equate that to a mental health condition are just not that bright. It’s like they think an entire medical profession has a job of saying “just snap out of it” honestly I despair at peoples stupidity at times.

Then I hope none of your loved ones ever suffer from poor mental health. Just because you have never experienced something doesn't mean it isn't real.

That is one thought you could have kept to yourself, especially on a thread where some people have been very open and honest about their struggles with MH conditions.

@TheDenimPoet
I have non the label ‘non reactive depression’ that seems to align with your description. Ie a disorder is not related directly to anything happening in your life. Are you familiar with that term ?

But I’m 50, I absolutely did have panic attacks at school, yes I did go and cry in the toilets whilst contemplating various ways of ending my teenage life! I still remember how isolated the bullying round my mental health differences made me feel. I’m glad kids today have more understanding. So please ensure your DD knows this so she has some proper education on this matter.

Why?

I have the same disorder as you op. It's important to realise that we are not alone but more importantly that we are not special. No one owes us understanding or empathy though it is nice to occasionally come across it.
I don't understand generational poverty or Parkinson's or trigeminal neuralgia because I have never suffered it. That's okay and I can't really expect people to understand what is wrong with me.

I never really understood panic attacks and when I was young did think it was just a dramatic way to label feeling a bit panicky and anxious all of a sudden. Then I had my first panic attack in my 30s- absolutely terrifying. I’ve had a few now and they are horrendous.

You’re missing the point of my post ! I tried to say how different people can experience the same thing but in different ways - therefore may misunderstand how someone else might interpret that !!
there is no mention of telling someone else they are wrong .

I understand you OP. I’m not “prone” to depression or anxiety but a couple of life events happened to me that made me realise just how dreadful both conditions are.

I’m actually prone to being incredibly joyful!

The first thing that floored me was having a full term stillborn baby, in an emergency type situation where I almost lost my life too.

My life went from very happy to not being able to look at people.. just people.. anywhere doing anything without wanting to scream. I started off getting out of hospital thinking I can do this etc. But slowly I stopped being able to. Like something was sucking every conceivable piece of energy from me.

The second big thing was some years later when I was assaulted by my child’s consultant (she’s severely disabled, this is my second and only living child).

I had no idea I could be so afraid of the world. Of who was looking at me. Who was in cars passing me (I stopped being able to drive). I couldn’t go to my local shop. I stopped being remotely happy and couldn’t stop having repetitive thoughts. I self-harmed a lot. I drank too much. I started smoking again.

My world was medical appointments for my child, playing with her and caring for her intensively until she fell asleep and then I collapsed asleep to wake soaking in sweat from nightmares and .. then the panic attacks. I remember having to put her in her bed because I thought I was going to die.

I was eventually diagnosed with PTSD, had EMDR therapy, got back to driving, got a term-time only job with children in a school and worked and worked at not ruminating.

I’d take a physical illness over either experience every single time.

I am now terrified of depression.

I remember in the depths of depression wanting to dig my baby out of the ground just so I could hold her and feel alive again.

Im glad people think you can just snap out of that. They are however, very mistaken.

People are a mix of being thick as shit and very ignorant. You get it with all illnesses and disorders that aren't physically tangible.

Everyone's on the spectrum
Everyone gets sad
A bit OCD etc.

Its weird that supposedly fully grown adults can't differentiate between feeling depressed or anxious in response to an event or environment that would naturally invoke such a feeling, and being consumed by depression or anxiety to the point of it dictating your day to day life.

I've never had either condition, but it doesn't seem that hard to understand that a disorder is out of the ordinary.

That's such a moronic thing to say. People in Russia absolutely suffer from mental health conditions in the same way British people do. They just don't have a comparable system for reporting it or for receiving a diagnosis and treatment. But studies certainly indicate a high level of depression.

I agree with you whole heartedly!
I have suffered with anxiety for years, both triggered by situations, or just creeping up on me in the day or night, palpitations etc. people don’t get it! Depression has been more of a reactive type for me, this last bought has been 6 years though … it’s draining and debilitating
I also had another disorder, it’s called psoriatic arthritis,84 really should’ve called psoriatic disease as it affects so much more than joints, muscles, tendons, organs, skin, eyes … the most goes on! I get people trying to be nice, oh have you tried an anti inflammatory diet that really helps everyone I know who has arthritis. Oh I get really bad arthritis in my thumb / knee .. it’s very much the same as the mental issues, just take an ibuprofen you’ll be fine 🙄 …have you tried putting warm fleece on your joints, why is it now in your elbow and shoulder, last week it was your knee and ankle… it can’t just jump around from one joint to another that’s not how arthritis works … well it’s how PsA works
ifeel for you and have that smiley nodding head on repeat and ignore, or if it’s someone who I don’t have time for I’ll give them a bit of a biology lesson and tell them they have no idea.
im taking ill health retirement which for me is the best thing as I need to be able to help my body which helps the mental health somewhat too

But that’s the point, you had them but were able to grit your teeth, hide and get through them. And turn up at school the next day. Now, it becomes a whole drama, everyone knows, lots of discussions with teachers and counsellors etc, lots of ‘mitigation plans’, and lots of kids who don’t turn up for school and it’s perfectly acceptable because ‘anxiety’.

Some people absolutely do have a clinical, debilitating condition. But these are the minority. Many do not, and had they lived in a different era or different country would find a way to grit their teeth and crack on.