What are the things that annoy you most when you are depressed?

[NanaNina]

People saying "well let's face it we all have bad days" (I want to scream at her that my "blips" as the medics call them are nothing like ordinary bad days.........aaaaargh!

"Oh my mum/sister/auntie/friend had depression but she just got on with life and didn't take tablets and she got better on her own."

"Stop crying, you're only upsetting yourself more"

I also (irrationally I know) hate to see people laughing and smiling when I am feeling bleak and hopeless and life is not worth living.

Noise really annoys me. Traffic is a killer. Other people talking. Other people's music. Also machinary like lawnmowers, strimmers etc. Just noise. I just crave silence.

Oh and if I manage to be out and about people saying: "Cheer up it might never happen" really annoys me.

People like Carol McGiffin whose response to Denise Welsh talking about her PND on Loose Women I just witnessed (generally hate that show but just caught my attention that they were talking about pnd).

Basically she said she had to believe what Denise was saying about her experience mental illness as she is not a liar (why, oh why, oh why, would anyone lie about having severe post natal depression), but her instinct was to say "you'd ONLY had a baby" (words fail me). Then a load of the usual talk about "happy pills" being dished out too readily etc etc. Are there ANY other illnesses where totally inexperienced and unqualified people debate about and judge sufferers for taking medication??

I find this shit depressing in itself.

Racing mind - glad to see your post cus I was thinking I was the only person who got pissed off with the things people say about depression. I don't know the programme but I can well imagine how angry you feel....as for "happy pills" - words fail me!!

I think you have posed a very good question when you ask if there is any other illness where totally inexperienced and unqualified people debate about and judge sufferers for taking meds. I think probably NOT. The thing is you just cannot begin to understand depression if you have not experienced it and sometimes it defies description.

There was a poster on here recently who talked of depression as being not so much a feeling of sadness but more an absence of any emotion at all - completely and totally unmotivated in things that would usually make you feel good. This "spoke" to me as that is how I feel when depressed - empty.

Absolutely agree that atitudes like that are so bloody annoying. Mind I was even told on a psych ward last year to "pull myself together" by a nursing asst. I did report it to the ward manager and she was pretty horrified and assured me she would be taking the person who said it to task. I was also told to "cheer up" by another one......so if that's what's going on in psych wards today, what hope is there for sufferers, and the stigma is still alive and well.

You could get in touch with the programme and register your disgust.

Pretty much everything you said, NanaNina.

In fact the general belief that depressed people just need jollying along. That and the patronising, "the sun is shining" special talking-to-children voice.

I did write a lot more, but it was a rant!

The problem is that depressed has become such a vastly overused and misused term. So many people nowadays talk about feeling depressed when actually what they are experiencing is a bad mood/ day. So when those of us who become ill with depression seek treatment or understanding, the reaction is often "whats so special about you? Everyone gets depressed sometimes. Why do you have to make such a big deal about it".

Stuff about the stigma of depression stopping women seeking help for pnd has been on the news all day. I've been in a psychiatric ward for a cpouple of months too, and only 3 other people in the world know this, because I know no one else would understand. And yeah, had all that crap from some of the nurses. I'm too busy battling with myself right now if you know what I mean to put in complaints and I try not to dwell on other people's reactions, but sometimes I do feel like starting a bloody revoution. There is a hell oif a lot of ignorance out there.

I too get pissed off with people's perception of depression. It was something I'd never really beena ware of until i had seriously bad PND after the birth of DS2 (which, through counselling, was linked back to me not grieivng when I was 16 and my dad died) but it's back just now.
People jsut seem to see it as "oh you're upset, here's a tissue" kind of thing

Please rant away Tianc - have been lurking on the cybergarden thread and see your posts on there so often and never realised you had/are suffering from depression.

Racingmind - you are so right that there should be another word for the hell of clinical depression. I get so pissed off when I hear someone saying "oh that film was so depressing" I want to shout NO it isn't, or the one I heard yesterday "Isn't the onset of winter a depressing thought" and again I wanted to shout NO.

I'd better stop or I will be going on a very long rant!

you're all right. i hate the heavy emptiness, the dull clutterd and disorganised mind, the darkness of hope, the noise both in my head and outside, the cliches people come off with 'pull yourself together', 'its not as bad as all that', 'you've got so much to be thankful for'. or when you're asked by someone being polite 'how are you' - do you really want to know??? not feeling anything either emotionally or physically - being numb to everything. not having the energy to be motivated. food - i hate thinking about food, but i rarely lose weight maybe because i eat choc digestives and midget gems...
i hate having to think or try to make decisions. i hate waking up some mornings cos i feel so damn tired all the time. i hate being told to go to the gym (by dh) and to feel good about myself - healthy body healthy mind... i could go on, but it's depressing....

Youve got 2 healthy children, what have you got to be depressed about?

I have my Mum to thank for that one! Just made me feel worse!

Thoughtless people. I lose all sense of patience, and they really wind me up in a totally irrational way (might be a bit of paranoia chucked in there too)!

Ooh, NanaNina, wondered if you popped into the cybergarden often! I'll put out a for you! And anyone else who likes to drop in.

Had vile depression for some years, but eventually it just... went away. I've revisited memories for some threads, but I'm afraid I mostly just want to leave them packed away, and sympathise rather then empathise.

So rant was just of loose impressions. I have a low opinion of some of the sorts of people attracted to MH work, and their motivations. But maybe if I were to put the effort in to remember properly and reassess I would change my mind or maybe not.

I think I didn't reply to your very kind PM a little while back, so Thank You!

Well it gives me hope Tianic that sometimes depression just goes away.......I have not fully reccovered from a major episode last Easter. I can go weeks feeling fine and then a "blip" descends and lasts anything from 2 - 15 days, averaging about 7. I am told by the conslt psych that these blips "sometimes" clear up and "sometimes not" - when I am feeling like me I don't have any recall of how it feels to wake up flat and empty and an absence of any emotion really, and when that happens I can't ever imagine being me again. It really does make you feel like a stranger in your own body doesn't it.

I feel fortunate that at least my kids are grown with their own families and have a loving DP - been together 40 years just never got round to getting married! I feel so sorry for so many young mums on here who are struggling with depression.

Incidentally I think you and the rest of the gang have been so supportive and consistently available to Onwards and Upwards. You all must know each other really well - do you ever think about meeting up?

Noise. Being out anywhere noisy. Try to make the effort to see friends, but if we go to a pub, the noise just kills me, makes me want to cry.