People may well dispute this, but to me there is no doubt that Depression continues to become more and more prevalent day by day. I'm 33, and when I was 13, I had no idea what depression was. It was legit not discussed in any circles. Just like the numerous 'sister' illnesses like Anxiety, Borderline Personality Disorder, and so on. (and on and on and on) Not coincidentally, this was also 1996. The internet wasn't a thing. (Most people in Australia didn't have the net in schools and homes 'til late 90's. The timeline goes something like this; No one talks about it...no one in my school had it.. internet comes along.. initially still no one talks about it (presumably because of the excitement of all things internet).. internet speeds improve..the novelty of internet goes away...smartphones come about...technology explodes..information is available at your fingertips...at the same time teenagers and adults alike are starting to learn of all these diagnosis' that they had never heard of...they think 'I have some of those symptoms'..I can seek justification through a LABEL. Great. Ok, now I'm the depressed person. And this is me. I'm going to need to take tablets. Forever. Of course, many read this and think I'm some dinosaur. Or worse, not caring enough about people with depression etc. But you know what, eff you. I was insanely melancholic as a kid. I'm even more melancholic as an adult because of all the ***** around me. I understand the pain of getting out of bed every day because 'what's the point, right?'. My point in all this? I came from a better time. I came from a time when I wasn't 'special' enough to need a label to justify my existence. I just got on with it, got my arse to school/work (most of the time) and battled through because I would have been in trouble with my school/parents if I didn't. Plus when the weekend came that meant SPORTS. Yes. I take antidepressants. They work for me. But it's not who I am. I don't talk about it (ironic yes, but I don't KNOW you guys. You are just my sounding board. Members of my own family don't even know I've been on the friggin' things for ages) I just resent the fact that it's ALMOST reaching levels of cool to suffer anxiety and depression. Now with the added benefit of social media as a platform. What a sad (no pun intended) situation that this society has reached that the first blue day people have, they reach for meds and post on Facebook about it so there friends can console them.
Depression has been as common as the word Prozac. You speak back two decades ago, I can reassure you depression was as common then as it is now. I knew a lot of people popping pills back in the day. Now days, it seems less common to me. The difference is the circles you keep. I never kept one particular group of friends. Each have their groups and Im more on the fringe of each. I can reassure you the term "birds of a feather flock together" is very true. I know it sucks not being a 99'er, but you can get through it. It seems like you're not one who is very open. I strongly recommend getting therapy over pills.
I applaud you for speaking candidly about mental health. Depression and anxiety are both sons of b****es.
OP have you been spending too much time on Tumblr? Your argument seems to be that depression isn't simply "more common", but folks are much more willing to identify and label themselves as "depressed" I would have to say that I agree, though I don't necessarily see that harm. The taboo associated with mental illness is a societal ill in itself. We have a long way to go, but this is one of the many reasons I am thankful to live in a western society
People use it as a label. They gravitate to it like a movement. They need that validation, maybe because they don't know how else to categorise themselves. It's not that people are being 'strong' by talking about it - they are adopting the label as a crutch. And a lot of these cases can become 'self fulfilling prophecies'. Also, I have no clue about Tumblr.
OP, I'm not sure I agree with you here. There is something other than lame youth and self-pity at work, IMHO. I've been teaching for a long time now, and students these days (1 in 9 in the United States, btw), show up to my office and they are just totally ****ed up on depression. Like completely holy crap nonfunctional. I've never seen anything like it, and like you, I was a somewhat melancholic lad back in tha day. Clinical depression is so much more than being blue. People really can barely move or feed themselves, and it's on the rise among young people.
I won't bite the bullet on the other bits, but this part compels me to ask why you don't feel like opening up to your family on that aspect of your life? If you're expecting 10 out of 10 bothersome results, what if reality resulted in 7 out of 10 bothersome results? If you have anxiety over being defined as depressed or weak IRL, just remember there's only so much a human person can talk about it until they move on with their own life. Even a douchebag relative who bites into every open wound will have to face their own inner demons. Or maybe you don't want to "become a burden" to your loved ones. You might've heard that chronic depression is a sickness, but people don't necessarily become burdens when they have a treatable cold. It's just a part of their life that they want to develop. If you're the Golden Child, get over it. Laurels from pride never benefitted anyone. You're human, and you want acceptance from the people you value. It's why people post those things on social media, but the message is the wrong one. We've evolved and grown from one-to-one or face-to-face contacts, whereas social media is one-to-many...or sometimes none/many-to-none/many. Your family and closest friends are all you got on the day you die. If it's meaningless to you, make it more meaningful to them. Give them things you never though much of that they could benefit. tl;dr- In a post about fakeness and the shallowness of social media, open yourself up to the people you want in your life. Being connected, opened and sometimes "burdened" might make you forget about some of the other things you're going through online or in your mind.
But you DO agree with me. It IS on the rise. I just happen to think that reaching for a diagnosis/label and the pill bottle should be the last option, not the first. In life, people get sad. It's a normal *****ing part of life.
thanks for typing this out. Your quote took my words a bit out of context though..The 'great - now I'm depressed - and i'm gonna need tablets forever' part was not about me. This was about the self fulfilling prophecy of those who seek to identify themselves (esp. when they are teens who haven't even learned about life and the full range of emotions/experiences yet) with some kind of label. All my friends have it, so now I do. It's almost something to fit in. Like peer pressure stuff. It's ****in weird. To your points, I don't talk to my family about it because me taking a tablet to be 'normal' makes no difference to them. It's a needs to know basis and they don't needs to know. I function normally inside and out. They don't need to know I need an AD to get there.
When people have to struggle to survive, they get the blues. When they got it easy enough that they have plenty of time to think, they get depressed.
I'm glad for you that you have apparently never suffered severe depression. If you had you never could have made this post.
It's a real brain issue. That once triggered must be medically treated. Certainly on the rise. I think it's lifelong and chronic, like most brain issues, but not sure. And Not sure what triggers the brain to go wrong chemically, but seems like stress is certainly on the list. Bodies and brains fail. I would say it's mostly chemical changes. Things just happen to people in the normal course of development so I'm not willing to put it on technology. It's certainly not a personal choice, or personal failure, it's chemical. Much like the disease of drug addition. People are not themselves when depressed, but all of it a physical change in the brain.
Sadness and depression have zero to do with one another. You said you were medicated and yet you don't seem to suffer from or even understand the nature of depression. You seem like you've been melancholic or sad, not depressed. The irony is that you're complaining about labels and you're taking pills you probably don't even need. You seem to think depression is being bummed out. It isn't. What you have calls for talk therapy if anything. Medication is for people that are seriously ill.
In 2009, my brother was about to graduate and become finally a Dentist . Very well liked, never been in trouble always a good kid, physically he was impressive as well. With no signs of depression he manage to take his own life without a warning and everyone else to this day is wondering why did he do that, he was perfect...so yes even the slightest feeling of depression needs immediate self attentions
