2024 Author: Harry Day | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 15:43
"I am depressed". I think every person said these words, and he heard them many times from their relatives, friends or acquaintances. This concept is used to describe quite different sensations and experiences. Depression refers to both mild blues and prolonged periods of bad mood.
Sadness, longing, sadness - these feelings are quite natural in various life situations. Loss of a loved one, divorce, life failures, moving to another city, worries about tragic events in the world … Sadness can be light and bitter, short-term and long-term. It can even be inspiring. An example of this is the many works of art created during periods when their authors were tormented by depressive experiences.
Quite often, what is commonly called depression in everyday life passes after a short period of time. Indeed, it is worth sleeping, watching a movie, crying, talking with friends, and the bad mood passes, the blues recedes and the person has the resources to live on. It is very good if a person knows what helps him in such situations.
But if we are talking about depression, as experts understand it, then in such a state there are no such bright inclusions. In this state, neither a kind word, nor admonitions, nor orders work.
According to the World Health Organization, depression affects one in twenty adults on the planet today. And over the years this condition has become more common and dangerous [1]. Experts believe that by 2020 the situation will worsen: worldwide depression will take the second place in the list of causes of disability, right after coronary heart disease.
Depression is insidious, and there are several pitfalls in its onset and course. It is a mistake to think that a person must necessarily be sad and cry for any reason - some, on the contrary, experience anger or feel nothing at all. Some are depressed, others, on the contrary, are too lively, although constant mood swings occur more often. She covers some with her head at once, and therefore the state of depression is noticeable immediately. In others, it develops slowly, gradually tightening the ring of life.
An abrupt onset of depression can occur either after the death of a loved one, or after a significant loss. In this case, the person's general health deteriorates sharply and this continues for quite a long time. In addition, a person has no way to get out of this state on his own. He stops eating, sleeping, as if frozen in emotional terms, stops moving, can make a suicidal attempt. This requires an urgent visit to a doctor - a psychiatrist, and then psychotherapeutic support.
The fact is that any person reacts to loss with a sense of loss. He experiences a feeling of sadness that is associated with the object that he has lost. After a while, after the so-called mourning process, the feeling of sadness gradually releases and the person can live again.
When depressed, a person is also tormented by grief, but this grief may or may not be related to actual loss. Sometimes the loss can be known, but there is also a very specific feature: a person may know who or what he has lost, but cannot adequately describe what he has lost. This is the last what thus belongs to the unconscious.
That is why depression may not manifest itself manifestly, but accumulate over the years and only then manifest itself. The psychoanalyst Paul-Claude Racamier writes that in such cases the mourning process begins, then stops and freezes. This canned grief can re-start months and years later. Suspended grief is all the more dangerous because it is imperceptible, silent. Therefore, all depression bears witness to the failed work of grief.
The symptoms of depression are subtle and for quite a long time a person is not even aware of the severity of his condition. Indeed, the first manifestations of depression can go unnoticed. They are usually triggered by some event that is associated with loss: death, divorce, separation, loss. A person feels a little worse than usual, his mood often falls, activity decreases, and sometimes there is insomnia. This is often perceived as an age-related or internal crisis, explained by rational constructions. A person thinks that everything will be experienced, it will pass by itself, if you just want to. Others perceive what is happening in much the same way. People with depression try to reach out to loved ones, but often find themselves unable to understand. “What more do you want? Get a hold of yourself! - such words are heard in response. They really cannot convey the full depth of pain and suffering. And no one is ready to listen to complaints all the time.
Many people with depression are not ready to admit that their condition needs help. They drive their experiences deep inside, direct them to some external object, or try to translate them into actions. This is the problem of diagnosing depression: it is difficult for a person to realize that the source of his constant suffering is concentrated in himself, in his way of thinking and feeling.
It must be admitted that being depressed is a serious condition. It paralyzes the creative and mental principle of a person, captures his life. One of the worst aspects of depression is that the trapped person cannot believe that the situation will ever change. It is the realization that he is sentenced to death while he is still alive that makes him desperate and sometimes even leads to suicide.
We know where to go when a toothache, stomach hurts, when vision falls. But where to turn when the soul hurts, many do not understand. Therefore, psychology and psychotherapy still remain the field between the horoscope and the psychic. Before reaching the psychoanalyst's office, people go to doctors for a long time, where they are diagnosed with vegetative-vascular dystonia or turn to healers, which sometimes makes it easier. We know that in Western countries it is not unusual to turn to specialists of this profile. In Ukraine and other post-Soviet countries, psychology has never been paid enough attention, especially if we recall the past. It was shameful to have mental problems, and psychiatry was punitive.
From a certain point, depression takes over everything and begins to flow in its own way. It becomes an internal content and determines life, further and further separating a person from the outside world. There is no sense of life! - the sufferer is simply sure of this. This condition no longer goes away and people are buried under depression. No love, no pity, no empathy - there is no access to feelings. There is a feeling of one's own insignificance, guilt, uselessness.
Some celebrities share their experiences with depressive episodes, as well as ways to deal with them. So, the writer J. K. Rowling, once experienced a severe episode of clinical depression. She was able in her books about Harry Potter to create the image of Dementors - creatures who feed on human happiness. What is not a metaphor for depression!
In the life story of Stephen Fry, an English actor and writer, there are two suicide attempts and a diagnosis of bipolar disorder. Therefore, he knows firsthand about the ups and downs of the soul. Fry once wrote an open letter to a young girl in depression, where he shared his findings:
“Sometimes it helps me to think about mood and feelings, the way we think about the weather. Here are some obvious facts: the weather is real; it cannot be changed simply by wanting it to change. If it is dark and raining, then it is dark and raining, and we will not fix it. Dusk and rain can last for two weeks in a row. But someday it will be sunny again. It is not in our power to bring this day closer, but the sun will appear, it will come”. (From a letter to a depressed reader, 2009).
Lars von Trier, also familiar with depression and psychotherapy, made the mesmerizing film Melancholy (2011)
A scene from the film "Melancholy" by Lars von Trier
Indeed, many go through severe stress, defeat, loss and can move forward no matter what. Some people need help to cope with crises. If you have been feeling unwell for a long time, do not delay visiting someone who can help. It can be a psychoanalyst, a psychotherapist, a doctor.
Today, people who come to therapy say that there have been moments in their lives when feelings were too strong and they wanted to get rid of their worries. In such cases, they resorted to pills, alcohol. Medications relieve anxiety, give calmness for a while. But mental life remains, internal images do not disappear anywhere, conflicts that torment a person do not pass by themselves.
In addition, depression cannot always be cured with medication. Approximately every second of those who received a prescription from a doctor is faced with the fact that the medicine prescribed by the doctor did not help at all. There is even a special term "therapeutically resistant depression", designating just this form of reaction. The doctor makes such a diagnosis after six weeks of unsuccessful treatment, after which a new treatment is prescribed - sometimes as unsuccessful as the previous one.
Does therapy help? It helps, although it can be long and painful. Someone will be helped only by therapy, someone needs additional support from a doctor. If the mental pain is unbearable, then of course, one must proceed from the principle that before proceeding with the therapeutic effect (in terms of the intensity of pain sometimes comparable to surgical manipulations), it must be anesthetized. The widespread point of view that pain relief with the help of the next fashionable antidepressant may be enough, passes after own experience.
The main thing that you need to know if you decide to seek help is that you are not alone and you can cope with depression.
[1] World Health Organization. Global Status Report on Non-communicable Diseases 2010. Geneva: World Health Organization; 2011.
The article uses illustrations from Sasha Skochilenko's book "The Book of Depression"
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