One in four of you will experience a
period of clinical depression at some point in your life. You are highly unlikely to have to deal with
it for a whole lifetime like I do, but you have a one in four chance of
experiencing real depression. The good
news is that many people who have one depressive episode never experience
another. But if you happen to be one of
the one in four who does have this experience, I want to share something important
with you- something I’ve learned the hard way.
If you’re not one of the one in four, you know someone who is. I think this is important for you to know,
too. Let me start with a little bit of
my story- I want you to know that I know what I’m talking about.
When I was in middle school and high
school dealing with my depression (I have Major Depressive Disorder, MDD, or
depression), I had no idea what was going on; I just knew that my life was
falling apart and I absolutely couldn’t deal with it. I hung on by the skin of my teeth. With therapy, I made it through each
episode. See, depression for me has
always come in waves. I always have it,
but it is usually mostly under control.
Sometimes, though, it’s not. When
I started college, the first time a major episode hit, it knocked me down
hard. I wasn’t sure it would end. When it finally did, I picked myself up and
tried again. And then the next one
hit. And it got better. And then another one hit. And it got better. Each time, I lost months and even years to
the disease. I just hunkered down and
gritted my teeth and waited for it to be over and then tried to get back to
living my life. I continuously worked
with doctors and medications and therapists and therapy groups and figured out
how to make each episode as bearable as possible. In total, I’ve spent around five years nearly
incapacitated by my depression, and I’ve lived with the disease for over half
my life. That’s how you know I know what
I’m talking about. But why does my
experience matter to you?
Well, throughout the course of this
last major episode (I’m just starting to pull out of it now), I’ve learned
something really important. You see, I
used to just hunker down and wait till it was over. I worked hard in therapy and with my
doctors to find the right medications and address problematic thought patterns,
but I still felt like I was waiting out a storm and when it passed, I’d come
back out from under the depression. I
felt like the depressed person couldn’t possibly be me- like I was waiting for me
to come back. In a way, that’s
useful. It helped me to visualize my
healthy self coming back to take control of my life again. But in another way, it held me back.
As long as I thought of my depressed
self as me+depression, I couldn’t really love my depressed self. And anyone else who has thought of me this
way- who has waited for me to come back from wherever I go when I’m depressed-
hasn’t really been loving my true self either.
You (and I) shouldn’t love me despite my depression. We shouldn’t love me “even when” I’m
depressed. What we have to realize is
that I’m always me. And we need
to love me. The depressed
me. The depressed me isn’t just to be
tolerated, pitied, or suffered through.
The depressed me IS me. I
am me, no matter where I go or what I go through. It’s a fine distinction, but it’s an
important one.
During the worst of this most recent
episode, I so often found myself waiting for “me” to come back so that I could
do the things I meant to do and move forward in my life. But one day I realized that “me” was never
coming back. I was never going to
be the person I was before this episode.
I never have returned to being the person I was before any given
episode. That’s the point. I grow and change in really important
ways every time this happens to me. And
I’m me while I’m going through these tough times. This
may seem like a small thing, but it’s made a big difference to me.
So if you’re going through a tough
time, realize this: you’re not just “in there somewhere”. You’re right there on the surface. You are you. You don’t have to apologize for what you’re
going through or promise to make it up to people when “you” come back. You just have to love you. And you have to have people in your life who
will love you. Not love you despite
your sickness. Not love you “even when”
you’re sick. But love the sick you,
because that is you.
And to all of you who know and love
someone with depression (or bipolar disorder or anxiety or anything else), remember
this. I know it’s repetitive, but it’s
important: Don’t love a person despite their illness. Don’t love them “even when” they’re ill. Love the ill them. Because that is them. It will set them free.
