How much must you be depressed that you are eligible for the title?
I feel like a phony.
When I say to someone,”I’m depressed”, they’d say, “Nah, you are just a melancholic type”.
Or, when I say something sarcastic they’d say “You’re such a pessimist”. It’s no use I explain I’m an optimist, really. I say sarcastic things because I feel depressed, but otherwise, I regard the future optimistically. If you can follow my logic.
Anyway, what I want to know is, how much must you exaggerate to be accepted as a depressive person in your closest public? Provided, you want to be known as such.
Isn’t just the statement enough? Don’t people believe your word?
I believe not. People believe actions, or, perhaps, repetition. In my opinion, depressed people don’t do action. We rather hide it. We only express sadness when it peaks. And when we are unpleasantly not acknowledged, we pull ourselves back into our shells. (A by-thought: do extroverts have depression, what does their depression look like?)
So, people don’t notice by themselves, do not acknowledge our one statement, and we mostly don’t repeat it. As much as we want compassion, we fear that being acknowledged as depressed might even hurt our social status.
I feel like a phony whether I say the D word or not. Like, in both cases, I don’t speak the truth.
Would repetition work? It probably would. But there are two sides to this problem. For starters, we think we already speak about us being depressed a lot, but it might not be the case. I, for example, live a lot in my head. But people around me don’t see inside. They live lives, centred around their problems, not mine. So they don’t pay attention as much as I believe. They don’t receive hints, they don’t understand facial expression (I know I don’t, do you?). And, if we constantly repeat we are depressed? We get dismissed as not serious, not sufferers enough. We are labelled as hypochondriacs, drama-queens and such. Of course, we don’t want that, we want to be perceived as serious. So we suffer enough, silently, seriously. Most of the time, we are depressed for ourselves.
How about getting an official diagnose? So we can be what we are, not needing to prove our feelings to everyone. What is the smallest amount of blue to get an official diagnose?
I guess, not much when you get to a professional therapist. Maybe your GP (personal doctor) waves you goodbye with no fussing attitude, but a psychotherapist is bound to find something that’s wrong with you. But that’s ok. We need someone to believe us, even if we must pay them for it.
And the sum of all fears? What must your level of depression be for you to be equal to your not equally depressed peers? Well, I don’t feel adequate with my “mild” depression (I still don’t know where on the scale I am). I believe I should at least be severely depressed, endorsed by a professional therapist, to qualify.
What would a severely depressed person say to my level? “Pfft, I’d be happy to have what she has,” or “I know what she means, but she’s lucky she can function.”
Can you tell me, people? I can’t read your minds, you know, sometimes I barely read mine. Probably there’s no one who is deeply depressed and also reading this. Who’d want to read depressive texts? But still. Any comments? Am I a phony? I’m deleting every comment that says yes 🙂
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