DwD #0: dealing with depression

I've had an idea for about a year now for a series of posts on depression. I went so far as to create a site on WordPress and come up with a pseudonym, a blog title, and a tagline. There were a couple of reasons I wanted to do it anonymously, but being embarrassed about depression was not one of them.

I suspect that among women in their 50s, the number of us who have never experienced depression is pretty small. There's post-partum depression and grieving over the death of a loved one depression and empty nest/life transition depression and this job sucks but I can't quit right now depression and the world is a horrible place and I can't fix it depression. Just to name a few.


And that's not mentioning depression that is not situational--that has no triggering event--which is probably more common and more debilitating than any of the others. Even if we've never experienced it ourselves, we've almost certainly had to deal with someone who was depressed. It's nothing to be ashamed of. It happens all the time.

No, the main reason I thought I wanted anonymity was because if I start a series on a topic, it feels like I'm presenting myself as an expert, and I'm not. I'm not an expert on any of the topics I write about, but especially not this one. I'm not a therapist, I have no medical training. I've never had any psychology classes beyond Psych 101 when I was a freshman in college back in 1980.

I have no credentials for this other than my own experience, my years in therapy, and my reading on the topic--which has been scattered, never with any coordinated effort to be organized. I just read what I find when I find it. Using a pseudonym wouldn't change the fact that I have no credentials, but it would make me feel slightly more comfortable that no one would realize it was me putting myself forward like that.

But the most important reason I decided not to do the big blog series on wordPress is because I realized that by making it into such a project, I was making it sound like depression is a solvable problem. Which, of course, it isn't. It's a disease, an illness, and like any illness, it is complex and manifests a bit differently in every person who has it. I was writing the posts while I'm wasn't depressed, which had a tendency to make them sound chipper and upbeat.

In the months since I abandoned the original plan, I've listened to a couple of friends who are dealing with depression, and had another bout of mild depression myself. It's not a problem that's going away. It's utterly irrational. And intractable--meaning there's not really much you can do to stop it. Thinking your way through it while you're not depressed--which is what I was doing--doesn't really do much good.

My own experience with depression is probably not typical. I've only once in my life been so depressed that I was suicidal--and that was way back in my twenties. A couple of therapists have told me that depression is supposed to get worse as you get older--the episodes get longer and more severe. But my depression has never been that bad again. It doesn't keep me from accomplishing the basic tasks of life--taking care of my kids, getting to appointments on time, keeping up with my responsibilities at work (when I was working) or my volunteer gigs. 

My depression is more the type that manifests itself as a gray pall, like walking around with the color leached out of everything. It creeps up on me. Usually I don't even realize I'm depressed until weeks after it starts--suddenly I'll realize it's been ages since I've actually wanted to get out of bed, or had a good laugh, or felt any joy or happiness. 

So I don't even know why I'm doing this, but I am. In addition to this one, I've got two (maybe three) more planned for this round. There will probably be more at some point in the future. Experience with depression is so highly variable that this may not help anybody but me. Feel free to ignore. I'll label these posts DwD (dealing with depression) so you can skip them if you're not in the mood.

If you are one of the few who've never ever experienced depression, don't judge us, because I can guarantee that you don't understand what it's like. It's not just a matter of thinking positively and getting your ass in gear and for goodness sake stop feeling sorry for yourself. I don't think you can understand unless you've been there.

edited 10/12/15 to add: now that I'm done with them, here are the links to all of the posts about depression in this series:

Depression's Useful Side
Seven Things on Friday: Seven things About Depression
Depression's Antidotes Part One (Being Honest)
Depression's Antidotes Part Two (Being More Honest)