Depression: The Experience
June 18th, 2008 |By Colette Dowling, LMSW
Click here to contact Colette and/or see her GoodTherapy.org Profile
Joann was thirty-eight when she was freed of a depression that had plagued her, off and on, for her entire adult life. Before finally getting help, she felt lower than she’d ever felt before. “I was in agony, caught up in an excruciating, unrelenting mental anguish that worsened with each day. I could see no end to the blackness that engulfed me, and I knew I could not endure much longer.”
Another woman, describing her depression, told me she felt like there was a big black bird hovering over her from the minute she woke up in the morning.
While a particularly stressful event might trigger the blackness of depression, it can appear from nowhere. Or, as in Joann’s case, it can creep up so insidiously that the illness is never fully seen for what it is.
“Nothing had happened to make me feel so terrible,” Joann says. “Yet every drop of color had been slowly drained from my life–so gradually that I didn’t notice it happening. Then, all of a sudden, there was no joy left in my day. There was no pleasure in getting up to a new morning, in being with friends, or in doing any of the million and one things I love to do. All that stretched in front of me was an aching loneliness and emptiness. Nothing had meaning. Nothing brought pleasure. I wanted desperately to laugh and have fun again, but the pain grew worse.
Even with her painful depression, Joann kept working. At first, it was a distraction, a way of keeping her mind off her troubles. But eventually it became a trial in itself as she tried to keep up a pretense of normalcy. At the office, she avoided people. “It was terribly important to me to conceal my pain from everyone, especially since I couldn’t explain it. I struggled to keep control of my emotions. I didn’t understand what was happening to me, and I felt as though no one else would, either.
When depression goes untreated, it gets worse. After a while, Joann had to stop pretending that everything was okay. She was forgetting, avoiding phone calls, growing more and more irritable. “Mail, phone messages, and requests began piling up. I was so confused. I couldn’t seem to clear anything away. I couldn’t concentrate enough to read. Even minor chores began to seem difficult.”
Joann says that dealing with people used to be one of her strong points, but now she was misinterpreting others and blowing small incidents out of proportion. Things would make her cry, right out in the open. Often, this is the point at which people begin to recognize depression. They’re crying over things that would never have made them cry in the past.
Eventually, self-hatred set in. “I began thinking of myself as a terrible worker who had managed to fool people for a long time but who was about to be exposed as stupid and careless, someone who couldn’t do her job.” Life became “one long, confused haze.” At this point Joann was barely managing to get herself out of bed and to the office. At work she spent her days choked with fear and anxiety, and when she got home she felt exhausted. “I stopped cooking, cleaning and even walking the dog. I lost weight. Sleep became my only escape, and I tried to sleep as much as I could. I never woke up really refreshed. At my worst I would snap awake in the early hours of the morning with a terrible knot gripping my stomach.”
A Confusing Experience
The term depression, used in so many ways, can be elusive. In common speech, it describes the “down” or blue state everyone experiences from time to time. But in psychiatry, depression refers to an inability to experience pleasure at all. The inability to feel pleasure is known clinically as “anhedonia”. Those who experience it tend to be able to describe it only in metaphors. “It is like a black cloud,” they will say.
Another symptom of depression is trouble concentrating, which leads to loss of interest in things that were once stimulating. Boredom may be how the patient describes it, but that sensation–or, more accurately, LACK of sensation–is depression. “Objectively, it appears as a steadily increasing disinclination to take part in normal activities,” explains Dr. Max Hamilton, in a psychiatry textbook. Work becomes harder to accomplish, concentration diminishes, decisions are put off, and the great pileup of untended tasks begins: laundry, bill paying, taxes. Interestingly, Hamilton says depressed women keep up with their tasks far longer than depressed men.
When Joann finally sought the help of a therapist, “she put the whole picture together.” A lot of information had to be gathered before that picture could be seen. The therapist found out about Joann’s childhood and adolescent mood symptoms and also about mood, anxiety and addiction problems of her relatives. There were a lot of depressive “threads” in her family history. And there was also a depressive thread in Joann’s own life. Hormone shifts seemed to trigger her depressed moods–at puberty and premenstrually. She might well be at risk for another bout of depression when perimenopause sets in, but if that should happen, Joann will know what to do to intervene and prevent the symptoms from taking over her life. Within a month her leaden symptoms began to lift and it wasn’t too long before she felt in control of her life again. “It seems so weird, in retrospect,” she says. “I’m an intelligent person. Why didn’t I recognize my symptoms and why didn’t I see the connection between this episode of depression and similar if not such serious ones I’d had in the past?” One reason might be that depression actually makes it harder for us to think straight, to remember, to “put the pieces together”, Once the depression is treated, we seem smart again, clear, and it’s hard to imagine those days when everything was so black.
©Copyright 2008 by Colette Dowling, LMSW. All Rights Reserved. Permission to publish granted to GoodTherapy.org. The following article was solely written and edited by the author named above. The views and opinions expressed are not necessarily shared by GoodTherapy.org. Questions or concerns about the following article can be directed to the author or posted as a comment to this blog entry. Click here to contact Colette and/or see her GoodTherapy.org Profile
June 20th, 2008 at 3:19 am
I too have suffered from a debilitating depressive episode about seven years ago and it is so hard to explain to others who have never been through it what it is like. There are people who actually tell you just to shake it off. Well you can’t when all you feel like doing is never leaving your bed!
I really relate to Joann’s story !!! and hope others can find hope in it as well.
June 23rd, 2008 at 2:29 am
There is something so internally frightening about depression. You know that something is wrong but it is like you just can’t find the right word to tell others what it is. So for me that meant going even further inward. I am just fortunate to have had friends who recognized that something was wrong and led me to the right places to seek help.
June 23rd, 2008 at 6:20 am
Your description of depression as a black bird hovering over her in her bead, or as a blackness engulfing her, or as colors being drained from life, really makes one understand how desperate people must become when they are depressed. It is easy to see how this colorless life or the feeling of blackness could lead one to suicidal thoughts.
June 23rd, 2008 at 9:50 am
Joann, I’m so happy for you to overcome such darkness. I think I’m in a similar hole now with no way out. My circumstances (travelling husband who tells me I’m boring anyway, three moves in two years, no friends (due to moves) and a critical and competitive mother) leave me with no light. Thanks goodness for my children who keep me going (I’m not sure if old enough they’d feel the same about me). But I’m so grateful for them.
Could a light be found even for me here?
Yay you, Joann.
June 24th, 2008 at 3:20 am
Shawn there is always a way out and I think that the fact that you recognize that there is something wrong is the first step. There are so mnany resources available to you and I know that there are people on this site who can certainly help you with that. I am so sorry that you are having a difficult time right now but things will get better- please seek help and with the right professional by your side you will be able to find the light in life again.
June 25th, 2008 at 9:53 am
Having grown up with a parent who it seemed was in a perpetual funk I know first hand how crippling this disease can be for the entire family. The person who is depressed has no idea how much they are taking away from others unintentionally through their illness and that this is something which always needs to be addressed and dealt with in a prompt and professional manner before the entire family is destroyed.
June 26th, 2008 at 3:09 am
So who needed to make the first move? I think that in situations like this there has to be a responsible adult party who will take action and that is not necessarily going to be the person dealing with depression. He or she may not be in the right mental state of mind to deal with that alone.
June 28th, 2008 at 2:53 pm
I strongly feel that when you notice a loved one dealing with depression it is your ultimate responsibility to make sure that they are taken care of. When depressed there is no way you can make a rational decision to get yourself into treatment especially if you are really down. We need to take care of our friends and family and get the the help they need to heal.
June 29th, 2008 at 10:50 am
Being depressed is that feeling that you are sinking into a black hole from which you will never be able to make your wya out of again. I have been there and have witnessed others go through the same exact thing. You have to be there for others and help them get the help they need and deserve for this disease is not incurable- it can be treated and managed.
June 29th, 2008 at 8:07 pm
Yes, loved ones need to take action. If this offends the sufferer, it still must be done. Love is tough but you’re seeing the bigger picture. Like the story of Joann above, she sought to hide it or wish it away while that was making things worse.
I loved this…
QUOTE: “When Joann finally sought the help of a therapist, “she put the whole picture together.” A lot of information had to be gathered before that picture could be seen.”
When you’re depressed, you don’t see things clearly. You need help from the outside.
That’s what did it for me too - help from the outside!
June 30th, 2008 at 9:51 am
Do you think there are more people actually living with depression today or has it just become the diagnosis of choice for many? Everywhere I go there is someone I know facing this and I never remember things being like this in the past.
July 1st, 2008 at 7:31 pm
I think more people are indeed depressed today and I’m guessing it has much to do with our modern life style - getting ourselves over busy, lacking in exercise, eating too much fast food and or processed foods, and isolating ourselves away from community (happens with job changes, commuting to work, hiding in work, etc.).
I remember seeing a study done on a little community in the 40s in the US - forget the name of it - which had the healthiest people in the US at the time. Researchers went in and tried to determine why it was so. It was a little Italian settlement community where everyone knew everyone’s name and family was huge - tradition and celebration of family - like birthday’s were extremely important. People stuck together and hung out together. Shortly after the invention of the TV (in the 50s) the community started to decline. There was less ‘doing things together’ and 20 years later, the health status was the same as the rest of the US. Heart attack rates and the rest were the same. Wish I could find that article again…
I think the break down of the family has much to do with the state of depression today. There’s so much heartache in homes today. If you come from a broken family, it can be so hard to find security, safety, community. It is becoming more of a difficult thing for many. Kudos to those who volunteer in orphanages and with Big Brothers and Big Sisters, take in Foster kids, etc.
“Broken homes” can even be homes with both mom and dad but they both work so much that the kids never see their parents. I just heard a teenager call in on the radio crying ’cause she never sees her parents who work all the time! My heart broke!
Here’s what I am learning for myself and my own kids…
“If you’re too busy for your family, you’re too busy.”
My 5 and 3 year olds constantly say when we’re doing things together like mini golfing or playing at the beach, “what a special family day!” or “I love our family!”
I wish everyone a summer of slowing down and refocusing on priorities!!
Hug your loved ones today!
July 17th, 2008 at 1:37 pm
Thanks Merri Ellen. I agree with you one hundred percent that the breakdown of the family and family values overall has led us as a society to feel unhappier than ever before. Everything used to be so centralized but now we are all scattered and pulled in every which direction and we lose focus on the things in life that are important and the resources that we need to stay emotionally afloat.
July 25th, 2008 at 9:59 am
I once dated a guy who explained depression to me like a feeling of suffocating. Has that been the experience of others as wll? he said it was almost like living was a chore, made him breathless from exertion, and he did not get better without both psychtherapy and anti depressants.
July 25th, 2008 at 7:06 pm
Maddie, the feeling of suffocating and breathlessness sounds more like anxiety, possibly even panic disorder. Of course your friend could also have been depressed at the same time. Depression and anxiety often overlap. But getting treatment can help both.
July 28th, 2008 at 1:49 am
What should I do when I see a child whom I believe to be depressed? You see the signs like withdrawal and almost an emptiness that was not there before in a once lively child.
July 29th, 2008 at 1:38 am
Lucy, I would say that in part it depends upon your relationship to the child. Treatment for depressed children is just as important as is treatment for depressed adults. Ideally the child should be taken to a child therapist or psychologist for assessment. If it is a child in your classroom, then I would speak to the school psychologist.