Depression

Thanks to awareness campaigns, programs and organisations, our general understanding and recognition of mental illness is improving. However, it’s impossible to imagine what life with depression or anxiety or schizophrenia is like if you’ve never been diagnosed with one of these conditions. A recent Reddit thread provides a heart-wrenching insight into the realities and challenges of these illnesses — in the words of people living with them. [In December], Redditor theone1221 asked psychiatrists and psychologists to share “the most profound or insightful thing” they had ever heard from a patient with a mental illness.

Fact: It’s cold as f#ck outside and you should be watching Netflix.

It started out like any other Friday fall morning. The foliage was slowly turning to stunning yellows, reds, and oranges. Workers and students alike were heading off to their respective responsibilities, likely looking forward to the weekend.

Depression isn't just about being unhappy about something or feeling blue; it's a legitimate and very serious medical condition with many emotional, physical, behavioral and cognitive symptoms. It isn't inevitable for anyone living in the modern world, and it also doesn't mean that you're a bad or weak person if you suffer from depression.

Thanks to a number of different stressful factors, I was sent to the Centre For Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) emergency department recently at the "professional advice" (read: insistence) of my general physician. This all happened because I admitted to planning the care of my beloved cats in case I killed myself.

Even though I've suffered from clinical depression ever since I was 15 years old, my depressive episodes have a lot more at stake as I’ve gotten older, especially since I’m dependent on my own productivity in order to survive.

For the last six years, I have been living with depression. Despite the fact that I have extremely low moments when there is an inexplicable and unreachable pain inside me that demotes me into a sobbing, self-harming, low self-esteemed shell of the person that I actually am, there are a number of ways that living with (not suffering from) depression has improved my life and made me a better human being.

Those who know and love people with depression usually want nothing other than to help. But during the times I've been depressed, even the most well-intentioned efforts to help often backfired.