If you are reading this, and your first reaction is of anger, or the feeling to defend your depression or anxiety - I understand.
I don't take either lightly.
I am not an expert in either, but I have suffered from both.
I typed "Can you enable depression/anxiety", into the google search bar, and I will share, later in this blog post, the link I found.
I will share just a wee bit of my own experience with depression and anxiety.
First of all, I did not know I suffered from childhood depression, until I was an adult. I thought it was normal to feel as I did, having no frame of reference. I have now been through years of counseling, and I understand my own depression and anxiety fairly well. I no longer suffer from either. I have moments of both. I have learned how to manage both. My depression is not your depression, so I don't speak for anyone but me.
There are very many reasons why I decided to look into the question about enabling. The most reason event that brought up that question, was a conversation I had with someone who also suffers from depression and anxiety. This overly brief description of our conversation will not do justice to all this person has experienced or lived, and is taken out of context, but it allows me to explain my thought process. This is not a reflection of anyone but me.
This person was telling me of their most recent depression episode where they to succumb to the depression and could not leave their house. When I hear of that, a spark of jealously erupts. How crazy is that? Or is that completely normal? It is what it is!
I said to this person that I WISHED I could have succumb to my depression when it was at it's worst. When I had my worst depression was when I had a baby and a toddler, and no one to help me. I was the opposite of enabled. I knew that if I did not get better, my kids would not have a chance. But it was terrible. I wanted medication to help me, but the medication made things worse. It is a long story, and I go into detail in my book about it, but to make it short - maybe by not having help, I got better faster?
Maybe, for the people like me, with my kind of depression, if you get the wrong kind of help, you might cling to how bad things are? By wrong kind of help I guess I mean like people feeling sorry for me, or helping me do things, or trying to take care of me. I sure thought I wanted that at the time. And honestly, I think a balance is really what is needed. You need both empathy and responsibility. You need kindness and understanding that it is hard, but with the truth that you should do it anyway, and that you are not alone. You need love and support. Those are just words - they mean different things to different people.
This is a confusing topic. Depending on the severity of the depression, I think, if you are like me, it may be a bit selfish to succumb to depression. It may be a bit of an indulgence. I am not saying that my depression is not real - it is! But I am saying that with daily work, I can and should work very hard to be happy. I read uplifting material, I research, I try to do things for others so that I can feel better.
One of my main tells of my depression was my eating issue. For some it is drinking or shopping or a myriad of other symptoms. Here is the first page I looked at when I searched, can you enable depression. Here is an off shoot from that first page. I have no extensive knowledge of this person's work, but it looks interesting.
Here is a link to my book.
Thanks for reading. I wish you all a healthy and happy mind! :-)
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