People who have issues with depression, not only have to fight the physical lack of energy, headaches, back or neck pain, and insomnia / over-sleeping that can accompany this mental illness, but they also have to conquer large mental hurdles that stand in their way of achieving normal activities.
I think what confuses people who do not suffer from depression is the idea that positive thinking, going outside, and exercise can "cure" depression. They feel like these mental hurtles people have with depression can be easily jumped by a change in environment or activity level. A lot of people who say "I used to have depression" and then give a passionate speech about how retraining their brain to "think positively" is the best thing that ever happened to them... may have confused low self-esteem with depression.
Depression doesn't go away. You don't "used to have it". You just have it. You can find ways to boost your mood. You can find ways to have longer "up time". Treatment can help you remain stabilized... But that does not make you cured. Even with treatment, people with depression can find that they have relapsed.
For me... Depression affects the way I see. The way I hear. My ability to focus, to care, to take pride in my work. When I am on a "down swing", I am nearly incapable of thinking positively about anything. Everything is clouded by a sense of deep worthlessness so over powering I can barely convince myself to exist. There are times during a "down swing" where I have an over-powering need to rip myself free of my skin, as if some how being in this body is trapping me. When I was younger this need manifested itself in a fury of cutting. As an adult, I find that my behavior becomes generally self destructive, with visions of suicide, irritability and rage, and the inability to deal with touch or physical contact with the people I love.
Postpartum Depression amplified the depression symptoms I've had since I was a pre-teen and made me break down to seek medication, rather than just therapy. With medication, I am stabilized, "Down Swings" are much more rare, but they are not completely gone. They are a lot less severe. Instead of wanting to kill myself, I may just have periods of low motivation, which CAN be helped through a change in environment or activity level.
When I am low, what helps me best is to just talk to someone. To talk and to be listened to. What does not help is when that person says "Oh, you just need to work on thinking differently". Why don't I like hearing that? Because it implies that I am causing myself to be depressed. It implies that depression is my fault, like I have forcefully trained myself to think "Oh, main, I should just die today". Like I chose to be depressed.
No one chooses depression. No one thinks those things on purpose. No one decides that "Today I will think about different ways to kill myself". Maybe I will take all the pills in the house. Maybe I will cut myself open and bleed out. Maybe I can go to Wal-Mart and get a gun and just shoot myself.
No.
Those thoughts are not things people with depression ever PLAN to have or think about purposefully. Please, someone... Realize this before you talk to someone who is severely depressed. Half the time people with severe depression won't even realize they have said something like "I should just die" out loud. It won't even register in their conscience thought that they said it at all. They probably won't even realize they have brought up death in the conversation or that their conversations all lead back to that topic until someone else points it out. Stop telling us to think positively. We honestly cannot stop the thoughts that happen because we don't realize that they are happening.
Depression is like living in a clouded haze. It is like your consciences is falling into a pit and you have no control over the rate you fall or if you ever land and your sub-conscience takes over day to day activity and you're not entirely sure what that is all the time because you can't get out of the haze, you can't stop falling long enough to care. So random things cross your mind. Things that you aren't even sure of because you are too busy falling to really think about it.
Just. Listen.
That is all.
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