it occurred to me the other day that there isn’t anything in reality that quite resembles our ideal of a perfect life.
We all carry burdens, burdens that to some degree or another take our desired life and flip it on its head. My burden is called major depressive disorder. It has a specific medical diagnosis and a variety of symptoms, but going into those typically serves to muddle the picture. Depression is a burden in my life that takes otherwise joyous, fulfilling experiences and makes them less so. I think it’s important to understand it that way.
You see, in many ways there is nothing unique or especially distinctive about mental illness. It taxes my mind in much the same way that any illness might tax the body. It batters my spirit just like the death of a relative might. The stigma and atmosphere surrounding mental illness are entirely societally imposed – they are ideas that we have created because for the longest time, we couldn’t understand mental illness. Without being able to quantify the impact of it like we might cancer or the loss of a child, we fell back on the idea that those struggling with mental illness should just “toughen up”.
The problem is, now we know better. Now we understand what depression does to a person, how it causes activity in the prefrontal cortex to decline while simultaneously allowing hyperactivity in the limbic structures to give way to more negative emotions. Now we know how it leads to fatigue and headaches, and how it can cause chest pain and slows digestion. We understand that this is real.
The science has moved forward, but the discussion hasn’t.
For some reason we still treat mental illness as though it signifies something uniquely wrong within person. We still treat it as though it is a problem better not talked about.
I get it. In all likelihood, my depression is going nowhere. Last week I had trouble just getting out of bed, and the reality, is in thirty years I’ll probably still have that problem. Mental illness can be debilitating and life-altering. Of course we don’t want to talk about that. Again, though, what person isn’t dealing with some battle like that? Why is it that we can have open, honest discussions about any other of a myriad of life-changing occurrences, but when it comes to mental illness we have no idea how to proceed? If I thought I might have cancer, I’d go running to the doctor, but when I thought I had depression it took me four years to finally see a psychiatrist.
When we talk about major negative events in our lives, we focus on the events. When we talk about mental illness, we focus on the person.
This is at the root of why we still, as a society, fundamentally misunderstand what mental illness is and how to address it. Depression is an aspect of who I am, just like my Aunt Julie who passed away and the two students who committed suicide while I was in high school. It is no more and no less. If we can begin to understand it within that context, as a smaller piece in a much more complicated puzzle, then we can allow those that struggle with it to discuss it without feeling the pressure of baring their soul to the world.


