Quote:
Originally Posted by ukiyo-e
Trust me, if people with clinical depression could CHOOSE to be happy, they would. Real clinical depression is crippling. No one would choose to feel that way if they could help it.
Being an entitled, whining victim is another issue entirely, and yes, some people need to stop being so negative about things and do something to fix them.
Don't confuse the two.
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I couldn't agree more. I've been a lifelong sufferer of drug-resistant clinical depression and I had my first serious episodes before I was legal to drive. Back then I lived in a small mill town and people didn't know what was wrong with me. My public school noticed a change in my demeanor which was serious enough that they encouraged my mother to have me tested for mononucleosis since I was so listless. That wasn't the problem and it was more than a decade of on-again-off-again episodes before I was diagnosed.
I've learned a lot about depression in the many years since then. I know that my father had it and my maternal grandmother, too, so it's on both sides of my family. One of my brothers and two of my nieces have also been diagnosed. I firmly believe the tendency to suffer depression is genetic, although people can have situational depression that is also very real and beyond their control. I also believe, and research backs me up, that there is a link between sleep disorders and depression. I was a volunteer research subject for a three-year, nationwide study of this link conducted by a group of major university psychiatric hospitals. My brainwaves during sleep have been determined to be significantly different when I am in a depressive episode and when I am not. To me, that indicates that I really have very little control over my illness, beyond taking drugs and learning how not to let my bad moods ruin my life or effect the lives of others.
I swear to you I can spot a depressed person on the bus or on television. I'm sure there are some sufferers who are good at hiding how they feel and I miss them, but I can tell you for sure that an amazing number of people suffer from this chemical imbalance. PTSD (post-traumatic stress) is a form of depression, as is SAD (sunlight affective disorder). Many people with anger management issues are, in fact, suffering from depression. Many poor employees or bad students aren't purposefully annoying. They are depressed. Many people stricken with extreme grief are not going to bounce back without help.
Many things can be done to address these problems but since so much clinical depression goes undiagnosed, many sufferers don't even understand that the source of their problem. First and foremost, depressed people should avoid using alcohol or recreational drugs of any kind (I learned that the hard way). We are inclined to do that since we are desperate to get out of our funk and that looks like an answer. But in the long term, the positive change is temporary and the problem is exacerbated.
Now to the OP's "rant." I've read some of Pear Martini's posts before, so I know her issues with her mother are long-standing and have been discussed here in the past. I'm inclined to think that we
do draw people toward us who are similar to what we are used to dealing with. I'm
not saying it's done on purpose. I'm just saying if we are raised by someone who behaves a certain way, we learn to "handle" them and our skills are attractive to other people who have similar issues. Why else do so many children of alcoholics end up with alcoholic spouses? Shouldn't they know better? But in fact you will often hear, "I swear he didn't even drink when I met him, now he's just like my father." Or why do so many people get together with a string of abusive partners? Isn't one enough? But no, after being abused they hook up with the next partner who seem perfectly genial, the one day ... BAM. This stuff can't be a coincidence. We give off a vibe that makes us attractive to certain types and when we get to know
them they seem comfortably familiar to us, too. A less serious example: my mother talks constantly. She is a chatterbox extraordinaire. Both of my brothers married women who are the same way but now, suddenly, it annoys them. And they would both firmly deny that they "picked" women who are like Mom. Maybe not
consciously ...
So what to do? Pear, I'd suggest you have a decision to make. You either have to learn how to accommodate these friends because in the long run your ties to them are worth your time and energy or you have to cut them off if you determine that their issues are really making you so unhappy you can't go on with the relationship. I don't have a sense of whether or not these friends have been actually diagnosed and/or
wish to change the way they feel and act. If they
are trying to help themselves, I think it does fall into the "intolerant" category for you to just get angry at them. If they
are clinically depressed, believe me, they can't help it. They might be able to improve their interactions with you and others if they put their minds to it, but this illness can't be willed away. And, honestly, many depressed people are completely unaware how unpleasant they are to be around. Self-absorption is a component of depression. So your just being honest with them could lead to some improvement.
If they are
not diagnosed, you could do them a great service by encouraging them to get help. Anti-depressant medication
does successfully assist many people. It sometimes takes awhile to find the right drug for the right person. Side effects are prevalent and dosages are sometimes hard to determine. I would also recommend them getting an appointment with an actual psychiatrist or psychiatric social worker. If they don't have money or insurance coverage, many cities and regions have public clinics where people can be treated on a sliding scale basis. Untreated depression results in a lot of social problems (divorce, unemployment, child abuse, homelessness, etc.) so there are organizations and institutions dedicated to addressing this issue. Call a crisis hotline or the intake office of a respected psychiatric hospital in your area for a referral.
General practice and family practitioners are allowed to prescribe antidepressants and they often are quite capable of diagnosing depression properly. But finding a patient the drug that is right for them and figuring out the dosage (which varies widely person to person) is as much an art as a science. You can avoid a lot of suffering by hooking the patient up with someone who has a lot of experience with the many different varieties of drugs that are on the market. Other people aren't helped so much by drugs, so they need therapy.
I have every faith that your friends
are annoying. But there might be a serious reason, especially if they haven't always been like this. You have to decide if you want to confront the issue or get out of the way. But nothing will change permanently without action on someone's part.
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