Blah and Nothingness- Fibro and Depression

I have been struggling with depression all of my adult life. It can be difficult at times to relate to people that have never experienced depression because it's so hard to remember a time when I didn't feel that weight of depression in my life.

Almost two years ago I came across this post about depression by Allie on her blog Hyperbole and a Half. [Warning: If you are offended by certain words commonly used as curse words in our modern language, do not read it]  Her posts always include purposely bad drawings and often tell some sort of story.

As I was reading this post on depression, I couldn't help giggling... and laughing... and more giggling... and laughing so hard I cried.

Now, you may think this is strange... laughing... about a blog... about depression...?

But... here's why! Because in reading this blog on depression, it was as if a little voice inside me kept shouting and getting louder, "Yes, Yes, YES!!! Someone finally found words for all the things that I've been feeling inside!! This is what it's like!!!!" And that little voice felt relief, validation, and a little piece of happy.

Because depression isn't really just sadness. It's like a big blanket of nothingness just slowly creeps into your life until it's too late and you sit there wondering what happened. It's slow, it's sneaky, it's insidious (meaning stealthily treacherous), it's cyclical (you spiral down getting worse because it feeds itself at your expense), it's destructive, it's mind numbing, and it doesn't easily go away. In thinking about it, depression is like zombies.

 [You don't want to know how many gross pictures I waded through 

to find this relatively benign and artistic picture. You're welcome.]

Just think about it. Zombies are slow. Zombies are quiet. Zombies sneak up on you and then attack you. Zombies grow by feeding. Zombies are hard to kill because they just keep coming. Zombies don't care about anything except consuming, thereby making more zombies. And, zombies destroy life as you know it. See... depression is zombies!

If you don't like that idea (which, you really should because, hello... zombies!), you can just think of it like a sneak attack in a siege. Before you even know they are there, the enemy has already penetrated your defenses and have put up their own to keep you from casting them out. To make it worse they use a white foggy gas that makes you feel sluggish and difficult to move. The longer it takes to realize they are there, the harder it is to fight them. Before you know it, you have lost half the city and are struggling to keep them out of the rest.

Or, you could put the two together and have zombies doing a sneak attack during a siege in your city. Seriously... perfect! 

If you've never experienced depression before, perhaps the post by Allie and these descriptions and pictures give you some idea of what depression is like. I would like you to understand because it may help you when talking to someone with depression.

There are only two other things I would say as far as description goes. The first is that while some things are universal for everyone with depression, some things vary from person to person. Some may have mild depression and they are able to shake it off with only a little trouble, and some have deep depression, it's a life long struggle, and have given up hope that they will ever feel like a normal person again (if they even remember what that was like). If you really want to know what depression is like for a certain person, go and ask them with genuine compassion. Then, be prepared to listen (without talking) with open ears and heart.

I mentioned at the beginning that depression is a weight. It is. If you've ever read an older allegory called Pilgrim's Progress, you might understand exactly what I mean. If you have not, just imagine carrying a backpack around with you everywhere, and every day that backpack feels heavier and heavier and heavier. This weight is internal, but it is still heavy, weighs you down, and causes everything to be a whole lot more difficult. 

The other thing is that depression is isolating. You often feel alone, that no one wants to be around you, that you don't want to intrude your sad blahness into their happy, and that no one really knows or understands what you are going through.

Whenever I'm around people I try not to be too negative in how I talk about what's going on in my life and how I respond to the inevitable "How are you/How have you been?" I could easily list out all the aches, pains, emotional turmoil, mental difficulties and fatigue... but unless they are my oldest, closest, or dearest friends they likely wouldn't want to be listening too long (and if I only talked about those things, it's unlikely even those would remain my oldest, closest, or dearest friends!) to all my tales of woe. Also, this tends to feel negative to me, and I've learned that the longer I dwell on the negative the harder life feels (and I really don't need life to feel harder!). So, I will give an honest but vague answer to the merely inquisitive, or if I don't have time to get into anything more even to closer friends. Usually it's some variation of "Exhausted but here", "Things are difficult but I'm hanging on", or "Yesterday was rough but today is ok".

If there is one thing I would want those that don't know what it is like to experience depression, and those that have only ever had a mild form, to know is that you can't assume that what works for some people will work for others. You also can't assume that just trying to convince them to have an attitude change will work. Or, that if they consider themselves Christians all they need to do is have more faith.

These ways of thinking can be damaging because in order to think in these ways you are already assuming that on some level a person that is deeply depressed wants to feel that way, because otherwise why haven't they just gotten better by now? Just put a little more effort into it and I'm sure you will feel better! Yeah... that's not really accurate or helpful, and can potentially be damaging for the person you are talking to because now you heap guilt, self doubt, and inadequacy on top of their already mile high pile of tumultuous emotions and internal self flagellation. That's the emotional equivalent of having a person alone in the middle of the ocean, trying to make it to shore with only a small flotation device and then taking their flotation device away. It's just not very nice.

[Side note: Depression is caused by one of two things- chemical imbalances or external/internal pressures. Some that have a mild form of depression that started with external/internal pressures can change their attitude, make other healthy changes in their lives to manage stress, and are able to feel better and get better as a result. Those that start with a chemical imbalance, even if they have a more mild form, can't usually feel better just with those things. Also, even if it starts with external/internal pressures, once they hit a certain level of depression their chemicals automatically go out of balance, and create the beginning of cyclical depression. In this case, the sooner you start treating it and changing things the easier it is to get to a place where you start feeling better. Not easy, but easier. Once depression has cycled several times by either cause, it is difficult to get better by yourself. You need help with medication, counseling, or both, in addition to supplements and other methods.]

I assure you, those that suffer lifelong deep depression don't like it, don't want it, and would give anything to not feel the way they do anymore. They just have tried everything they can think of, and nothing seems to help, or only help for a time. Believe me when I say that you want to believe there is hope for things to be different when you so often feel like there isn't any.

When it comes to having Fibromyalgia, it's very difficult to not feel depressed because fatigue and depression feed off of each other, and fatigue and Fibro go hand in hand. The more tired you are, the more depressed you become and the more tired you end up being. So, depression is a major factor in having Fibromyalgia and in how you feel mentally, emotionally, and physically.

Because Fibro is a condition you have for life, if you have Fibro you will pretty much have depression for life. However, just because you have depression doesn't mean you need to stay in an isolated state of blah nothingness! 

In this post I will talk about some of the things that can help, and some things that are necessary to maintain a state of hope in the midst of foggy fatigue and depression.