two years of high school but contrary to
common notions of depression it’s not
just about sadness it’s so much more
depression is dejection it’s crankiness
and irritability it’s waking seven
pounds of it in my case it’s deep
self-loathing and an even deeper pit of
hopeless emptiness in my own experience
depression negatively affected my grades
aggravating my self-loathing the
crankiness made me an annoying daughter
and an even more annoying friend I went
through my days feeling empty and
wanting to sleep most of the time though
often it wasn’t for a lack of rest seven
pounds of extra weight severely damaged
my self-image as I was never happy with
what I saw in the mirror for me one of
the worst aspects of depression was
being acutely aware of my own mental
state I felt abnormal and inadequate
dysfunctional in some way that added to
my existing depression and I was stuck
in an endless cycle of self-loathing I
tried talking to my friends about it but
their advice is weak get some sleep so
that you won’t be as cranky go work out
so that you lose the weight just think
positively
and maybe you won’t be so down in the
dumps all the time I had no ideas then
and I’m sure they didn’t either that
what I was experiencing had a name my
friends seem to be living perfectly
normal lives watching Bollywood movies
in their basements over a Nutella
brownies I seem to be the only one going
through this could that be the case if
it were what was wrong with me was I
crazy it was that last thought that
imparted me to seek help until I needed
help myself I had operated under the
gross assumption that therapy was only
for the really crazy and so out of fear
of getting crazier I decided to seek out
a therapist myself I started using my
school’s confidential
psychological services once a week for
several months but quietly I told no one
my choice to keep it a secret was very
deliberate I didn’t want anyone to think
that I was crazy and I certainly didn’t
want to be the end of anyone’s pity
either I didn’t know going in that those
weekly therapy sessions would not only
change how I saw depression but also my
entire worldview my therapist said some
things to me that have stuck with me
since our sessions together she said
you’re not crazy and this this isn’t
something you need to overcome this is
just your reality and some people like
you just need a little bit more help
guiding their own realities and that’s
okay
those therapy sessions helped me
navigate the world from a depressed
mental state so well in fact that I
ended up graduating high school with a
4.0 and landed myself in a pretty
prestigious institution in upstate New
York but that doesn’t mean that I’ve
overcome anything at all or that I’m
cured
that’s not how depression works it comes
and goes
and most likely always will but those
therapy sessions also taught me a very
simple concept
you can’t know light without the
darkness since then I have been much
more cognizant of happy moments in my
life without dismissing the depressed
ones since then I have tried to never
take for granted any of my experiences
be they good or bad the bad have helped
me better savor the good and the good
have helped me better understand the bad
from all of this I concluded sometimes
we need a little craziness to appreciate
the world around us and that’s okay
it makes us human we must reject the
notion that those of us with depression
are abnormal or inadequate in any way we
must in turn accept that there are just
some of us who need a little bit more
help guide
our own realities and that’s okay this
is not a new idea in fact in the 20th
century Sigmund Freud began the early
formulations of such an idea
Freud challenged the juxtaposition of
madness to sanity he was among the first
psychologists to argue that the
difference between the two was simply a
matter of degree all of us are ill he
argued some of us just a little bit more
than others in the later half of the
century our delaying would build and
build on this idea Lange proposed the
schizoid theory which suggests that
madness is a result of mental tension
between a person’s place in the world to
their perception of their place in it to
summarize these theories one need only
look to a certain cartoon cat that once
said we’re all mad here Lang and Freud
codified a simple concept that human
beings are complex but we live in a
society that insists on only validating
normality which is further characterized
by happiness when we talk for example
about depression we talked about the
overcoming of it this points out not
only our gross misunderstanding of
depression which extends beyond just
being sad all the time
but also our need to validate only
happiness we celebrate a person when we
think they’ve overcome depression or in
other words when they’ve returned to
happiness
I think Lange and Freud would disagree
with this interpretation of life
happiness is important but so is
allowing ourselves to be human and if
some of us experience depression along
the way it doesn’t make us crazy it just
makes us who we are thank you