Beyond the Blues

We’ve all seen the memes. Clinical depression is good for a laugh nowadays. I love jokes, and at times, I especially appreciate dark humor. At the right time, with the right delivery, dark topics can be taken lightly, and it’s healthy to have a laugh at yourself sometimes.

You're living life to the fullest and one day it all stops. The breaks are slammed and everything changes. You ask yourself a ton of questions and thoughts run through your mind as to why. What happened? Why me? Why can't I get up out of bed? Why is that things that I used to care about and enjoy just seem to be chores and lost thoughts? Why is it that I'm so sad, moody, making plans just to break them? Why do I feel so dead inside and why am I crying so much? Why don't I care about the way I look or even have the strength to take a shower? All these things crossed my mind over and over again for years. I had no idea what happened to me. Where did my spunk go? Why is this cloud over my head? Why and more why's were running through my mind what was left of it at the time. I really tought I had lost mind.

The scientific evidence suggests that social media adversely affects mental illnesses such as depression. When you suffer from a condition that saps your self-esteem, seeing the successful 'world' that others post online (a 'world' that is overflowing with exotic holidays, career success, and smiling, contented families), can be a dispiriting experience.

Image Source: Envato Depression, as all too many know all too well, is a persistent lowering of mood and energy. Seasonal affective disorder or seasonal depression, as the name suggests, is a particular form of depression that is related closely to changes in the seasons, which in turn accompany changes in weather and social patterns, among other things. Due to a variety of reasons, for example, the cold winter months near the end of the year in many parts of the world and long periods with relative lack of sunlight in remote arctic climates in certain parts of the year tend to bring about higher levels of depression and isolation and, unfortunately, suicide among many members of the population. With this information in mind, the following are 5 very common triggers of seasonal affective disorder, which also has the unfortunately fitting acronym of SAD, and some ways to keep an eye out for them.

For years, I've been dealing with this invisible illness. I kept it to myself because I didn't want to be judged. I don't think anyone would've believed me. Where I'm from, if people can't tell you're hurt by looking at you, your problem doesn't exist. I even hid it from my doctor. What's even more crazy, I've kept it hidden from the man I've been with almost half of my life and I'm 38 years old.

When I started my master’s degree in September 2016, I began to struggle with the imposter syndrome, and that quickly led to depression: mood swings, lack of energy, bad eating habits, and having trouble focusing on tasks, all of them were obvious symptoms of my mental illness. My new duties as a teacher assistant were causing me a lot of worries, as well as my new classes. I never felt smart enough or good enough for any of it. My grandmother passing away in late October didn't help either. I was eaten by regrets about how I didn't go to the hospital to see her, even though that was because I wasn't able to stomach the sight of her dying body.

I am not a sufferer of depression by any means, I am naturally a very jolly, upbeat person. However I have experienced depression in my life, really badly, four times now. I have recently just come out of the other side of a really bad spell of depression, luckily this time it only lasted a few days. So with all of my last depression experiences in my mind, I want to offer you all the best advice which I can offer if you are currently suffering, because depression is such an awful place to be. So if you are currently suffering I really feel for you and I send you all my love.

The thought that I might kill myself formed in my mind coolly as a tree or a flower. Sylvia Plath How many of you can imagine that a fifteen years old girl just wanted to die? How many of you can think of a person you know that have actually committed suicide? We don't talk much about it, do we? We hide behind perfect smiles all the shadows until there is too much to hide. "Leave your problems at home." "You have to move on." "Fake it until you make it." Or my favorite, the Vegas rule: "What happens at home stays there." My home was no Las Vegas, but we certainly know how to keep things in secret.

“Depression is incurable; you can only manage it,” says everyone I have ever met. I have never believed those words. As depressed and pessimistic I am, the one thing that keeps me going is the thought that there must be a better reality out there. There must be a way to recover from depression!