Depressed Does Not Mean Unhappy

What I am about to say stems from years of experience dealing with depression. I am not a clinical professional, but I felt the need to share my experience related to this topic because there seems to be a lot of confusion related to it. Over the years I have heard people use the phrase unhappy and depression interchangeably, but I wanted to take a moment of your time to explain why these two words are not the same.

First, just because I am depressed does not mean I am unhappy. I find myself with a lot to be grateful for in my life. I have a healthy and growing family that brings me a lot of joy. I have two rewarding careers, several hobbies and tools to learn and grow in any subject area that I choose. I love to learn and broaden my perspective and I have excellent friends who support me. I also have a rewarding and very spiritual faith and when you put all of these things together a lot of people are confused when they learn I have depression. People associate blessings with happiness and happiness with an inability to be depressed. None of these things are true. People who are depressed can be unhappy but unhappy people are not necessarily depressed. Yet often people will use the terms as if they mean the same thing.

So, what is depression? Well according to the Mayo clinic, depression is a mental health disorder characterized by persistently depressed mood or loss of interest in activities, causing significant impairment in daily life. By contrast unhappiness is defined simply as not happy or not satisfied or pleased with a situation. In other words, my depression can cause me to not happy or be un-satisfied with the situation, but I can also be perfectly satisfied or happy and still be depressed. "How can that be? someone will likely ask. But again, look at the definition of the word unhappy or unsatisfied simply does not appear in the definition. So, to better understand depression let's focus on what "is" in the definition.

So, what does persistently depressed mood or loss of interest in activities mean? Well, again I am not a professional, but I will answer from my experience. For me depression is carrying around trauma, like rocks on my back. I can be happy fulfilled and functioning just fine, but something will trigger a memory of the trauma. This trauma pushes me down, "de" as in down "pressed" as in pressure. That trauma takes many forms and as the years go on, I pick up more and more rocks. For years I thought I was depressed because when I was thirteen my brother was killed in an accident right in front of me. But now I understand that that trauma is one of the many stones that weighs me down. Indeed, that is what I think about when I think about my struggle with depression, weight. The more I focus on the traumas the "heavier I feel." I begin to lose interest in things because the more I move, interact with people or just do what needs to be done, the more aware I become of the proverbial weight. You grow so weary of carrying it around while you do what you need to do that you just stop wanting to do anything. You struggle to get out of bed, or the chair because mentally you feel so heavy that you cannot motivate yourself. People call you lazy and then that just compounds the trauma and adds more weight. You get to the point where you would do anything to shed the weight.

That’s when things get dark. addiction, withdrawing socially, staying in bed all day, self-harm and even thoughts of suicide. You feel like you are going to be crushed so when you find even a small amount of relief you crave more and more until you potentially reach a point where you wonder if it would be better if you just gave up entirely. People will often react to suicide by saying, they seemed so happy, he had so much going for him, she seemed fine, or I did not know they were unhappy. This is why the distinction is important. That person was probably happy or at the very least knows how to appear happy. But the weight of the trauma they carry overwhelms them and sometimes all of it piles on you at once. You feel guilty all the time. This manifest, for me, in that I apologize for everything because everything feels like my fault.

I feel like I should take a moment to define trauma because I am sure some people are saying to themselves as they read. I am depressed but I did not experience some huge trauma. That’s the thing though, the trauma does not have to be huge. Sometimes it can be worse when it is something small. For example, another more recent "trauma" for me came from my newborn daughter. Now do not misinterpret me, my baby girl is a blessing, and I am grateful for her. But when you are awake a two in the morning and she has been crying all day and all night and you have fed her, changed her, and met all her needs but she just won't stop that is traumatic. You feel so guilty because you cannot get her to stop, you feel guilty because she is just a baby, and you should be more patient, but you are just so tired. Trauma can be someone who made fun of you fifteen years ago and a song comes on and you are reminded of it. Trauma can be something you did to someone else and thought they forgave you have not forgiven yourself. Trauma can be an addiction that you thought you left behind, but there it is again pulling you in sucking you under.

For me depression is a collection of traumas that I carry everywhere I go, all the time and for some reason that I cannot control one of those rocks falls out of the bag. I have to struggle to pick it back up and put it back in the bag along with picking myself back up without it affecting my life again. People say things from a lack of understanding. "Just forget about it," but I can't. "Rely on your faith," which to be fare has helped me a lot. But it does not, cannot, get rid of the trauma. Indeed, more than being unable to get rid of it, I have found that maybe I should stop trying to. After all it is a part of who I am. It helps me be more empathetic and patient with my fellow man because I always wonder what trauma they are carrying.

I am not saying that I enjoy it or that it is necessary. Indeed, if I could be rid of it without hurting myself or others, I would drop that bag in a heartbeat. But I can't, I have accepted that it's a part of who I am and that it will always be there. I talk to counselors and family members who support me, and I try to support others who I know are also struggling. I rely on my faith to see me through the darkest days, but I am not ashamed any more to ask for help when I need it. There is no shame in medication and there is no shame in asking for help.

I am depressed, but I am often happy, fulfilled or functional. People who know me well know that I can start the morning fine, but they also know that without warning my traumas can haunt me. Also, some days my depressing manifests because I miss my brother, but other times it’s just because I feel like I let someone down at work or I forgot to do something that was important to me or someone else. Sometimes I withdraw from people without thinking about it and it hurts their feelings and that also compounds a trauma. But I cannot hold others responsible for them misunderstanding me if I am not willing to share with others what it’s like to be depressed.

There are a lot of stigmas surrounding depression and I hope that in some small way this has helped you understand or encouraged you. You can live, survive and even thrive with depression, I have. But you cannot really get rid of it. It can cause persistent impairment of daily life and I have certainly had months even years where that was the case for me. But I am happy know because I have chosen to do what was necessary, whether it is medication, counseling and support from family and faith. I don't claim to know your pain, we all have our own trauma's, but for me I have found life is worth living and being depressed does not mean I have to be unhappy.