Everyone that knows me well knows that I have to face the specter of depression.  I’ve been pretty open about it, although most have never REALLY seen me depressed.  Some might say I hide it, but I prefer to think of it as sparing others my own personal darkness.

I do relate to others that face bouts of depression though.   It’s hard to even describe it to those that don’t face it.  We often use the expression, “I struggle with depression.”  Whatever that means.  But, to say “I’m depressed” is often not very accurate as most of us aren’t depressed all the time and many of us are pretty rarely in depression.  So, what do we mean to say we’re struggling with depression?

Those who study and treat depression have lingo they use to describe and communicate about it, but socially we struggle to find accurate, descriptive language to even communicate about it.  However, we are finally coming out of the closet with it.

One of the biggest challenges I think people who face depression is simply getting our minds around what it is.  Is it a “bad moods”?  Well yeah, depression is a bad mood of sorts, but it’s really not exactly that though.  Am I “in a funk”?  Yeah, when you’re depressed that works, and for people who really don’t have a chronic depression issue, it’s probably descriptive enough.  But for those who face depression as a regular visitor, it’s certainly more than a funk.

For many of us depression is simply something we have a propensity for.  Depression is a type of underlying mindset that develops from within, above and beyond even the conscientiousness.  It’s our mental and emotional weather.  I wake up some mornings and it’s just “cloudy”. Not cloudy like having a hazy mind.  I mean cloudy as in dreary and darker than normal.  If others see it, they will generally ask me “What are you upset about?” and I’m left to ponder of course.  However, I’ve dealt with it my whole life and my answer to that now is usually that I’m upset with WHATEVER I think about when I’m depressed.  That is, if I’m depressed, whatever I think about is darkened by the present mood.

There is a situational type of depression that’s triggered by life situations and events.  Everybody experiences that.  It's just the normal reaction of emotions.  We’re designed to feel sadness or loneliness or sense of loss.  But they just are reactions and they will subside normally for the most part just as the immediate pain of a banged knee will subside.  

Chronic depression is different.  It’s like when you have the flu and the whole body aches and is tired.  Every little thing hurts so much more.  Depression is that way.  Little things hurts so much more that you don’t want to do much, other than to hide and go to bed and try to not think about it until it goes away.  Any exertion becomes stressful.  Like when you have a case of the flu.  (And you feel in your heart it’s contagious too.  I guess it is just a little bit contagious.)  Depression is truly “mental and emotional illness.”  It’s not like irrational mental illness but it’s like the general malaise that comes with physical sickness.  It’s just that this malaise is in the mind and heart.

But the kind of depression I’m talking about here can’t just be “thought away” anymore than a cloudy day can be thought away.  You can’t run outside on a gloomy day and wish the clouds away (unless you have the prayer life of Elijah, of course, and most of us don’t).  You can’t go out with a giant electric fan and blow the clouds away.  It is what it is and it’s just much bigger and deeper than that.  Most that suffer with depression somehow think that if “I could just think differently” it’d go away.  We tend to think that way about those around us who are depressed too.  Don’t get me wrong, good thinking is part of an effective strategy to get through and out of bouts of depression.  It’s just not a quick fix for those we might assume to be just feeling sorry for themselves and in need of a quick pick-me-up.

And depression is to the experienced as snow is to Eskimos.  My son did a paper once on something or another and he found in his research that Eskimos have over 20 words to describe snow.  Now, for us Oklahoma boys who saw snow two or three times a year, snow was snow, and it was very good.  But to a people who’ve lived and survived in snow their whole lives, there are all kinds of snow and to just say snow is not descriptive enough of what’s to be faced that particular day.  Same with depression.  There are all kinds and degrees of depression as well as types of moods associated with it.   I can assure you that they’re not, however, selected on a daily basis as we would select our clothes for the day.

So, the best way I can think of for any of us to understand it is simply to think of it as the mental weather.   It is above and beyond us to a large degree, just like the weather is above and beyond us.  We often wake up with it.  You can sort of look out the window and see what’s up for the day.  It’s just that we’re looking within to see what’s up.  We often experience such emotional shifts in midday, just as the weather can change in midday.  It can be very dark and rainy for days.  And it can be just light clouds some days.  It can be stormy and it can be hot or cold.  It can be bright and sunny as well.  It can be sunny and then get cloudy or it can be cloudy and then get sunny.  All kinds of combinations.  And the swings themselves make one feel crazy and out of control.

The reality is that everyone has mental weather.  It’s just that some are like the Arizona deserts and they wake up sunny most every day.  And, a cloudy, rainy day for them is pretty mild, just like a “cloudy, rainy day” in the desert is completely unimpressive to someone from Portland or Seattle.  I remember when I lived in Arizona hearing someone comment on a fairly light rain saying “it’s pouring down out there.”  Being from Oklahoma and seeing the torrential downpours of thunderstorms, I’d look out and almost laugh at the thought.  It seemed to be barely raining at all.  I’m just saying it’s all in perspective.

But, my point here is that for those that face chronic bouts of depression getting a perspective on it is one of the greatest challenges.  As well, for those who don’t really face it, it’s just as important to get a right perspective on it lest your judgments hurt others you love and damage your ability to be a help and support.