It's All In Your Head: The case of made-up illness?

It seems half of the art and literature serves a purpose to describe iconic states of human beings. Numerous people around us try to be vocal about their struggling self to which we simply label them as "It's all in your head", "Don't over think!", "Stop being Pessimistic." or "you're simply wanna be negative." Sufferers have difficulty in being vocal about their state. 

"He said: "it's all in your head," and i said "so is everything." But he didn't get it"

Virginia Woolf.

Where as it's also a strange poverty of the language we speak that the word "depressed" or 'depression" is used to describe how a person feel when he/she is mugged for their mobile phones and to describe how somebody feels the minute before they commit suicide. 

There are three things that people generally tends to confuse:

1. Depression
2. Grief
3. Sadness

Grief can be taken as being reactive explicitly. For instance, if you have a certain kind of loss in your life and you feel incredibly unhappy. And then 6 months later, you're still deeply sad but you're functioning a little better than before: It's probably grief which will ultimately resolve itself in sometime. But if you experience a catastrophic loss, and you feel terribly sad and 6 months later you can hardly function at all, then it's probably depression which was triggered by the loss you experienced 6 months ago. People think of depression as being just sadness. It's a lot, lot and a lot of sadness and much too much grief at far too slight a cause.

People suffering from depression found themselves doing a little of work, little to think and even little to feel. It's a kind of nullity they experience. And then at the sametime their anxiety settles in. They find themselves being afraid all the time without knowing what it is they are afraid of. One of the things that often get lost in discussions of depression is that they know whatever they're going through is ridiculous. They know its ridiculous while they experience it since they can see majority of the people managing themselves for work, for lunch or as simple as taking a shower and yet they're nonetheless in its grip, unable to figure out anyway around it. 

The opposite of Depression is not happiness, it was never happiness. According to Andrew Solomon, it's vitality. It's vitality that seems to sweep away from lives of people who suffered from Depression. As simple as answering back to friends, or to decide for lunch for which they'll go through to get food out, put in a plate, cut it off, chew it off and swallow it- seems so much of an effort. For them their own state makes it all such a pain that they begin to think that it's too painful to be alive. The only reason at times which stops them to kill themselves is not to hurt other people around. They'd lie in bed, staring at the ceiling, thinking to answer the call but couldn't reach out their own arm in picking up the phone and answer. 

People are commonly heard of saying: "Isn't depression part of what people are supposed to experience?" Didn't we evolve to have depression? Isn't it part of your personality?" As a psychologist, in simple words where i can help you distinguish between clinical depression and mere sadness and grief is: "Mood is Adaptive". Being able to have sadness, fear, joy, pleasure and all the other moods that we have are incredibly valuable and vital. And clinical depression is something that happens when system breaks and collapses-It's maladaptive. 

People then argue: "Well, is it continuous with normal sadness?" In simpler words, I can say that yes, it's continuous with normal sadness. There's a certain amount of continuity in a same way there's continuity between having daily maintenance in your house when it requires a little touch up and what happens when you leave the house for 50 years under rain, sun, snow. It rusts through until it crumbles and simply becomes a pile of orange dust. Depression is that Orange dust which accumulates over time without taken care of, and that's the one we are setting out to address. The house now which is totally useless, useless for others and useless for its existence. I am sure, here i make my point of how utterly difficult this state is where person feels utterly useless, is paralyzed and is burdened up with mere labeling as "It's all in your head."

People then ask: "How will the psychologist make it better? medication works? does it make them happy?" There's no exact answer to it. But I for sure knows that when their depression is addressed they don't feel sad about having to answer friends, having lunch or taking a shower. Even if they feel sad (because hey, isn't sadness normal to feel?) without nullity. They can feel sad about just as you feel sad over breakups, professional disappointments, politics and ozone-layer changes in atmosphere. 

I have been to Psychological treatments facility and Rehabilitation and have interacted who managed or overcome their illness. I interviewed such people about how would they describe depression. The responses came to the mutual conclusion: "Slower way of being dead".  I hereby, confidently mention because it has to be recognized that slow way of being dead will actually lead to actual deadness. This is something serious because it's leading mental disability worldwide and people die of it everyday. According to World Health Organization, this disability is enormous and epidemic in nature.

Depression is a result of genetic vulnerability which it makes its distribution likely to be even among population. Circumstances which might trigger their depression are likely to be more severe for people who are impoverished in terms of finance as well as awareness. Finance has been a major concern for majority of the population in developing countries. But it makes it equal for those who have a better life because struggle the same because little or lack of knowledge to seek treatment. With a stigma attached, for instance of not referring to psychologist is one's defence of not being "pagal" yet. Even if  a person himself wants to feel better, loved ones would stop because deep down inside they can't accept the fact that matter can be this severe. 

Depression is exhausting. It takes up so much of their time and energy, and silence about it, really does make the depression worse. I almost regularly come across such people and I therefore, easily concludes that depression is a family secret: unheard, unspoken, unexpressed. As soon as people open up you find out one in family is definitely suffering, someone's sister, someone's cousin, aunt, uncle and list is endless. Solomon Andrew wrote about his conference once he attended. On first day of a conference, a lady came up to him telling about her depression, medication and how she hasn't told her husband about it because she thought he wouldn't understand. On the third day of the conference, husband of the same lady came up to him about his depression, medication and how he hasn't told his wife because he thought she wouldn't understand. They both were hiding their medication in different places in the same bedroom. 

People under treatment of depression take medication as well as therapies. In simpler words, chemical cure as well as psychological cure both have a role to play. Depression at times is braided so deep into them that there's no way separating it from their characteristics and personality. They become better and then sometimes relapse and become better and relapse and then better. This process is different for everybody. However, their will to be better is something which makes it all so optimistic. Let's for a moment think of a cancer. Cancer leads us directly to chemotherapy and radiation and surgery and what not of a toughest medical procedure? Yet it doesn't ensure a complete cure. People goes into remission then relapse then remission then relapse and so on. People suffering from such illness still had buried in them, somewhere enough optimism to reach out for one more attempt of being better. All the difference is that there's hardly any stigma attached to get a cure for cancer, but for depression the world shut its doors to simply "Stop being pessimistic!"

Having depression is not something to be positive about. It paralyzes, makes one non-functional as well as useless. However, the optimism to fight it and the resilience to keep going is what makes it different. I have been dealing with Adolescents especially for past 2 years, and they gives me an insight. Their Disturbed Self forced them to seek out for help, to find and cling to joy, to cleave to the reasons for living and life's something worth living for. And really life is something worth living for and there's absolutely no harm in seeking out help. 

My dearest friend chef shamsher has taken an initiative at his vlog for mental health awareness under the segment "Sakht Baatain". Check out the following link where Oroba Tasnim Siddiqi talks about her own experience of suffering from it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lydqCOG6ilI