I’m Phil, and I am depressed.
Last night I was depressed, and I was a little angry about it. I hope I didn’t alarm anybody, but I know I did cause at least one person to worry. I was asked if everything was ok, and if the people around me are safe from physical violence as a result of my dark depression. Yes, I am ok. No, the people around me are not in danger.
I wrote last night specifically because, unlike right now, and the other four times I had written about my depression, I was not functioning on a higher, happier level. I wrote last night specifically because I was darker and deeper. This is an honest, straightforward and authentic account of one man and his depression. I don’t want to edit or censor or sugarcoat because I want the realness and the rawness to be evident, however that appears through the words on the screen.
Not only do I want those who know me to understand me, and perhaps know me better, I want other people – out there in the world – who are depressed to know that they are not alone. I can’t do that if I do not tell the truth and don’t shy away from unpleasantness. I also want those other people – out there in the world – who know someone who is depressed to be able to have an insider’s glimpse into the mind of a depressed person. Depression is extremely hard to understand, cope with, and live around. It doesn’t make sense, it isn’t constant, it is messy, unpleasant, and downright annoying.
But how do you have compassion, how do you support the depression of others unless you are able to sympathize? Sympathy, according to Wikipedia, is “the perception, understanding, and reaction to the distress or need of another human being”. It is fundamentally impossible to sympathize without “understanding”. Empathy, by contrast, is “the capacity to recognize [the] feelings [of another human being]” (Wikipedia). Other depressed people don’t need to understand. They know. They empathize, and I have heard from them as a result of my writing. But those that don’t know, who haven’t experienced, need a little help. I am here to educate, partly. I’d be lying if I said this wasn’t therapy for me.
Furthermore, the point I made badly last night was that there is no need for something to be wrong for a depressed person to be in a dark, bad place. Everything can be just fine and dandy. All can be right with the world and a depressed person can still be in a dark place. Earlier, I talked about how weather affects mood, but that is only a generalization. Plenty of bright, sunny days dawn upon a darkly depressed me. During the winter, there were a few slate grey dead days that brightened (winter days in Wisconsin don’t always dawn) that I was very light and relatively carefree. Everything can go right on a day free of responsibility or worry and I can be depressed. Everything can go wrong on a stressful, worrisome day, and I can be happier depressed. There doesn’t need to be any instigating factor.
An alcoholic always wants to be drunk. Stress doesn’t make them drink. Success doesn’t make them drink. Alcoholism makes them drink. So too: whosoever puncheth a wall puncheth the wall simply because they are depressed.
But don’t worry. I don’t usually punch walls, and the only person I remember punching was my brother. I was 13, he was 14, and believe me he deserved it.
I’m depressed, not violent.
a simple man 