I wanted to share my experience regarding Depression and Mental Illnesses.
Many of us can probably agree we have felt "depressed or blue" during certain times of our life, so we feel like we can relate to others with depression. Some of us have a diagnosis. Clinical presentation of depression, which is classified as a mental illness, is feeling depression for 6+ months and having other signs and symptoms. (This info is from one of the psych classes I've taken while in pre med).
Depression can be debilitating for individuals with the diagnosis. I have two brothers with clinical depression... For the younger one - he was so depressed, he couldn't even get out of bed. He slept 14-16 hours a day, and when he was out and about he always complained of fatigue. He lost several jobs during this time because he 1 - couldn't fight the depression hard enough to over come the obstacle of getting out of bed, shower and drive to work, 2 - he was worn down by the depression, he often overslept. Thanks to heavy counseling, increase in medication dosages and a lot of maternal support, he is now on an upswing and has a job he has kept for 4 months now.
For someone who occasionally feels depressed, it's nearly impossible to understand how someone can stay in bed, oversleep etc and put their wellfare at stake. But depression is a disease. He didn't choose this.
My other brother, his story is a little different. He has been on medications for most of his life - after spending a few weeks in a psych ward as a child, my parents didn't know what else to do with him besides counseling and medication. He has bipolar depression: Some days he feels down, and some days he is on top of the world. About 3 years ago, he decided to go "cold turkey" on his meds. Of course he did this without consulting with his doctor or counselor or his family. At first, we noticed good things - one day he complimented me on a sweater, he never complimented me before in his life. It was nice. But then the major mood swings came. When he was manic - he managed to spend his $5000 in savings on God knows what in a matter of a few weeks. He also was scary to be around in those times. He was overly excited about things and it made us very uncomfortable. When he was depressed, that was even worse. He attempted self harm several times, and also pulled a knife on me once. The cops got involved several times. He ended up going back to the psych ward after the third time the cops got involved - they worked with him to reintroduce medications.
It took two years before he was back to normal (as in how he was before he went cold turkey) and now he has completed one year in a job. During this time, a good friend of his (who also suffered from severe depression and many other illnesses) took his own life. When I was in highschool, my best friend's younger brother also took his life.
My brother still refers to his "awful time three years ago" just like he always refered to his time as a child in "the unit". He has apologised many times for the knife incident, I will never forget the look of the devil in his eyes, however, I know that that was not him. It's hard to forgive and forget hurtful behaviors like his. But thankfully no one got physically hurt and he has healed from that time. He still battles with depression, so does my other brother, but things are looking up for them now.
I'm sharing this, because I believe it's important for us to acknowledge that this mental illness is a real problem! And we need to be supportive of people going through tough times.