Yesterday I basically didn’t do anything. I just couldn’t. And lately I more and more allow myself to be who I am, feel what I feel and things like that. But I’m not happy and I still have the feeling I am doing a lot of things, am very persistent in trying to do something useful and somehow nothing comes back. Do am I depressed? Do I have some kind of mental illness? And if so, what then? And if not, what then?
But just wanted to share a quote here:
You see the thing about depression is – and why people feel – well I feel a lot of shame is that there is nothing wrong with you on the outside. I mean you know you don’t have any lumps, or you don’t have any scars. You are not in a wheelchair. So people go “Come on, come on!” Especially in England they say “Stiff upper lip; snap out of it.” And you can’t.
I mean it is like being pregnant; you are either pregnant or you are not. So when you are sick it is the real thing. I mean you know it. It is not like you are sitting on your porch singing the blues with a banjo because your baby has left you. I mean this is deep, dark, numbing abyss hell. So you will know when you have got it; but the point is nobody will believe you and that is the kind of horror of it all.
And the other thing I need to say and it is really a shaming thing is I hope you don’t feel that it is just people on television who have this. You know that – I mean that is embarrassing for me is that people think “Well you have got it all; you have got a career; you have got kids and stuff.” But it hits everybody and the shame of this is – another shame – is that you know Mrs Who-is-not-on-television is going to be really embarrassed because she is going to think “Ooh am I being self-indulgent?” So there are all those people all over the world; all over one in four, who are suddenly going to feel like suicide; or are going to feel really ill; or really numb; or really frightened because they don’t quite understand what this thing is.
So if you have got it you have really got it; so you have got to do something about it. I like medication – or you can see a shrink. But do one or the other; or both.¹
And yesterday and this morning I “just couldn’t get out of bed”, so the above sounded very familiar.
¹Found on Ruby Wax on depression.