I'm So 'Depressed'

On Facebook you can now broadcast to the world how you are feeling at any given moment. Along with an assortment of words to choose from there is an accompanying emoticon that is supposed to reflect the emotional feeling that you are having as a human being. Aside from pointing out the obvious that about 980 of you 1000 friends don’t care that you are confused about your math homework, there is one term that is not like the rest.

Depressed. One can now say that at any given moment that they are feeling depressed. Depression is not something that can be felt one moment and then is lost as fleeting as a summer love the next. No, depression is a real and painful place that can last a lifetime. Personally, I have been depressed for the last 8 years. In that time I have had many moments of joy and sadness because it is entirely possible for someone to be depressed but also happy. This is due to the fact that ‘depressed’ is not an emotion; rather it is a state, a chemical imbalance in the brain.

I must say that this really bothers me. I understand that on a day-to-day basis in common speech people slip up and can be ignorant but when are there no more excuses? Facebook is an international, indeed global site, and is showing no more EQ (emotional intelligence) than one of my male, high school, counterparts. I am severely unimpressed. Personally, as someone who is depressed but is also doing my best to live life to the fullest and see things as positively as possible, I can attest that seeing girls on my newsfeed ranting about how ‘depressed’ they are because they got dumped is not helpful. If people are on about something like that and are simply ignorant in their own speech, that’s fine and totally understandable; it’s hard to keep up with everything that is politically incorrect now but Facebook should not be perpetuating it.

I don’t mean this to be just a rant about Facebook, I regularly hear depressed referred to by teachers and other ‘well educated’ sources as an everyday emotion. Ignorance about this term, in my opinion, is reserved for those who do not have exposure to actual depression or someone who lives with it. The problem with that is approximately ¼ Canadians have a mental illness and depression is one that often goes hand-in-hand with others…so chances are that almost everyone does have exposure to it.

I almost lost it the other day on a couple girls in the library at school because they used “I want to kill myself,” “I’m going to shoot myself,” and another comment about cutting all in reference to a poor mark on a test. I get it, you’re upset, and that is a totally valid emotion but look around! In my life alone I have been suicidal and actually tried to kill myself, I’ve had a friend shoot himself and I, bother personally and through friends have encountered way too much self-harm… and that’s just me! As life goes, I’ve had struggles but overall have been incredibly lucky; it hasn’t been a rough life! At least one of that girl’s friends is probably dealing with a mental illness but hasn’t had the courage to tell them. That’s just not fair to compare a low math score to an on going challenge that someone is facing.

Maybe you have lived your whole life never knowing that mental illness is an issue and that saying stuff about how ‘depressed’ you are that night, affects others. Well now you do. I expect that whoever is reading this knows me and therefore knows someone dealing with depression. Many people who have been diagnosed with a mental illness already believe they are crazy so suggesting that they are more so for having one “emotion” for an extended period of time (unlike others) will only perpetuate that.

Watch what you say, please!