Disability: Depression Diaries and It's Okay To Be Sad

[Content Note: Depression]

Acknowledging to yourself that you are depressed and have a serious illness that is going to interfere with your daily life sometimes and that it's Not Your Fault and the illness can't be beaten by willpower and bootstraps can be very cathartic and helpful.

It can also open a whole new barrel of worms.

One of the things I've noticed in my fight with medication-induced depression is how Knowing I'm Depressed isn't some kind of magic bullet for treatment. And in fact sometimes it makes it harder. Because now when I feel sad for any reason, there's an almost panic that sets in. Why is the depression hitting now? I thought I was done with this? Am I not following my treatment right? Are the pills still in my system? What is going on??

It's hard sometimes to remember that non-Depressed people do get sad sometimes. Sometimes for good reasons, sure. But sometimes for no reason at all. Being not-Depressed does not mean you'll never get sad. Being sad does not automatically mean that your depression treatment has failed or that you're a lost cause or that you'll "never be normal again" or anything like that.  

Everyone on earth is sad sometimes. But when you're grappling with depression, it can be hard to remember that. Every moment of sad can feel like this weighty failure on your part. Sure, you know you're struggling with depression. Sure, you're working hard to treat it. But now you feel sad and best case scenario, you've wasted a day on being depressed, and worst case scenario, you're a lost cause whose treatment isn't working who will be a sad Sad Person for the rest of your life.

That is bullshit. That is the voice of Depression, scolding you for having perfectly normal feelings.

Non-Depressed people sometimes get sad on their birthdays. They sometimes get sad on holidays. They sometimes get sad visiting their friends and family, even if they love their friends and family. They sometimes get sad thinking about an old flame, even if they love the one they're with. They sometimes get sad dealing with small, adorable children and/or fluffy animals. They sometimes get sad after a day at work. They sometimes get sad on a long Sunday afternoon with nothing to do and it should be glorious and relaxing but instead it's sad for no reason and what's wrong with you? Nothing is necessarily wrong with you. Sad happens, sometimes for reasons we'll never be able to know or see.

It's okay to be sad. I don't mean that it's easy. It's not easy. If you're sad all the time, then it's very probably not "okay" in a healthy-I-don't-need-treatment sense. (Though it is "okay" in a not-your-fault-and-could-happen-to-anyone-and-don't-feel-bad-at-yourself sense.) But if you're sad, even when you know you're struggling with Depression, it's important to remember that this is very possibly "okay". That you haven't wasted a day. That you haven't gone "two steps backward" in your depression treatment. That you aren't a lost cause. That you aren't destined for a lifetime of unrelenting sadness. Sometimes when you're sad, it's just a passing sad thing that everyone gets. And the best thing you can tell yourself during those times is "it's okay to be sad right now".

It might not be okay tomorrow or the next day or the next week or the next month. Maybe it's time to break out the diary and note down sads and happys and track a timeline in order to see what is working and what isn't. This isn't a post about ignoring treatment or sticking your head in the sand or minimizing depression because, hey, everyone is sad sometimes. That is not this post.

This post is to tell you that if you are struggling with depression, and if you are treating it, and if you have one day where you are sad for no discernible reason, you don't have to beat up on yourself for being sad. It's okay to be sad once in awhile. Everyone is. It doesn't make you a bad person, or a hopeless person, or a worthless person. It means you're alive. It may mean more than just being alive -- it may also mean that you need more treatment or better treatment or that you have triggers in your life that need identification and removal -- but it may not mean those things. It's good to keep an open, questioning mind and see what works and what doesn't, but it's also good to remember that sometimes people are just sad. Without any real reason at all.

Depression is hard to live with. Holding yourself to an impossible standard of No Sads Ever Unless There's A Damn Good Reason is not fair to yourself. Don't let the depression tell you that it is fair. Because it's not.

It's okay to be sad.

9 comments:

Annafel said...

Hi Ana,

Thank you for another comforting, encouraging, and insightful post that was magically exactly what I needed to hear right now. (It has happened before!) What I took from this, today, is the realisation that I'm sad and listless more frequently and for longer periods than I want to be, that it is not my fault, and that I will look into changing my treatment plan accordingly. Cool =)

Isabel C. said...

Excellent post.

This applies to lifestyle changes, too: talking about my current life as opposed to a few years ago, I mentioned that yeah, I have stress and sadness and all that, but it's more temporary and against a much better background. Highs and lows still exist, but the base level is much higher.

Likewise with anxiety, which is my thing. The most serene person ever is probably going to be tense going in to get a root canal, or upset when they have words with a friend, or even a little wigged out because it's just a wiggy kind of night. That happens. It helped for me to realize that.

Ana Mardoll said...

Yes. And what works sometimes doesn't work ALL the time. And memories are so terribly, terribly bad about helping us to remember the depth of previous sadness and what did/didn't work for it. It's so complicated.

★☆ keri ☆★ said...

Thank you. I've been beating myself up over this recently, and I really do need to step back and say "whoa, Keri, it's okay!"

I'm really frustrated because my GP put me on Ortho Tri-cyclen Lo to help with dysmenorrhea symptoms, which includes sudden and severe crashes in depression/anxiety for about two weeks every month, plus intense menstrual cramps that I have to literally schedule my life around (can't do much but lie in bed wishing to die, which is on top of the bad depression and anxiety that week!). Anyway, as you can probably guess, the Ortho Tri-cyclen Lo has done absolutely nothing for me except make the cramps less bad. In fact, it made the anxiety more severe the first month, to the point where I messed up at work and caused trouble in a very out-of-character manner. My boss sent me home for 2 days because of it, and I probably embarrassed myself worse when I called to apologise and explained that I'm doing some medicine adjustment with my doctors, and clearly something went wrong. (I wanted to show that I was working to fix the problem and make sure it doesn't happen again.) I figure the first month is wonky, but THAT much? And this second month isn't any better - random anxiety for no reason every few days, which I haven't really suffered since I started Savella a year ago. (In fact, except for the very clearly menstrual-cycle-linked stuff, the Savella has worked well for me!)

My point is that because it seems to be linked to my medicine, I feel a lot more guilty than I normally would that I'm so listless with no energy to do anything except sleep and read (the medicine is supposed to make it better!). I haven't been able to eat well because of the depression, which is making the problem worse, since I'm not getting the good things my body needs to feel good. And my back went out on the 1st, so I spent a full week unable to stand up straight (my back twists, so that my head is about 6 inches to the left of where it should be), and that didn't help matters either. It's really hard to remember all this and not be down on myself for feeling so bad!

But I like posts like this because it helps me remember and also reminds me that other people are going through similar things, so I'm not alone. Thank you, Ana and Chris.

I wish so much right now that I could afford to stay home from work for a little while, like I did when I was still a student (but that's why I failed my last couple of semesters, to be honest).

Silver Adept said...

It its incredibly difficult to tell the difference between a depression sad and a non-depression sad, especially when you're in the middle of it. So thanks for telling us that being sad (or angry or distraught) is normal. It's also okay to have a cascading sad that just leaves you feeling awful, and it doesn't mean anything other than "Perhaps not today, then. Maybe tomorrow." No matter what Depression Brain says.

Mary Kaye said...

Keri, the fact that a particular medication doesn't work well for you is not your fault!

I hope you and your doctor can find a better alternative very soon, because wow, that sounds really painful and difficult.

Isabel C. said...

Excellent post.

This applies to lifestyle changes, too: talking about my current life as opposed to a few years ago, I mentioned that yeah, I have stress and sadness and all that, but it's more temporary and against a much better background. Highs and lows still exist, but the base level is much higher.

Likewise with anxiety, which is my thing. The most serene person ever is probably going to be tense going in to get a root canal, or upset when they have words with a friend, or even a little wigged out because it's just a wiggy kind of night. That happens. It helped for me to realize that.

Annafel said...

Hi Ana,

Thank you for another comforting, encouraging, and insightful post that was magically exactly what I needed to hear right now. (It has happened before!) What I took from this, today, is the realisation that I'm sad and listless more frequently and for longer periods than I want to be, that it is not my fault, and that I will look into changing my treatment plan accordingly. Cool =)

chris the cynic said...

Day before yesterday I wrote a post about bad advice given to depressed people (bad because it's treated as the solution) which I think stems from the same thing going in the opposite direction.

Non-depressed people feel sad, and thus have experience with getting not sad. They mistakenly think that the things that help them not be sad will help depressed person not be depressed. Which they won't. Though they might help in lesser ways so the solution isn't for such people to shut their mouths, it's just to understand that depression is more than ordinary sad times, and cannot be made to end in the same way.

Advice for dealing with ordinary sadness may, or may not, help a depressed person. But it's not going to cure the depression and people who don't realize that can just make things worse.

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