Depression is a disease. Just because it is a mental disorder does not mean that it is somehow less "real" or "valid" than any physical condition. You know why that's true? It's true because depression impacts your life in ways that people without depression cannot imagine. I mean that. People who do not have depression cannot and will never be able to understand it. That being said, why do people who don't have depression keep trying to tell depressed people how to cure themselves? As someone who suffers from depression, I would like to present you with a few "cures" that I and many other mentally-ill people are tired of hearing.
1. "Have you tried yoga?"
Yoga is great, OK. It is. It's relaxing, it relieves tension and it helps you breathe. You know what else it does? It wears you out. Yoga is strenuous, and when you are already tired 99.9 percent of the time, there is very little you can do to get yourself up and going. Getting out of bed might take up half of your energy for the day and the rest has to be spent on basic functions like eating and showering. When you are depressed, you do not have the energy to do all of this extra stuff. You have to focus on passing as human, and yoga does not fall under things which help you pass as human. Stop telling depressed people to try yoga, because all we're going to do is stare at you with that same tired look in our eyes and say, "Oh yeah I should totally try that haha," and then never, ever try that.
2. "You should go outside/get some light/sunshine/etc"
Why would you genuinely think that this is going to help in any significant way? The sun is not some magical star that emits a light force capable of completely fixing the chemical imbalance in my brain. It is true that Vitamin D is good for you and that sunlight can genuinely improve your mood, but it does not mean that I am going to suddenly be a happy-go-lucky flower child. Sunlight feels good, but it is not going to fix me. Stop telling me to go outside when I say that I feel like my bones are filled with lead and my mind is filled with concrete. Not to mention that what is likely to happen is that I am going to get a sunburn because I am pale, and that will only make me more miserable. There are plenty of depressed people living in sunny states too, and their constant exposure to sunlight does not improve it.
3. "Exercise! -insert Legally Blonde quote here-"
Happy people may not shoot their husbands, but nothing makes me want to crawl in a hole and never leave more than someone telling me that exercise will make me feel better. The most annoying thing about this — and most of these other suggestions — is that they're not wrong. Exercise does release endorphins and genuinely improve your mood and a whole bunch of other stuff; but again, if I barely have the energy to feed myself and make sure I do not smell like a garbage can, then what makes you think I have the energy to go run on a treadmill? What makes you think I can just go out into the world and go to a gym or go for a run in the park without feeling like there is no point because I am always going to be depressed or fat or whatever. Depression alters your thoughts, alters your mind and alters the way you process everything. A little cardio isn't going to magically fix that.
4. "Eat healthy foods, like oranges and fruit and blah-blah-blah-blah"
To be quite honest, someone could tell me that if I did not eat a fruit within the next 30 seconds I would die and you know what I would do? I would stare them down while consuming as many McDonald's french fries as possible.
Eating healthy is good for you. No one can debate that fact without sounding like a lunatic, but quite frankly I also do not think that eating more fruit than I already do is going to make my depression any easier to deal with. Do you know how much fruit I eat? Do you know every single piece of food I consume on a daily basis? No you don't; so how do you know I am not already trying to eat healthier?
The main point I am trying to make here is that when you are depressed, the last thing on your mind is counting calories and making sure you have the right amount of nutrients. Of course we know that eating healthy would help us feel better, but you simply telling us that is not going to make us magically health obsessed. If you want to encourage people to eat healthier, then do more than telling them to. Find out what kind of fruit they like and bring it to them when they're having a bad day. That way they eat something and they're eating something that's good for them.
5. "There's this natural remedy I think you should try, it's called..."
St. John's Wort, SAM-e, Chamomile, Omega-3 Fatty Acids, Vitamin C/D/A/XYZ — whatever "natural" remedy you are about to mention to me, don't. I've heard it all, and I do not care. I didn't get help for my depression for years because I was afraid they would put me on medicine; I had always been under the impression that medicine was bad and that you should always try to do things the natural way. When I finally did come to a place where I was okay with taking medicine, of course people were there to tell me that there were better ways of dealing with my problems. Even when I was actually trying to do right by myself and get to a point where I could get out of bed, I was still doing something "wrong."
Everyone needs different things to help them because depression affects everyone differently. For me, the natural remedies and the extra vitamins weren't doing anything. The medicine helps me, my counseling helps me and quite frankly unless you have a Ph.D. in psychiatry that you can wave in my face, stop offering me or anyone else these so-called remedies.
I know this sounds angry and like I'm being harsh on people who, in all seriousness, are just trying to help. I'm not saying that you shouldn't be supportive of people who have depression. I'm not saying that depressed people shouldn't want support from their friends. What I am saying is that there are better ways to do that — ways that do not involve you trying to cure us with things that just won't do that.
I am not saying that depression can be used as an excuse for not doing anything either, but everyone has their own coping mechanisms. As long as the coping mechanisms aren't harmful and are helping, why don't you encourage them to do those things instead of asking them to do these bizarre health-conscious anti-medication remedies?
