A huge part of my getting on the road to recovery from depression has been the seemingly simple, but truly formidable, problem of accepting that I have a serious mental illness. Without that, I cannot take responsibility for my mental health.
There are myriad social and psychological reasons why this is has been so difficult. The name of the disease doesn't help matters. I'm with William Styron, as he says in his memoir of depression, Darkness Visible,
"Melancholia would still appear to be a far more apt and evocative word for
the blacker forms of the disorder, but it was usurped by a noun with a bland
tonality and lacking any magisterial presence, used indifferently to describe an
economic downturn or a rut in the ground, a true wimp of a word for such a
major illness."
It seems like everyone is on antidepressants these days, and they may be overprescribed, but that doesn't change the fact that some people have a serious and potentially fatal physical illness and need the drugs.
One of the first steps toward acceptance for me was taking a simple online depression test. I took a few. All of them said I was severely depressed. The questions read like a list of problems I'd had all of my life.
Oh, and P.S. – My grandfather committed suicide. Hello.
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