What does depression look like?
I have enough sense to recognise Depression does not like an upside down smile. I couldn't depict Depression to a child on a single cue card with the aid of a definitive emoji. Comedians can get Depression, so I assume Depression isn't a mask of perpetual tears? So, what the fork does Depression look like? Five years on from bagging my own label, I've grown to understand a lot more about it. Doesn't make me wiser. Sometimes, when I'm lying in bed, and have been there for an hour when I promised myself I'd just have a 5-minute break, I try to determine, "is this what Depression looks like?". I start chattering away to myself about how THIS is why I have a jelly belly, "just get up! You could do 15 minutes of Yoga with Adrienne! You could use that silly balance board thing Georgia bought! You could look up some ideas for healthier food, then make a list of ingredients, then leave the house and buy them, then go and actually cook the food, then wash up. You could do any, or all, of this! Just get up!"
When I don't get up; when instead, I play until there are no more lives left on Gardenscapes, and Homescapes (which I definitely shouldn't have downloaded considering my compulsive use of the former), is that what Depression looks like? Or is that what laziness looks like? If I am late every single time I'm meant to be at my parent's house for dinner, because I've assumed the clothes I was wearing previously, were not flattering enough on my waistline and I've changed at least 3 times, and then cried, before finally getting in the van, feeling fat, defeated and diminished, is that what Depression looks like? Or is that just a snapshot of what privilege looks like? A 33-year-old who is safe, loved and relatively healthy feeling sorry for herself and blaming it on a mental health issue.
There are so many things to hold a microscope to and analyse: Is being constantly exhausted what Depression looks like? Or is it Anaemia, a B12 deficiency, the result of poor life choices? Does floundering in my career, mired by inertia for fear of failure, hint at Depression or maybe just that I'm another woman experiencing imposter syndrome in a society that's still patriarchal? Are these protruding lumps of scar tissue some undiagnosed skin issue or am I living with Dermatillomania (obsessive skin picking) and if I am, is that what Depression looks like? I never noticed any marks on McQueen or Monroe. Which one of us was the fraud? Only one of us is still alive... I know what I'm meant to be selling here, is that there is no clear 'Depression Aesthetic', it's an 'invisible illness', but I wish there was.
We all want the checklist. Imagine how useful it'd be when you were trying to chart progress. I'd love a gold star to be able to go in a box somewhere:
You enjoyed 3 consecutive social occasions and didn't come away from them and ask Georgia if she really thought people were happy to see you. Gold star.
After just one rational consideration of pros and cons, you made a decision and trusted it. Gold star.
Instead of ignoring the price increase, that you can't afford, from Virgin Media, you called and switched the package/left before the deadline, and did not just have it on a to-do list for 6 weeks and feel increasingly guilty over not doing it. Gold star.
Meds work for some people, for others, a big change does the trick, some swear by meditation, mindfulness and yoga; talking therapies unlock the chains for a percentage, while there's probably a load who hide behind addictions, control, lives as hermits and the light of their loved ones.
Depression that introduces itself with its best mate, Anxiety, can look the same as Depression on its own, but it's not. You may lose or gain weight with either, become easily agitated with either, be more aggressive or subdued with either. If you have them both live with you for a while, would you notice if one left or be able to identify which one stayed? Would your answer be the same as another person's? Five years on, I've found out, some people would know. Others wouldn't. It's not very reassuring.
Depression looks like whatever way it takes hold, and that's not uniform, it's not like a bunch of Renaissance artists have descended on a party and posed the revellers in their own precise style. There's no obvious 'blue period'. There's not going to be a commercially successful outcome of prints with mass appeal. It's more like Dali and Monet having a drunken brawl and letting rip on individuals at the same time.
What one depressive babbles might be incoherent to another depressive, despite all the best intentions.
So, my guide to Depression? Firstly, I'm not qualified to give one. Neither is anyone else you know with it, or older people, people you admire or anyone other than an expert in the field of mental health and medicine.
To me, Depression looks like chaos on some and slick organised crime on another. The battlefield this illness plays out on, is a mish-mash of warriors suited in self-loathing, self-pity, anger, apathy, passion, fear, terror and always, always judgement. There are the most assertive and the most reckless soldiers stood side-by-side. The opponents don't know if they are victims or perpetrators in this war. It's bedlam.
The allies will often try to convince the ill that it's 'normal' to feel these things, and sometimes that's what you want to hear even if it's not true.
Even if you hug a puppy and adore it and then, after walking away from it can no longer feel that your happiness was tangible, you might lie to yourself and remember their words, "Everyone gets depressed". But Depression does not just look like an upside-down smile. So, can we please talk about it more?
I need help. Others need help. Everyone needs to help to learn how to help. Dialogues are the first step. Funding is the second. Let's do this properly.
