The Stuff People Don't Tell You About Depression

The commercials for antidepressants always fill me with bitter laughter. A voice actor comes on and in a plaintive (usually female) voice describes the apparent symptoms of depression. Sadness. Fatigue. Loss of interest in beloved pastimes. Decreased sex drive. Sleeping too much.

They don't mention the guilt. I've never heard a depression commercial or psychiatrist (same thing, in my experience) mention feelings of guilt. They don't tell you about feeling guilty for your own existence, about feeling like a complete burden to your family and friends. The complete soul-crushing guilt is the emotion left after clinical depression sucks them all away. 

The guilt doesn't start right away; it's a combination of why do I feel sad for no reason and my family and friends must be sick of dealing with me. Cognitively, you understand that the people who love you want to help you get better, but you don't feel it. 

Your feelings, not your thoughts, are the ones that get to drive the bus to Crazyland.

Eventually, the feeling of guilt becomes so pervasive, you start looking for things to attach it to. I attached guilt to a pseudo-environmentalist part of me: owning and disposing of material possessions. I feel horribly guilty after buying things, especially if I buy something that is brand new. Except for food and underwear, everything I've purchased for myself in recent years has been secondhand. Part of this is frugality--why buy something new if a secondhand item is perfectly functional and less expensive? The other part is environmental; by buying secondhand items, I feel like I am decreasing the amount of waste that goes to the landfill. (But I probably am not in reality because new items are mass produced whether I buy them or not.) 

The only extravagances I've allowed myself are "gift" items, things I've bought with money I've received as a gift. But those are fraught with guilt because (1) I received a gift that I deem myself unworthy of and (2) I buy things with the money. I've tried squashing that guilt by buying secondhand items. This thought fell to the wayside after I called my grandfather to thank him for my birthday gift. He asked what I bought, and I told him I bought a sewing machine. Perplexed, he asked how I got a sewing machine for $25. When I explained that it was a used machine, he was noticeably disappointed.

Then I felt guilty for disappointing him. The guilt spiraled on and on until I felt guilty for eating and stopped because I didn't feel I deserved to eat. Because eating is something people who deserve to live get to do.

Depression feels like you can't win, but you can. I'm still recovering after a bout of depression that began some time last year. I have good days and bad. Some days, you'd never even know that something so dark has affected me for over half my life. No matter how you feel, you are never alone.