Living with Depression

[Animal]

I've been clinically diagnosed with depression for almost a decade now, no "bouts" with it on and off like yourself.

Does the fact that my depression was episodic and apparently not as intractable or as visible as yours make it invalid? Look, I'm sorry you've gone through so much, but I think your haste to paint OP's family and friends "uncaring" is misguided.

@Avalonia can respond if they choose, but I will simply say that sometimes, there are circumstantial, personal, or cultural factors that make depression harder to recognize in some people than in others, and which determine the way in which people close to them respond. My family is South Asian. As in many Asian cultures, mental illness has only recently been recognized among Indians as anything other than a personal failing or a source of familial shame to be kept under wraps. I grew up in a very success-oriented, deliriously workaholic family, and I went out of me way never to show the chinks in my armor around them and soldiered on. Even to show emotional vulnerability or inability to function in some cultures is shameful or verboten. This will probably strike you as masochistic, serving the interests of those who "simply don't care", but sometimes things are more complicated and more nuanced. In my case, it wasn't that my family wouldn't or didn't care. It's that, even if they did care, they would not have recognized depression as a medical condition, but rather as behavioral or emotional stubbornness, and would have treated as such... because that's all they knew. Still, I knew then and still know that my parents love me, and would be devastated if I had committed suicide.

There are other cultures that wouldn't recognized the face of depression or under whose influence it is risky to reveal it: military culture, certain religious traditions, the micro-culture of certain family units. Sometimes people do care, but the form and the extent that that "caring" can take is determined by many varying factors, and the way symptoms are interpreted can be greatly affected by the lens through which one is conditioned to view them.

[Resonare]

Does the fact that my depression was episodic and apparently not as intractable or as visible as yours make it invalid? Look, I'm sorry you've gone through so much, but I think your haste to paint OP's family and friends "uncaring" is misguided.

Compared to some of the cases I've seen my case isn't even severe and yet those around me irl noticed it years ago. Perhaps I do simply have perceptive people around me but a lot of the time people do see the signs but only care after something serious happens.

@Avalonia can respond if they choose, but I will simply say that sometimes, there are circumstantial, personal, or cultural factors that make depression harder to recognize in some people than in others, and which determine the way in which people close to them respond. My family is South Asian. As in many Asian cultures, mental illness has only recently been recognized among Indians as anything other than a personal failing or a source of familial shame to be kept under wraps. I grew up in a very success-oriented, deliriously workaholic family, and I went out of me way never to show the chinks in my armor around them and soldiered on. Even to show emotional vulnerability or inability to function in some cultures is shameful or verboten. This will probably strike you as masochistic, serving the interests of those who "simply don't care", but sometimes things are more complicated and more nuanced. In my case, it wasn't that my family wouldn't or didn't care. It's that, even if they did care, they would not have recognized depression as a medical condition, but rather as behavioral or emotional stubbornness, and would have treated as such... because that's all they knew. Still, I knew then and still know that my parents love me, and would be devastated if I had committed suicide.

There are other cultures that wouldn't recognized the face of depression or under whose influence it is risky to reveal it: military culture, certain religious traditions, the micro-culture of certain family units. Sometimes people do care, but the form and the extent that that "caring" can take is determined by many varying factors, and the way symptoms are interpreted can be greatly affected by the lens through which one is conditioned to view them.

Fair enough, but my family is British-Nigerian so I take the above with a grain of salt.