Is Depression Insanity?
One reason why people with depression do not seek treatment is because they don’t want to be branded as “insane”. Being diagnosed with depression does not automatically mean that you are insane. Although all types of depression are considered mental illnesses, being mentally ill does not mean that you are insane. You’re just mentally ill, which means you are just ill.
I Must Be Crazy
There is a certain underlying fear in many with depression that they are loosing their grip on reality and will eventually loose all control of their personalities, words, thoughts, actions, friends, family and posessions. “If they just knew the REAL me,” the thought is, “then they’d lock me away.”
This certainty that you might be crazy is exactly why you are not crazy. Often with depression, you are miserable for no reason at all. Nothing can cheer you up. You may not be able to taste food or get any pleasure from even sleep. Now, if you’ve lost everything in a tornado and feel depressed, you never doubt that you are sane. You just lost everything in a tornado. Anyone would be depressed after gong through that. If you were happy as a lark, then you’d be locked away.
Why? Because being increedibly happy after a disaster is not normal and not healthy.
Yet, neither is feeling miserable when nothing bad seems to have happened. And yet, you feel miserable and out of control anyway. This feeling as if you are going crazy is your body’s way of saying, “Go to the doctor, already!”
The Regular Irregular
People with depression, even bipolar disorder, can often hold down jobs, pay bills and appear to live normal lives. They can do this for years until there is an inevitable breakdown. But even after a breakdown, they can very often go back to appearing to live a normal life.
But are depressives abnormal? Not really. Of course, I can’t peek into the thoughts of every single person on the planet, but many people (no matter what their mental health) will often feel bad in some way. They will often feel as if people knew who they really are, then no one would like them. The only difference in depressives is that this thought can become so obsessive, it takes away all of the joys of life.
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