Social media personality  Trey Pennington committed suicide a few days ago. I find myself frustrated with some of the responses. Not that they aren’t well-meaning. But I want to state what I see as some myths about depression.

People are saying things like:

• You never really know someone on social media . There is false intimacy that lets you think you have friends when you don’t.
• We were all his friends, why wouldn’t he let us help ?
• He was loved by so many people, why did he kill himself?

As someone who has suffered from depression throughout my life, and found relief with medication (so I can see it from both sides), I want to emphasize that other people don’t factor in .

It’s not that you didn’t know Trey. It’s that you don’t understand depression.

You knew Trey. Who he was doesn’t change. Everything he was, everything he did, still stands.

Depression is something that is very hard to understand if you haven’t gone through it. It’s an altered state of consciousness . When you are in it, it feels real. When you are out of it, it feels like you were in a fog, a dream. Your thoughts are distorted. They create a warped view of reality–a very painful reality.

To me it feels like my brain is feeding on itself. It’s having negative thought after negative thought, and the collective drag on my energy and self-esteem from battling with all those thoughts makes living feel like a chore .

Having friends? Also a chore. Reaching out? A chore. And it doesn’t help.

The best analogy I’ve heard is that people in a normal state have a sort of self-esteem buffer. Good things and bad things happen, but they have a reserve of self-esteem and good feelings.

Depression is like having a hole in your self-esteem tank. No matter what good things happen, no matter what love you get from others, you just cannot build up any good feelings. They all drain away, and every day you are running on empty .

The presence or absence of love or friends doesn’t cause depression. Brain chemistry and thought patterns cause depression.

It’s not.

Depressed people are often some of the most generous, hardworking, resilient people you will meet. They have to be. They are battling every day just to keep living. They are stronger. Until one day when the pain is too much to take anymore.

Depressed people often isolate themselves, so it seems like the isolation is causing the depression. It’s not. Depressed people isolate themselves because it is easier to cope with just your own pain, without the pressure of social engagement on top of that. It’s just too much.

When I take medication, I start to feel better. Then I want to socialize. Nowhere in there do I think people don’t love me, or that I don’t have enough friends. Depressed or not, I know I bring value to a lot of people’s lives. I know people like me and love me. It’s just that when I’m depressed, knowing that doesn’t help anything. It doesn’t make the daily pain of being alive any less.

Many people have experienced situational depression or grief; it’s quite different than lifelong depression.

Another confusion is that some people “get depressed” when they lose their job or lose an important relationship, and then gradually bounce back when things change.

That’s not depression. Not really. It’s grief. They say depression is a stage of grief. But I don’t think it’s the same thing. That kind of depression is also characterized by having low energy and working through emotional pain. But it’s not accompanied by feelings of chronic unworthiness or pointlessness about life itself .

Situational depression gets better with time and the flow of life helping people move along. For this kind of depression, friends and time and perspective and other good things help make the process easier.

The kind of lifelong depression that makes people want to die doesn’t get better with time. It gets better with medication and cognitive therapy. Friends don’t help. Not really. They don’t cause it, and they can’t cure it. Sometimes they make you feel better for a little while. But you still have your own private hell in your own mind, that no-one can touch.

Depression is like cancer of the mind.

The bad thoughts grow and grow, and sap your will to live. You wouldn’t blame yourself or wonder why if someone died of cancer because they didn’t get the right medication or the medication didn’t work. It’s the same thing. It’s chemical. It’s biological.

What is sad is not that people couldn’t get through to him. It’s that he didn’t get the brain-level help he needed to not have to live in that much pain.

So don’t blame social media. Don’t blame yourself. Don’t wonder what you could have done. Unless you could have strapped him down and forced medication into him, there’s not much you could do.

So if you know someone who is depressed, don’t just try to “be there for them”. Tell them clearly that medication can and does help. Make it clear that you don’t stigmatize medication . Tell them to keep trying things until they find one that works. Tell them that you support them to try it even if they feel weird about it. Tell them that if the first one has too many side effects, there are many kinds now to try. Tell them what the hell, why not try it. Keep telling them.

Once they are on medication, tell them to find a good therapist who can work with them on their thought patterns. You have to re-groove your brain to have better thoughts. It’s a physical brain cognitive thing.

This is my take based on my experience. YMMV, of course. I’m not an expert, just someone who knows what it feels like from the inside, and the outside.