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.
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Excellent post emma. I am not familiar with Trey Pennington but you have written an excellent explanation of how clinical depression is not just “feeling depressed”. You did a good job emphasising how the only way to truly help someone is to urge the person to try medication. I don’t know if people who haven’t experienced it can truly understand bbut I hope they will take note of your words. Thanks.
Good
Thanks for this great description of depression. It really matches how the downs operate and I like your metaphor of the esteem tank and why trying to fill it doesn’t help.
Beautiful post, Emma, thank you for sharing.
Excellent post, Emma! I appreciate your courage in sharing your experience and thoughts on this issue. Well written too.
Having loving and supporting friends does help. However, my friends never quite understood what I was dealing with. It wasn’t until I got appropriate help that I able to deal with my depression. Now, after several years of training, education, and labor I’ve been able to to establish new thought patterns and a new way of listening to life. And I can better appreciate my friends today! It started with my commitment to get appropriate help. At least that has been my experience.
I find myself frustrated by the same comments.
As if depression cares how popular you appear,
how strong your personal brand is,
how many twitter followers you have,
how many facebook friends/fans you gather,
how many kids you have,
how much money you make,
how well you look like you’ve gotten your act together,
how bright your future looks,
how little this all makes sense.
Depression kills you from the inside while exposes you to demands and indignant exclamations on the outside. Victim gets victimized once more while predator finds new prey.
My biggest thing is that I keep it all in and nobody knows what is going on behind my poker face. In reality I’m an emotional wreck inside. I never let them see me sweat, cry, scream..anxiety attacks..nothing…not even my husband knows..and I think that is one of our downfalls we can keep it from everyone …how bad it really is…how much I hate everything. Its crazy..so I understand how people can seem so normal and then they take their own life…
Thank you for your post. So well said. People need to understand how hurtful their comments can be. I lost my mother to suicide and it hurts to hear people say “I am angry at your mom”‘ or “How could she do this to her children”. I am NOT a victim. I am just a very sad daughter that misses her mom and wishes I could have healed her pain. She lived with so much pain and darkness that she could not find a way out. Mental illness/depression is a medical condition that does not discriminate.
Thank you for this beautiful and touching post Emma. I simply don’t have the words right now…
The following two points resonated particularly powerfully with me:
“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.”
“Depression is like cancer of the mind.”
The stigmatisation of medication is unwarranted and counter productive. You are absolutely right. They do work. They provide the much needed calmness and clarity to begin to move forward…
Thank you for your honesty Emma.
Hi Emma, I just came across your post and also really appreciated the description of depression – it made a lot of sense based on how my partner describes his depression. The depressing thing is that you seem to be saying that medication is the only way out. My partner has tried several forms of medication, including natural ones, and they all make him feel too weird to cope. He is super sensitive and really notices even the smallest dose, so it just doesn’t seem to be an option for him. I am not opposed to medication if it works for people, but let’s not assume that it does.
@Paula Medication is not the only way to address depression; various forms of therapy have shown effectiveness, and generally medication+therapy is more effective than either alone. My main point was that it is a disease/disorder of the mind, not a character failing or a secret life someone is hiding from you.
Medication changes the levels of neurotransmitters in the brain, making various ones more available. There are non-medical ways to do this, the most effective being meditation and exercise. Consistent use of one or both along with a form of therapy that focuses on noticing and changing distorted thoughts would be my recommendation for someone who has not yet found a medication that works.
I and several people I know who take anti-depressants have experimented both with dosage and brand to find the right fit. I currently take a half-dose of Wellbutrin, but first I tried Paxil, Celexa, and Lexapro. Some people take different ones in combination to balance out the side effects of each one. (I.e. Wellbutrin in a small does to counter the sexual side-effects of Paxil).
It can take time to figure out what you need and what you can tolerate. Many anti-depressants act on serotonin. Wellbutrin is atypical as it acts on norepinephrine/dopamine. For me, it works well but some people find it makes them feel “speedy”. It really depends on each person. When adjusting something like biochemistry of your brain, sometimes it can take awhile to find the right approach, but that doesn’t mean it’s impossible to find.
Oh, and side effects take getting used to. If I go off of Wellbutrin and then back on it a few months later, it takes a month or so for my sleep to be normal and for me not to feel all hyped up. But my body adjusts; sometimes you have to live through that adaptation phase.