This is a disabling condition that adversely affects a person’s family, work/school life, sleeping/eating habits, and their general health. My best friend was diagnosed with this disorder around the age of twelve. He’s been to various doctors as well as prescribed various medications. Now at the age of seventeen, he still suffers, but is seeing improvements through his treatment plan. I have a minor diagnosis of this disorder. I’ve been to many therapists as well. In my case, my depression is always there; it’s always in my mind. It’s just pushed back. Some days it shows through. I’ve learned how to control it. Most people need to talk to someone. I’ve learned to hold it in, which is good but is also very dangerous. When you ask a depressed person what is wrong, they may not be able to explain it. That’s how it is with me. I describe my depression to someone as the “Black Wave.” It’s this thing that creeps up on me, first from behind, then from in front, from my left and my right, and suddenly all over. I feel like I’m being drowned or suffocated by this black wave. It’s everywhere. It chases me like a runaway train and clings to me like leeches. It’s almost as if an ocean is breaking inside my …show more content…
There is no explanation for the way that my mind is all the time. In my head, it’s like a constant snow, constant weather patterns of all sorts- blizzards, cyclones. I had a psychologist once explain to me that the worst thing that a therapist can do to an extremely depressed patient is being nice. The kindness creates a counterbalance, allowing the depressive to remain comfortable in her current state. In order for therapy to take an effect, a patient must be pushed and aggravated, forced into confrontations, given acceptable encouragement to push herself out of the caged haze of depression. Major depressive disorder is a disease, one that not only can, but also probably should, be treated with drugs. Two- thirds of the people with severe depression are not being treated for it. These people are the ones who are likely to get lost in the fog of depression. People will forget how severe, crippling, and awful depression really is. What many people don’t understand is that the cause- and- effect relationship in a mental disorder is a two – way shuttle: It is not just that a minor imbalance can make you depressed. It is that years and years of external depression, can actually mess up your internal chemistry so much that you need a drug to get it working properly