Are Our Health Care Professionals and Advertisements Creating MORE Depressed People?
Mental Illness is REAL, but …
I want to begin by affirming that DEPRESSION is REAL. AND That MENTAL ILLNESS is a REAL problem.
But hear me out.
My husband’s recent appointment with his primary care physician gave me cause to pause. Because of all my husband’s health issues, we see him every six months. Because of his health issues, he ALSO sees five other doctors on a regular basis. Some weeks that means there are multiple appointment. Follow that up with cardiac rehab and dialysis three times a week.
Each doctor appointment begins with a nurse asking for an update on his medications. This is followed with, “At any time during the past two weeks have you been depressed?”
In response, my husband said, “No,” but that they had been asking that every day at his in-center dialysis sessions as well. That means he has been asked a minimum of three times each week over the last four weeks.
I get the necessity of early identification of depression and mental illness. I get the early intervention.
But let me pose these questions:
Does asking a person multiple times if they are feeling depressed lead people to think they are depressed?
Is it possible to look at the symptoms of depression and fabricate depression in ourselves?
Can a person pick out symptoms from a commercial that is touting the wonders of a depression drug and say, “Hey, I have that symptom. I must have depression.”?
Do we, as a society, place such emphasis on being happy that having a sad day or two or a down day or two can be equated with depression?
Case in point:
My father had been diagnosed with a cranial aneurysm in 1986 shortly after my youngest son’s birth. Five surgeries later, the aneurysm was repaired, but the long-term diagnosis was bleak. The aneurysm, located in the communications lobe of his brain, had affected his short-term memory. He lived in the past, needed constant supervision, and many times didn’t recognize people he had known for years.
My mother continued to teach because of the medical insurance. I continued to teach because it was a steady job, and with the economy of the mid to late 80’s, my husband at that time was always concerned with major lay-offs and company shut-downs.
The idea of Dad staying home alone while we all worked was out of the question. He was released from the hospital into a nursing home for full recovery of his body and its functions. Then, he was transferred to an assisted living facility.
Mom visited daily after work and spent much of her time there on the weekends and vacations. With two young boys and living on the outskirts of town, I found myself visiting on a somewhat irregular schedule.
Fast forward two years —
One day, while I was teaching, I received a phone call through the school’s phone system. Well, actually, a teacher had answered the phone in the teacher’s workroom and covered my class while I went and took the call. (Had to love the pre-cellphone era.) Mom had just gotten a call at school that Dad had passed away at some point in the night.
Back in my classroom, I alerted my class that I would not be there for the rest of the week because my father had passed away. I remember one student speaking up. “If that’s true, how come you’re not upset? How come you’re not crying?”
“Yeah,” another student interjected, “I’d be a wreck.”
I put the papers back on my desk and sat on the vacant student desk top I always used for discussions. “Look. Two years ago, my father was given a 5% chance of making it through the surgery for a cranial aneurysm. I was a wreck then. His passing is a relief. A relief for him because he was stuck in the past. A relief for my mom who struggled every time she saw him. A relief for me because it was a relief for the two of them.”
My students were silent. Not out of respect, but because I gave them a perspective that was different from what they expected.
As a child, I was never shielded from events that could have caused depression. We talked about feelings, we cried together, we laughed and remembered together. And it wasn’t just my immediate family, it was with the extended family as well.
As a child, I learned at an early age that the teasing from my cousins was just good clean fun. How else could I have risen above the nickname “Wreckless Beckless”?
I lived through a number of various traumatic experiences:
As a child, my family would drop what we were doing to chase a nearby siren to a fire or an accident.
If he was alive today, my father would have been diagnosed with PTSD. His explosive anger and paranoia should have had me acting the part of the rebel teen, but I did not.
I was left at home in front of the living room picture window with the directive that if the sky began to look worse to get to the basement. Why? Because my grandmother was not answering her phone, and they were going to check on her.
I was on a school bus home the day a massive tornado passed over our neighborhood but touched down in the rural community where some of my relatives lived. The tornado took out all but the refrigerator and its wall of my uncle's home. The day after the tornado, we climbed into the car and drove to investigate the damages.
By today’s list of traumatic standards, just one of those experiences should have given me a life of battling depression.
I’ve had friends inquire if I was depressed after my first marriage began to fall apart, as well as after the death of my mother. The answer was no for both, but they still encouraged me to seek professional help. I refused.
What did I do?
What makes me different?
- Music is a great medication: I listen to all kinds of music (Yes, even a small amount of rap.) I play piano and violin and I used to sing. When I was depressed during my divorce, I would come home from work and sit and play the piano for an hour or more.
- Learn to enjoy going for walks. Short walks when I only had the freedom to walk up and down my driveway to long walks along the coast of a river, lake, or larger body of water.
- Try to make healthy choices when eating. After college where I over-consumed sodas, I pretty much drink water, coffee, and tea. I also would rather cook from scratch than a box. I would rather eat from my kitchen over fast food.
- Water soothes the soul. In college, one of my stress and depression busters was to sit on large rock that decorated one of Lake Michigan’s beaches. But I also enjoy listening to the waves of the ocean crash along the beach, the rush of a river along the rapids, or the sound of a waterfall.
- Always, always dress for the day. In my mother’s thoughts, if you dress for the day, it improved your attitude and improved your performance. My school attire did not consist of jeans until I went off to college. I quickly learned the value of my mother’s philosophy.
- Learn the power of meditation. Long before I knew what meditation was, I enjoyed looking into (not at) the flame of a candle. In elementary school, I got a book on transcendental meditation. I read it with a flashlight under the covers of my bed. I practiced what I read, but it was years before I encountered any training in meditation.
- Journaling is a way to release negative emotions and work through problems in life. It is in writing that I let everything hang out. Recently, I reread some pages from old journals. The happy times. The stressful times. The angry times. AND the depressing times. Sometimes, I have written all my feelings down, waited a few days, and taken them outside to burn. Watching my stress, anger, and my depression go up in smoke was revitalizing.
I get it. Depression is REAL. I have friends who are on medication because they have been diagnosed as clinically depressed.
I get the responsibility of the medical profession to identify patients that are experiencing depression, and even abuse at home.
BUT
before depression strikes you or your loved ones, try learning some coping techniques. Then, when traumatic events become reality, you have a full tool belt of techniques to use.
Rebecca (Becky) spent 34 years in a teaching career, but when she retired in 2014, she picked up her pen and pursued her passion to write. As a high school English teacher, Becky held the philosophy that she wouldn’t give any writing assignment that she personally wouldn’t or couldn’t do. That philosophy strengthened and broadened her own writing.
In addition to publishing her writing on various platforms, Becky also blogs at Life is for Living, a blog to encourage, motivate, and help others live the best life possible. As an extension of Life is for Living, she also publishes a weekly newsletter, Let’s Chat. (Check it out HERE.) Life is for Living also has a social media presence with the group Coffee on my Porch. (Check it out HERE.)
After teaching writing for 34 years, Becky began Ink & Keyboard, a blog for writers at all levels. She supplements what she writes on the blog with a subscription newsletter, The Writer’s Notebook (Check it out HERE.) and the social media group Ink & Keyboard (Check it out HERE.)
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