Here's What We Don't Say When We Talk About Depression

Maybe it's time to come clean.

The other day I streamed an episode of New Amsterdam which dealt with a young woman's difficulty in accepting her depression. She came from a traditional Chinese family and felt enormous pressure to please her mother, who was adamant that she not speak to anyone about her problems or feelings.

This episode brought me to tears with its relatability. Sure, I'm not Asian, and my parents are not immigrants. Even so, I have spent most of my life just as frightened to disappoint my own mom. It never even mattered if I thought she was wrong--her revulsion and rejection still cut me deeply.

On New Amsterdam, I have an ever-growing fondness for Iggy Frome who's portrayed by Tyler Labine, but I found myself a bit stunned when he told the young Chinese woman that "depression is highly treatable."

It occurred to me that although we mean well and tell everyone to "reach out for help," we're still not telling the whole story or being completely honest about depression.

When you struggle with depression, it hardly feels "highly treatable."

This is probably an unpopular opinion, but I think depression is harder to treat then most of us want to admit. For the person dealing with depression, there's a helluva lot you have to do just to try to get the help you need.

Many, if not most of us are daunted by the idea that we have to set up therapy appointments, deal with insurance, and possibly try new drugs. It can be hard to find the money to afford talk therapy. And antidepressants or anti-anxiety meds often take a good deal of trial and error.

Nothing about depression is a one-size-fits-all matter, but we talk about getting help as if it's super simple even when it's not. If the hardest part of the day is simply getting out of bed to face the world, let's not pretend that most of us have the necessary gumption to follow the steps that getting help entails.

As much as I know that getting help matters, I've never once found it easy. Honestly? I've never thought it's "highly treatable." Of course, the last thing I want to do is discourage someone from getting help. But everyone deserves to know that getting help is in fact not an easy endeavor.

Getting long-term help for depression takes a badass amount of commitment and vulnerability. If America wants to make greater strides in reaching those with depression, we need to think about making it as absolutely easy as possible to get help.

You have a right to feel depressed in the midst of shitty circumstances, but circumstantial depression CAN become the full-blown deal.

There are certain circumstances where virtually anyone would develop symptoms of depression. Usually, a combination of more than one long-term negative experience is enough to put most people into a slump. Job loss, the end of a relationship, health problems, and isolation are some of the biggest triggers.

It's easy to chalk up our symptoms and uneasiness to our circumstances. And it's tempting to think that if these circumstances are "only" temporary, our depression will be temporary too. But it's often a missed opportunity to take better care of our mental health.

We should be talking about positive mental hygiene before our mental health deteriorates and becomes difficult to manage. Yes, sometimes our feelings of depression are completely natural reactions to whatever crap we're going through. Purely circumstantial. But if we don't treat those early symptoms, and instead just wait for our circumstances to improve, it's a lot like playing Russian roulette.

These things have a way of snowballing. That's why we need to make it the norm to get help and make changes as soon as things start feeling off-kilter.

We don't always know when we need help.

A lot of depression PSAs have a way of making it sound as if everybody knows when they need help, but that's not always the case. Too many of us don't know how to differentiate feeling blue from experiencing one of the many variants of clinical depression.

Sometimes we think it's just stress or we're just tired. Some of us aren't allowed to even consider depression--especially if we were taught that depression is weakness, or the sign of unresolved sin.

Some people think depression only looks a certain way when there are so many variables which mean it's highly individual. Likewise, hidden or high-functioning depression isn't necessarily any less serious than its counterparts. It may even be more dangerous since it can take loved ones by such surprise.

An accurate diagnosis for a lifelong struggle probably shouldn't come easy.

It's hard to get an accurate diagnosis if we aren't honest about what's going on inside our heads. It's also a challenge if the diagnosing physician has only a small snapshot of your life and symptoms to evaluate.

We don't like to admit that diagnosing depression is hard. It's a science and an art. Not to mention a symptom and a disease.

Depression is... complicated. Even an accurate diagnosis doesn't mean a swift recovery or easy-to-manage illness. It's cruel to peddle the notion that you'll get help, take a pill, and magically feel better. It's misleading to suggest that most everyone's depression can enter remission.

There's still too much we don't know about depression, but what we can say for certain is that getting help is the first step to finding out if you can feel better.

At the end of the day, we owe it to ourselves to explore our treatment options. We also owe it to ourselves to be honest that treatment is hard. Maybe under the best possible circumstances, depression is "highly treatable." But even then I doubt it. To say so sends a very bad message to those of us who have battled depression for most of our lives... like we're somehow outside the norm.