It was in the middle of the night and I was lying on my bed when I remembered a talk with a friend several weeks ago. Around half a year before that talk, I told my friend that I thought he had a mental disorder and I then explained to him about it. He was impressed and went on to look for information about that disorder. When we saw each other again – that was the talk several weeks ago – he told me he still got sad as he has always been in his life. Yet he felt much better than he had done in the past because he knew why he felt sad and he knew it was not his fault to feel this way. He knew that the reason behind this bad feeling was his mental disorder.
Before all of this happened, my friend had spent all his life blaming himself for being sad too frequently, for possessing bad thoughts too often etc… He had thought it was all his fault to have such dark thoughts and feelings. He blamed himself for being abnormal and hated himself for that abnormality. If only he had learned about mental disorders earlier, he wouldn’t have had to suffer for so long.
This story makes me wonder how many people out there are spending time hating themselves for the fact that they feel bad. How many people out there are thinking that it is their fault to be depressed while others aren’t? If those people know about the science behind their depression, would they feel better?
I remember battling against depression during years and years of my life. It was a slugfest. It really was. Those ten years of fighting took me a lot of tears and blood. The good news is I won the battle completely.
And one important reason why I could win back my life is that I have always been aware of what is going on. I did a lot of research on mental health, on depression, on sadness and on everything that could be related to my situation of mind. In the worst moments of my life, I recalled the knowledge line by line, telling myself it is normal to feel this way, it is a kind of mental disorder, I am not alone in suffering this hopeless feeling and I can win one day because others have done.
I have always thought that knowing how one is depressed is important in curing the depression itself because it works in my case. And when it also works in my friend’s case, I think of sharing the idea to more people.
So here it is: If you are depressed or if you are different from the majority around you, it is not your fault. Do some research about depression and mental disorders, you will know what is going on with you. And you will feel better.
In the next posts, I will talk about some mental disorders, not by citing the definition from a psychology book but by describing it with my own experiences with them.
alienmeo 