Depression? Do and Don’ts part. 2

Dos:
Listen to the right people
Try to understand that not every people experience the same thing as you
Acknowledge, be grateful of, simple good things
Don’ts:
Ignore everyone’s advice and critics
Judge other people as insensitive because they get wrong impressions about your condition
Hope for instant recovery

Nah. Now we’ll discuss some point above deeper.

First, this what I learned from my own experience and also the work of Sophie Kinsella, Finding Audrey, simple-but-often-ignored-fact: your anxiety, depression whatever you called it, is not just affecting you. When I was in my mental-disaster-state, my family, especially my mom, suffers the most. My typical daily conversation with mom goes on more-less like this,
“You don’t have to worry about me. Just ignore me. I’m useless.”
“Don’t say that.”
“But it is true.”
“Not it’s not.”
“Leave me alone. Just let me be.” But how can she?

Facts #1 : People do make wrong assumptions.
We all are. Some people make better judgment, far better judgement than other. But even Mrs. D, a professional psychologist, make mistakes. She first diagnosed me with mild Asperger Syndrome, but later after more counselling sessions she said, “I think I’m wrong, you don’t have any syndrome. You’re weakness is just that you’re lacking in social skills.”
To people that’s under distress overload, I want to tell you this. H e l p y o u r s e l v e s.
- Talking to a counselor won’t help you if you doesn’t take their advice seriously.
- Share your worry with friends and families will not work things out if you choose to only listen to some that pleases you

Because, contrary to popular common depression-thingy-belief that argue “Happiness is an option you choose, but depressed people can’t choose to be happy. It is not that easy.”
Fact #2: choose to be happy, lift you heads up in times of difficulties in life is never easy, whether you’re depressed or not.

Another false-assumption: “Depression is unpredictable. People said that you should be happy with your life, but you’re suffering from depression. Depression can happen to anyone.”
No, dear, that does not mean that depression can happen to anyone, or happens overnight.
Folks, I’ve been through this. And as I look at my past more objectively, I know one thing for sure: my mental-disaster-state does not happen because of my difficulties on doing assignments while I’m working at the hospital for clinical nutrition class. That was just the tip of the iceberg.

Fact #3: depression develops overtime.
It can’t happen in one night out of nowhere, unless there’s some kind of unusual condition like drug intoxication or post-partum hormonal imbalances. Be true to yourself. Accept your weaknesses, but don’t ever try to use them as your excuses. Turn them, if cannot to some strength, into something less destructive. Laugh at them. One thing that I found a little relieving is when Mrs. D laughed at me. Seriously. She was laughing at me when we recalled my previous ridiculous actions. After that I laughed with her. As Elsa’s story in a very heartwarming novel by Frederick Backman, defeat your fears by laughing at them. It makes them confused, uncertain, then slowly go away.

And do the opposite things. Because we’re agreed that one of my weaknesses is lacking in social skills, Mrs. D told me to do something opposite of the term “lack of social skills”. Here’s what I did:
1. Gave my fav snack bar to the locker-key-keeper man at the library
2. Asked my fav kebab seller her name, asked the corner store keeper his name. Done a little chit chat.
3. Talking to a stranger on the street using any excuses. Ask directions. (To a mom with young kid) comment on how cute her child is.

First, I failed almost all the time. When I was on my way to talk then another person came, I stopped and went. But practice make progress. I celebrated every “mission accomplished” with buying myself my fav greentea crepes or ice cream. Or just write it down in my journal.
Take small steps. Or, like Sean Covey saying, take baby steps. Don’t worry of slow recovery progression, just keep going. Be grateful of simple good things. Remember, writing about things that you should be grateful of is not the same as really feeling grateful with what you have. I can’t describe it better than Audrey’s mom lines in Finding Audrey, when Audrey was complaining about her ups and downs in recovery journey from social anxiety disorder,

“But, Audrey, that’s what life is. We’re all on a jagged graph. I know I am. Up a bit, down a little. That’s life.”

I owe Sophie Kinsella, and also, Julie Ann Peters on her beautiful work in By the Time You Read This, I’ll Be Dead, for so much life lessons. Both novels are in the UI library. Fairly objective stories on depression recovery journey. And I think the idea of the TV show 13 Reasons Why is so dumb. If only Hannah list 13 reasons why she should continue on living instead of listing 13 reasons why she had the “right” to do suicide, maybe she’ll be fine. But then the shows not gonna be famous, probably.