16 Myths About Depression

If you’ve never suffered from depression, then there’s a good chance you may have many misconceptions about what it is, and what it isn’t.

Even if you have, or had, depression, it still doesn’t mean you know how others with it are feeling, because it doesn’t affect everybody in the same way.

This guide lists some of the more common myths about depression (in alphabetical order), in the hope that the unwarranted stigma attached to this condition can be dispelled.

“At Least It’s Not A Terminal Illness”

While depression is not classified as a terminal illness in the same way that, say, AIDS, is, it can definitely be extremely dangerous if it is not treated.

The most obvious consequence of being depressed is the tendency for suicidal thoughts, or actual suicide attempts.

According to one doctor, it is the second most common cause of death in people who are 15 to 19 years old.

She goes on to say that around 10% of people suffering from some form of severe mental illness (including depression) die by suicide.

It’s worth noting, as an aside, that some anti-depressants (especially those known as SSRIs) are associated with a risk of violent suicide.

Other research shows that people with major depression are also much more likely to develop other potentially life-threatening conditions.

Estimates indicate that almost one in three people are less healthy than those without mental health issues, and that over three quarters of depressed people also have at least one serious chronic condition.

For Americans, then, regardless of gender, depression can reduce the number of your healthy years by almost ten.

Depression Can’t Happen To You

Every single organ in your body can become infected or diseased, or just plain fail. For example:

• Hearts suffer heart attacks
• Livers can get cirrhosis or hepatitis
• Lungs can be affected by bronchitis or pneumonia
• Kidneys can develop kidney stones
• Pancreases can become cancerous

Well, guess what? The brain is an organ too.

Which means the brain can be affected too, e.g. with meningitis, or encephalitis.

But there is now plenty of research to show that your mind can be affected by physical issues, and that your body can be affected by your mental health.

So, yes, if you have a brain, there is always the possibility that it will develop problems of its own, whether those are caused by viruses or bacteria, or by something else that we call a mental health illness, such as depression.

Depression Is Just Being Sad

I’m pretty sure that everybody has days when they simply don’t want to get out of bed in the morning – but for the most part, they do, because they are physically and mentally able to, even if they feel sad or hung over or unmotivated.

If you’re severely depressed, however, it’s a totally different ballgame.

It’s like the difference between a clockwork toy that has almost run out of energy, which you can simply wind up again, and a clockwork toy where the spring has completely broken.

There are also those who say that you can choose to be either happy or sad, but with depression, there is no choice involved at all.

Think of it like this. If you wake up in the morning with a headache, it’s highly likely you can just pop a pill and carry on with your day. But if you’re depressed, no quantity of painkillers is going to work because it’s more like having a brain tumour than just a headache.

Severe depression eliminates your ability to feel truly happy – even with things or activities you are passionate about.

“Depression Is Something You Can Simply Pull Yourself Out Of.”

Being told to “snap out of it” is about the worst thing you can say to somebody who is depressed.

Nobody chooses to be depressed (in the clinical sense).

You might go out drinking one night, knowing full well you’ll wake up with a headache next morning, but if you knew you were going to wake up with severe depression, you simply wouldn’t take that risk.

Depression can affect you in dozens of different ways, none of which are good.

“Depression Is Something You Can Think Yourself Out Of”

I’m all for positive thinking when it’s appropriate, but you simply cannot “think yourself” out of depression.

If only it were that easy!

When doing activities that you used to do without thinking (e.g. brushing your teeth) becomes so paralyzing because you just don’t have the mental or physical energy to even contemplate doing them, then no amount of positive thinking is going to get you moving.

This is especially the case when you remember that depression reduces cognitive ability, making it harder to think, concentrate, and focus.

Depression Is Your Fault

Most people do not choose to become ill (physically or mentally), and yet we all take varying levels of risk every day of our lives that could result in some form of harm or illness.

The world has become very toxic these days (e.g. with untested food additives, prescription drugs, unmanaged industrial waste), not to mention the toxins people willingly ingest, with alcohol and tobacco being the most obvious examples.

And yet if somebody develops health issues because of any of this, we don’t typically berate them for poor life choices. (Not if we have any empathy at all, at least.)

In the case of depression, then the causes are rarely immediately apparent, and there is no justification for blaming the person for bringing it on themselves.

Depression can often be triggered by something that brings to mind age-old, possibly subconscious memories of events that happened as a young child.

How could this ever be your fault?

“Depression Isn’t A Disease”

Disease is defined as “an abnormal condition of a part, organ, or system of an organism resulting from various causes, such as infection, inflammation, environmental factors, or genetic defect, and characterized by an identifiable group of signs, symptoms, or both.”

And a depressed brain is clearly not functioning normally.

One of the reasons for this myth is likely that you don’t always manifest physical symptoms with depression, which isn’t to say they may not exist, but the effects may be purely mental and internal.

Depression Means You Are A Pessimist

While having pessimistic thoughts can be one of many different signs that somebody is suffering from depression, that does not mean you are a pessimist at heart.

When depression strikes people who are naturally optimists, they can still exhibit pessimistic tendencies – because that’s one of the ways in which depression affects some people.

In fact, that’s one of the key symptoms of depression – sudden and otherwise inexplicable changes in somebody’s behaviour or moods (which can include, for example, changes in eating and sleeping habits).

Depression Means You’re Ungrateful

When I was depressed, it did not stop me for one minute from appreciating how fortunate I was – a good job, a roof over my head, bills that I could pay without worrying about them, a car, a few good friends, several hobbies, a company that allowed me to take time off work because of stress and who paid for most of my therapy, and, apart from my depression, reasonably good health.

So, one of the effects of being depressed may be that you appear to be less grateful, but that’s not what’s really going on inside.

Not only does depression alter the way you think (and your ability to think for that matter), but when, for example, you become more socially withdrawn, have mood swings, and become irritable (all because of the depression), it may be natural to assume you’re not grateful for what you have.

Depression Means You’re Weak

If you think boxers like Frank Bruno, Nigel Benn, Ricky Hatton, and Tyson Fury, all of whom have suffered from depression, are weak, then I invite you to go and tell them so, to their face.

In fact, there is a popular saying that people with depression are not weak – they’ve actually tried to be strong for too long.

“Everyone Gets Depressed Sometimes – You’ll Get Over It”

When people say this, they are typically using the word “depressed” in the colloquial sense, which is almost a synonym for “sad” or “having a bad day”.

These are not depression!

Depression, for the most part, simply does not “just go away”.

It can take months or years of treatment, therapy, and depending on resources you didn’t know you had, before depression goes away – and for the unfortunate ones, it can become a part of their lives for ever.

“If You Can Function, You Must Not Be Depressed”

Functioning is a subjective term.

Because there aren’t always physical symptoms, and because some people with depression hide it very well (I did, for over five years), it’s easy to assume that somebody is “functioning”.

But you have no idea what’s going on in their head, or how much effort it takes to do even the simplest of jobs.

That’s why depression is often referred to as an “invisible illness”.

“If You Were Only Strong Enough, You Wouldn’t Be Depressed”

This is clearly related to an earlier myth, about being weak.

For me, I’d been strong for over five years, trying to support my first wife who was going through her own issues, including depression, while trying to act normally at work and with friends.

But eventually, it just got to be too much for me, and I chose to seek help.

Even that, though, was tough – admitting you have problems and asking for help was not easy.

So, being clinically depressed has absolutely nothing to do with being strong or weak.

“Men Don’t Get Depressed”

As I’ve already mentioned, I had severe depression for over five years, so I know this isn’t true.

And at the group therapy sessions I attended five times a week for two to three months, the gender split between males and females was about equal – so it wasn’t just me.

Having said that, most statistics do show that women are around twice as likely to be depressed than men, but the sad fact is that diagnosis rates for both genders are increasing.

What people may be witnessing is the fact that depression is seen as a sign of weakness, as discussed above, and some people, especially men, try to hide this because it hurts their male ego.

“You Must Have A Reason To Be Depressed”

Depression is truly a strange disease – there are often no physical symptoms, it can strike apparently out of the blue, and there is currently no blood test you can do for it.

So when people say this, they are expecting something to have happened recently that triggered the depression – almost in the same way that a fall can break your collarbone. In other words, they assume a cause and an immediate effect.

But depression doesn’t work that way.

Often, it happens in a “straw that broke the camel’s back” sort of way – you’ve put up with something, or tried to cope, for too long, and finally, something snaps. The final trigger may not even be noticeable at all.

And the real underlying cause of depression can be something that happened years or decades ago, like when you were a young child. Maybe it was one particular incident, or maybe your parents made you feel a certain way on a regular basis, or any other number of things that you may not even recall as an adult.

But something, however unrelated or bizarre, might have brought that recollection to mind, and that can be all it takes to bring on depression.

In my case, the prime cause of my depression was very clear to me, which is why, I think, it was not as difficult a journey to get better, once I finally decided to seek help.

But I know that the majority are not that lucky.

“You’re Young – You Have No Reason To Be Depressed”

For the most part, depression does not care how old you are.

It may affect you differently (e.g. a teenager with depression may still go out socializing with their friends, but it doesn’t mean nothing is wrong), but studies show that it’s a growing problem for younger people, including millennials.

So while it’s true teenagers don’t have the same problems as adults (e.g. finding and holding down a job, paying the bills, being a parent), that does not mean they don’t have their own unique set of issues.

Remember too that family life today is very different to how it was a few decades ago. For example, it is likely that both parents work these days, family meal times may not be what they were (which means actual conversations may be harder to hold), and people spend excessive amounts of time glued to their smartphones (and I’m not just talking about teenagers here).

Children may feel they have nobody to talk to, they may not be receiving the love and attention they need, and they may feel that they are left alone to deal with their problems.

The best solution, albeit not always the easiest, is just to talk to your children to find out what is going on – and, if necessary, make changes to address their concerns.

Conclusion

As I mentioned earlier, there is a lot of stigma attached to any mental health problem, especially depression, but it can be invisible to others.

Hopefully, this guide has shone a light on some of the misconceptions that abound – because people with depression already have enough to deal with.