This is going to seem incredibly random and unrelated to anything... because it is, but what better time for random off-topic thoughts than in the early hours of the morning when I can't sleep.
Anyway, I think I may have just thought of the perfect analogy (at least from my experience) to describe the experience of suffering from depression to people who (understandably) have trouble wrapping their heads around the concept, and often misinterpret it with the same bouts of sadness and anxiety that pretty much everyone go through from time to time.
It's quite simple really: Imagine the kid who bullied you at school (if nobody did, then surely you witnessed someone else being bullied at some point) lives inside your head. That's the essence of it, and for me it captures the relentlessness of depression. Imagine that bully is inside your head, with access to an entire armoury of all your darkest fears and anxieties to use against you. Every situation you encounter where you need to feel confident, capable, or just plain normal, they're there telling you that you're not. They take every single thing that you don't like about yourself, every single memory of you being rejected, or just thinking you've been rejected, even things that you've managed to keep a secret from the real-life bullies, and hit you with them, again and again, day in, day out, for as long as it takes for you to snap.
Like real bullying, if you don't find a way to combat it early on, it gets to the stage where the menace of it is just as damaging as the act itself. You end up living every day with your guard up, a nervous wreck flinching at sudden movements around you. You're afraid to be happy, because the bully is waiting somewhere, watching you, out of sight, and the moment you dare to relax you just know they're gonna ambush you and ruin everything. That existential dread becomes the deciding factor in every decision you make. You isolate yourself, until your tormentor becomes the only company you have, and the only voice you can listen to. That's when it gets really dangerous, because that's when you accept it, and can even develop a kind of Stockholm-eqsue attachment to it.
Now imagine all the favourite pieces of advice you give a kid who's being bullied in the real world. See how none of them work when the bully is inside your head? You can't "just ignore" your own brain. You can't grass on your brain to a teacher, so they'll make it leave you alone; and you can't hit back when your brain is hitting you. You'll end up hurting yourself more than you hurt it.
What can you do then? I'll leave that for professionals to answer. It would be dangerous for me to pretend that simply having experience makes me an expert. Besides, people who already have a bully inside their head don't need me to tell them it's there, but if you've ever had a friend who acted like they were under siege from something that wasn't there, and you just couldn't understand why they were acting that way, look at it this way, and you might just be able to say "I know how you feel" with some sincerity, which can make all the difference in the world.
Finally, you CANNOT expect them to take the first step on their own. You just can't. That kind of emotional stress confuses people and makes them act irrationally. Hell, I'm talking about experiences that I went through 3-5 years ago, and only NOW have I actually been able process them in a way that I feel might make perfect sense to the uninitiated.
So yeah, discuss. Does this resonate with anyone on here who had also suffered/is suffering? For those who have not, does this provide any new insight that no-one had got across to you before? What do you all think I'm doing posting this at ten past five in the morning, you pillock? The possibilities are endless!
Anyway, I think I may have just thought of the perfect analogy (at least from my experience) to describe the experience of suffering from depression to people who (understandably) have trouble wrapping their heads around the concept, and often misinterpret it with the same bouts of sadness and anxiety that pretty much everyone go through from time to time.
It's quite simple really: Imagine the kid who bullied you at school (if nobody did, then surely you witnessed someone else being bullied at some point) lives inside your head. That's the essence of it, and for me it captures the relentlessness of depression. Imagine that bully is inside your head, with access to an entire armoury of all your darkest fears and anxieties to use against you. Every situation you encounter where you need to feel confident, capable, or just plain normal, they're there telling you that you're not. They take every single thing that you don't like about yourself, every single memory of you being rejected, or just thinking you've been rejected, even things that you've managed to keep a secret from the real-life bullies, and hit you with them, again and again, day in, day out, for as long as it takes for you to snap.
Like real bullying, if you don't find a way to combat it early on, it gets to the stage where the menace of it is just as damaging as the act itself. You end up living every day with your guard up, a nervous wreck flinching at sudden movements around you. You're afraid to be happy, because the bully is waiting somewhere, watching you, out of sight, and the moment you dare to relax you just know they're gonna ambush you and ruin everything. That existential dread becomes the deciding factor in every decision you make. You isolate yourself, until your tormentor becomes the only company you have, and the only voice you can listen to. That's when it gets really dangerous, because that's when you accept it, and can even develop a kind of Stockholm-eqsue attachment to it.
Now imagine all the favourite pieces of advice you give a kid who's being bullied in the real world. See how none of them work when the bully is inside your head? You can't "just ignore" your own brain. You can't grass on your brain to a teacher, so they'll make it leave you alone; and you can't hit back when your brain is hitting you. You'll end up hurting yourself more than you hurt it.
What can you do then? I'll leave that for professionals to answer. It would be dangerous for me to pretend that simply having experience makes me an expert. Besides, people who already have a bully inside their head don't need me to tell them it's there, but if you've ever had a friend who acted like they were under siege from something that wasn't there, and you just couldn't understand why they were acting that way, look at it this way, and you might just be able to say "I know how you feel" with some sincerity, which can make all the difference in the world.
Finally, you CANNOT expect them to take the first step on their own. You just can't. That kind of emotional stress confuses people and makes them act irrationally. Hell, I'm talking about experiences that I went through 3-5 years ago, and only NOW have I actually been able process them in a way that I feel might make perfect sense to the uninitiated.
So yeah, discuss. Does this resonate with anyone on here who had also suffered/is suffering? For those who have not, does this provide any new insight that no-one had got across to you before? What do you all think I'm doing posting this at ten past five in the morning, you pillock? The possibilities are endless!
