Depression

What is depression?  The Canadian Mental Health Association describes it like this on the front page of their website:

"Problems and misfortunes are a part of life. Everyone experiences unhappiness, and many people may become depressed temporarily when things don't go as they would like. Experiences of failure commonly result in temporary feelings of worthlessness and self-blame, while personal losses cause feelings of sadness, disappointment and emptiness. Such feelings are normal, and they usually pass after a short time. This is not the case with depressive illness."

They go on to add this:

"Depression becomes an illness, or clinical depression, when the feelings described above are severe, last for several weeks, and begin to interfere with one's work and social life. Depressive illness can change the way a person thinks and behaves, and how his/her body functions."

This is where my issue begins.  I don't understand why it is that because an individual takes longer than another individual to get over/deal with, the same tragic event, that makes them depressed.  What are we doing when we do this?  We are labelling someone.  The moment we label someone we hand them this stigma that says, "Hey, there is something wrong with you"!  Who in there right minds are going to come forward and share that they have feelings such as the ones depression describes if they know the result is going to be that you are labeled, maybe prescribed a drug of some sort to help, and then people treat you and react to you differently.  Doesn't sound like anything I would want to do.  What if you had several tragedies take place in your life, wouldn't long term symptoms of depression probably follow you for life?  Does this mean there is something wrong with you?  No, it doesn't, but in our society today, when we talk about depression, it's a negative which denotes there is something wrong with you!  I have news for you, BULLSHIT!!  If this is the case, everyone in the world would be suffering from depression, and we should all be prescribed some sort of pill to make it easier.  The problem to me is simple, we are a society and a generation that is controlled by fear.  The moment you allow fear to take over, you are susceptible to all things negative such as anger, rage, lack of respect, lack of energy, etc.  Fear makes it so we don't want to do things and fear makes it so we live a sheltered life and hope to box ourselves in from the realities of the world.  If you are part of this world, and you try to ignore what's going on in and around your world, or you try to create your own world, wouldn't that be the first sign of depression!?  Do you want to know what I believe the cure to depression is??  It's COMMUNICATION!  I know, sounds crazy, but think about it, if we start communicating with kids from a young age, then they in turn gain the ability to learn and process at a very early stage.  When we can process that hurt, fear, anger, frustration, and despair are all facets of life, and facets that occur a lot more readily then joy, excitement, happiness, and jubilation, then maybe we will be better prepared to deal with those emotions when they greet us so often!  In my case specifically, from a very young age, and we are talking about the age of 4, I have had to deal with many of the harsh realities of life, leading up to the death of my mother almost 5 years ago just a few months after her 56th birthday.  I feel like I had this life and these experiences from such a young age in order to prepare me for my adult years.  I would not be as confident as I am today if it wasn't for dealing with and overcoming tragedies.  Guess what, I still have some of those negative feelings, but it doesn't mean I'm depressed, nor do I let it get me to the point that any emotion has that much control over me.  Imagine if someone said you have a disease, everything makes you happy?!?!  You must have delusions of grandeur or something, but you are definitely delusional.  That is the crazy part to me, no emotion, such as fear, joy, hurt, anger, etc. should be able to consume you, if they do, that is the problem.  It also happens to be a problem we are more than capable of solving, and it doesn't include drugs.  Since I was in Grade 2 there has been some teacher, principal, coach, and even specialists who have tried to put me on drugs.  Thank god for my parents, my family physician, and a couple of psychiatrists on the other side of the fence, I was never given any pills to help.  Many people might add that if I had been given pills, then maybe I would have avoided all the years of pain and frustration I experienced, maybe, but then I wouldn't have been living!!  Think about that for a second, when you take a pill such as Ritalin or its friend's, you are essentially saying "I can't handle life".  I need something to make it easier to cope.  I challenge that many children who could potentially end up as depressed adults, if we had programs and people in place to communicate with these individuals constantly and consistently, we would drastically reduce the number of adult depression patients.  If a child doesn't feel safe, or isn't encouraged to share their feelings and their thoughts, without fear of how people will judge them, then how are they not going to end up alone and afraid and consumed by their thoughts?  Then by the time they become teens or young adults, they have learned how to hide it and deal with it so well because they don't want to be labelled a freak.  If it becomes too much for that individual then tragedy strikes in many ways, and we are left to pick up the pieces.  Then in turn it becomes us who needs to label that individual with something in order for us to be able to cope.  Once again we have made it about us, instead of the victim.  We never get the opportunity to hear directly from the victims, only the people that are left in the wake.  We all know someone who took anti depressants, and none of us would ever choose to be like those people, zombies!  What leads to alcohol and drug abuse, the exact same thing that leads people to Ritalin or prescribed drugs!?  What do they do, the same things, they numb the pain!!!  I would really like to see a change, and I am going to continue to fight for a change, but a society of numbed people is definitely not a world I want to be a part of.  I ask you all to think about it and comment about it, how many times have you felt depressed, how many of you have held on to the death of a loved one longer then a "professional" deems fit!?  Did you immediately want to take a pill, or maybe you could look at it as another part of life, and with all the good comes bad too.  Take a look around you, how could we have life, and this amazing earth to live on, and all other positively amazing things about our existence without some bad??  Remember this is EARTH, not HEAVEN!!  We can overcome fear just like we overcame apartheid, slavery, the holocaust, and other such atrocities.  We have the ability to say, I don't need a pill, I'm ready to face whatever this world can dish at me, and when I feel weak, I am going to talk to the people that care about me, and they are going to make me feel better about it because they will tell me we all have feelings like this sometimes, but it's ok everything will work out and most importantly, YOU ARE NOT ALONE!  Could you imagine that world!?