Folks,
I had a couple of days of sudden depression over Xmas which confined me to my bedroom. My wife and daughter were clearly disappointed but were kind to me and got on with Xmas in good spirits. I joined the family meal, with a great effort, and then had to go and lay down again. I slept solidly for 48 hours, trapped in the depression, which has now passed as quickly as it came.
A funny thing though. The day after boxing day I also came down with a headcold, runny nose, sneezing and all that. My wife and daughter both became more obviously sympathetic to me. They said things like:
?You poor thing, you can?t go out like that; stay in bed.?
?Look at you, it must be horrible.?
? Aah, this must be what was upsetting you.?
?No wonder you?ve been feeling bad.?
Now, what is interesting is that they never say stuff like this about the depression, or anything about it, and when we talked yesterday, my wife admitted that she does kind of resent the depression and wishes I could get rid of it somehow. But she doesn?t resent the headcold, or the recurring prostate trouble that I have, these things are different for her. My daughter has said the same, calling the depression ?only headstuff.?
These are kind and sensitive people, trying to be helpful. The evidence is that they don?t have the personal experience to empathise about depression; however they can empathise about a headcold! In some sense, for them, is a headcold worse than depression?
What do you folks think about this?
P.
I had a couple of days of sudden depression over Xmas which confined me to my bedroom. My wife and daughter were clearly disappointed but were kind to me and got on with Xmas in good spirits. I joined the family meal, with a great effort, and then had to go and lay down again. I slept solidly for 48 hours, trapped in the depression, which has now passed as quickly as it came.
A funny thing though. The day after boxing day I also came down with a headcold, runny nose, sneezing and all that. My wife and daughter both became more obviously sympathetic to me. They said things like:
?You poor thing, you can?t go out like that; stay in bed.?
?Look at you, it must be horrible.?
? Aah, this must be what was upsetting you.?
?No wonder you?ve been feeling bad.?
Now, what is interesting is that they never say stuff like this about the depression, or anything about it, and when we talked yesterday, my wife admitted that she does kind of resent the depression and wishes I could get rid of it somehow. But she doesn?t resent the headcold, or the recurring prostate trouble that I have, these things are different for her. My daughter has said the same, calling the depression ?only headstuff.?
These are kind and sensitive people, trying to be helpful. The evidence is that they don?t have the personal experience to empathise about depression; however they can empathise about a headcold! In some sense, for them, is a headcold worse than depression?
What do you folks think about this?
P.