by grammarnazi » Thu Mar 08, 2007 4:15 am
If you have never been clinically depressed, you just don't understand. This is not boo-hoo my boyfriend dumped me or woe-is-me I lost my job. Clinical depression is like an allergy -- it is a chemical imbalance in the brain (in my case, weather-related), and you cannot "snap out of it" any more than you can "snap out of" an allergy attack on will alone. In my case, I was completely debilitated (sleeping around 16 hours a day, crying about 5 hours a day -- about nothing -- and trying to get work done in the remaining 3 hours), and this went on non-stop for months. It's like having a migraine that lasts indefinitely -- you can't think, you can't work, you don't want to see anyone or do anything; you just want to go to sleep and wake up and miraculously be back to your normal self. But every day you wake up and it's still there, stealing your life from you. I don't wish this on anyone, but don't judge unless you've been there.