About my [Depression], about [You] with depression.

「English Version」

关于我的【抑郁症】

关于有抑郁症的【你】

(I used to be a patient diagnosed with moderate depression, but has now largely recovered.)

About My [Depression]

Be Brave

Be Radiant

Be Auspicious

Be Valuable

Be Exceptional

Be Self-compassionate

The word "depression” has followed me for a long time. Whenever I faced it, I felt powerless and could only be pulled gradually into a dilemma that I cannot get out of.

I drew the curtain and looked out, feeling that I was exposed to the world, with viscera and blood vessels at a glance seen by everyone. Sometimes, I was clearly tired, but I couldn't feel a glimmer of sleepiness while lying in bed, as if a pair of heavy hands were holding my consciousness rocking in a tiny body. Sometimes I am somnolent, paralyzed all day in bed, and don't have the strength to walk, nor the effort to move. Even if my favourite food has been placed in front of me, it turns out to seem like empty seasoned ingredients. Or maybe I was overeating and had no sense of fullness. I just wanted to eat all day long. To behave, like sleeping well in front of my family, I had to lie in bed until dawn. I also had to endure a sense of powerlessness and go a little way, and spend time numbly. I expected time to elapse quickly, but I also felt at a loss for every second that was forthcoming.

Sometimes I felt sparks breaking on my back, making me want to tear apart everything around me. From time to time, I felt that I was compressed. I was going to be pumped into a vacuum, and I couldn't escape. Even though the world is large, I couldn't feel it. Single emotions are numb in every blood vessel in me. The heart was like a sponge soaked in water, while a monster that could discharge controlled my pulse, with the pain spread through my body. I couldn't feel the calendar pages turning over. I couldn't connect my thoughts into lines. Sentences become fragments of letters and words. I couldn't remember, understand, or sympathise. I couldn't feel the connection between myself and the outside world. I wanted to tear off the plastic cover that wrapped me, that separated me from everyone else. But it was getting tighter and tighter. That is when I began to cut my arm with the knife that is used to cut the paper and contained all the wrong questions on it. Letting myself in the blood of flesh blossom, as if I were the paper full of the wrong questions. I couldn't feel the pain, nor could I have any sense of existence. I didn't know what I was doing, nor did I want to know what role I was playing.

I went back through these memories to write this, it made me feel that I was pulled back to the past, and I couldn't help trembling.

But it doesn't matter now. I am seriously protecting myself at every moment to minimize my injuries. You should be proud of yourself, too.

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I understand you and I want to protect you.

You are going through a more uncomfortable space than I was, so I wrote down my story. Telling you that many people are willing to help you and accompany you.

I understand your sense of emptiness and nothingness that surrounds you. The tears fall not to express sadness, but to resist numbness and suffering. Maybe you might want to return to the sky or indulge in the bottom of the sea, but please give yourself another chance to believe that you have the strength to fight back your dilemma and become your own fluorescent tree in such deep darkness. I believe in you, and many people who care about you. Together, we form a network of life. You are unique. Your frosted eyes can still be open. You are really great. The countless pressures mediated in the dark corrode your bones and want to break you, but please believe in your strong power. No one is a paper full of wrong questions. Only you can define yourself, and try to master the right you should have. Every beam of warm sunshine is related to you. The soft light in the soft clouds has been trying to touch you and melt the ice that envelopes you.

I believe in you, we believe in you.

About [You] with Depression

Depressive disorders are one of the most common psychiatric disorders, refer to a class of mood disorders caused by various causes and characterized mainly by a prominent and long-lasting depression, accompanied by various degrees of cognitive and behavioral changes, with self-harm, suicidal behavior, and even death as a result in some patients.

(Code for the treatment of mental disorders, 2020 edition.)

Depression is a public health problem that everyone needs to pay attention to. Some scholars describe depression as a "motivational black hole" that is moving slowly in the brain. It continues to expand, eroding the power and energy of patients, making the patient unable to carry out a normal life, losing vitality and enthusiasm, and gradually "paralysis" and "collapse." Among suicides, 40 percent suffer from depression. In social opinion, there are always some voices that depression is just a sad emotion in people's hearts, and there are often people who comment that "depression is not worthy of sympathy". However, depression patients are not only sad, but have lost the ability of "self-value identification", feel hollow and uninterested in everything around them, unable to maintain the richness of their hearts, and continue to be empty. When a person cannot identify with himself, he will deny his "existence".

Individuals with a major depressive disorder often describe their mood as "depressed", "sad", "hopeless", "discouraged" or "down". Some patients do not admit sadness at first but will be induced during interviews. Some patients will complain about "boredom", partly because of the loss of feeling.

Feelings of worthlessness or guilt related to major depression episodes, including negative appraisals of unrealities in self-worth, preemptive ideas, or thinking rumination of guilt about past minor failures. Such individuals often misread neutral or trivial daily life as evidence of personal shortcomings, while overstating their responsibilities for unpleasant things. Feelings of worthlessness or guilt may reach the level of delusion (e.g. being convinced that one is responsible for global poverty).  Feeling unwell or unable to perform professional and interpersonal duties as a result of depression and self-blame are common outcomes, and unless there are delusions, these manifestations do not yet adequately fulfill this diagnostic criterion.

(References in the two preceding paragraphs: DSM-5 Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition.)

The pathogenesis of depression has not been fully elucidated. Heredity, personality traits, psychosocial, and so on are all the causes of depression.  As research has developed, scientists have mapped the onset of depression to functional abnormalities in several neurotransmitters, including monoamines (serotonin, norepinephrine, dopamine), GABA, and glutamate. Current antidepressants all alter synaptic cleft monoamine transmitter concentrations as the primary mechanism of action. Current studies suggest that both the onset and intervention of depression involve more complex mechanisms, with depression associated with several neurobiological alterations, others including alterations in the hypothalamic pituitary adrenal axis, neural networks, circadian rhythms, inflammation, telomere length, and others.

(References in the previous paragraph: popular science article from Shanghai General Hospital.)

end

Author | 孔晶堃

Typesetting丨Dorothy

Instagram丨BRAVES

Red | BRAVES

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