Picture Perfect Depression

If, for whatever reason, you find you have a spare minute, a desire to procrastinate, a day off and no more Real Housewives of Atlanta to watch, or maybe out of genuine interest, Google image ‘depression’. Today I did. I had a mid-week day off, no Millionaire Matchmaker on TV and so a thousand cups of tea and half an Agatha Christie novel later, I hit the internet.

Out of interest I Googled ‘depression’. After reading articles on the NHS website I clicked on Google Images. Instantly the results page was flooded with images almost entirely coloured dramatically in dark greys, deep blues and an over-whelming amount of black and white.

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Depression is pictured as something very black and white.

That ‘something’ is a black and white ‘someone’ in almost all these images. Yet depression is not a ‘black and white problem’ and those who suffer from depression aren’t all going around wearing muted greys, deepest blacks, seeing the world only through those coloured lenses.

I am sat here writing this in dark green skinny jeans and a top illustrated with colourful spring flowers, butterflies and -now I look more closely- a jaunty little bumble bee. My favourite flowers are sweet-peas. My favourite colour is yellow and I have depression.

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I have suffered significantly with depression for just over a year now. I believe it was brought on by a very stressful and damaging relationship deteriorating whilst I was working for my Master’s Degree. I came home heartbroken. So heartbroken that my entire being felt broken, my soul shattered, my brain bruised and battered with the efforts of trying to get through. My Masters complete I finally felt I had the time to say that I was very much Not OK and took myself to the doctors. I was prescribed medication and counselling and I accepted both.

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My family revolted. They saw their youngest daughter as bright, bubbly and to their eyes, beautiful. They saw that I was a little strung out and tired but said I just needed time. They saw some of my pain and anger but said again that I just needed time. They saw my flowery tops and floaty dresses, my yellows, my greens, my reds, my ribbons.

They saw me as colourful and so assumed that, given time, I would be ok.

That because I still lived in a world of technicolour then I could not have something as serious and black and white as depression.

But Toto, I was not in Kansas anymore. My Kansas, my ability to be happy, my life before living with depression that WAS by comparison, black and white. Simple. I was not lost in this labyrinth as I am now.

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The confusion – the ignorance, the stigma, the fear and the distrust- we as a society have of depression and mental health, may well have a lot to do with the literal visualising of it in such black and white terms.

In trying to define something so complex with such simple imagery we are in fact hindering our social understanding of depression.

To accept we need first to understand better.

I spent three months off anti-depressants and not feeling depressed. However, after trying to ride out the unexpected second wave of it that washed over me once again, I decided to go back on the medication for a while longer.  I was scared of what others would think (I am scared of what people may think in reading this), I was scared of what it meant.

What it really meant is that I did not want to cry every day. I did not want to feel like a failure each morning when I woke up. I did not want to feel despair and feel useless. I did not want to feel constantly irritated with my family for no reason. I just wanted to function again.

When I worked up the courage to tell my family that I was back on anti-depressants, they did not show anger and frustration this time, just a resigned sadness.

My mother picked up our squashy sausage-roll of a pug puppy and sadly sighed, ‘I guess he didn’t do the trick’. Now I love this dog. I love his little round belly, his googly eyes, his wrinkly face and bizarre cacophony of noises. In fact, I can just about drag myself out of bed in the mornings because I know he is snuffling around in the kitchen below. He brings us all much joy, love and endless laughter.

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But depression is no simple black and white beastie. No tablets, no puppies, no one thing will do the trick. Depression is as complex as the fractured rainbows of a kaleidoscope.

So I just have to believe in what my family has always taught me. With enough hard work and time, we will get there. 

If you related to this post why not check out ‘How Not to Improve My Mood…’?

Tags: colours depression images of depression Joy

Categories: From the Heart Mirror Mirror: Self Improvement Olivia Lowry