It’s Not Sadness

Let’s start off with a simple idea.

Depression is not sadness.

Now, from my perspective, that’s an easy assertion to make. I know the difference because I’ve lived it. The problem, however, lies in the fact that depression blends in easily with the manifestations of sadness. Common sense would tell you that, if it looks like sadness and sounds like sadness, it probably is sadness.

It’s not that simple. The difference boils down to a question of wellbeing. Sadness can be cathartic. Depression is destructive. Sadness can motivate us to overcome adversity. Depression drains motivation and lets adversity overcome us. When we view depression through the lens of sadness, we get the wrong idea.

Here’s a different approach. Imagine a contraption elegantly designed to warp perspective for the sake of fostering guilt, frustration and hopelessness. It disregards success and pinpoints failure. What used to be one of life’s pleasures becomes a mundane chore. That’s the nature of the cognitive machine that carries the name “depression.” It translates your life in way that forces you to forgo happiness. The strength of its programming could make you believe that 2+2=5, and after awhile, you being to lose sense of which thoughts are yours and which are owned by depression. I’ve always described it as the loss of my ability to feel human.

Perhaps the one of the most frustrating aspects of its nature is the apparent lack of logic. How can people who are so blessed in life find themselves so worn down? They have so much to be happy for! It’s an argument I understand even when I find myself struggling. The problem is that happiness, in this case, does not work within the language of math. Joy and satisfaction do not result from the sum of one’s blessings. It’s a matter of perspective.

This considered, what’s the result of the inner workings of depression? For me, it’s shame and guilt. Shame for the feeling that I lose control over my thoughts and my perspective. Guilt for the stress I put upon my friends and family who do their best to assuage a relentless cognitive beast. And frankly, it’s embarrassing to admit that. The last thing I want is for the people I care about most to view my depression as a part of my character and personality. From what I have heard from others with depression, it’s a common fear.

Depression, as with all forms of mental illness, is difficult to break down into words, and I know this handful of paragraphs has barely scratched the surface. A step in the right direction, I believe, consists of our willingness to consider mental illness to be an authentic malady of the mind. Dismissing mental illness as excessive emotion is not the way to go.

Jake Morgan, OU ’15, BS in Microbiology, BA in Italian