LATE: Mental-Health Monday

Yesterday I had an illuminating conversation with my spouse about my depressive episodes.

We were lounging around before dinner, drinking glasses of wine, and talking about my improved self esteem. He said that he wondered if that now-strong self esteem wavered during periods of depression, if that was one of the things that depression affected.

I told him, without hesitation, that it once did — and no longer does. That now, after years of treatment, I can separate the low moods from the low self esteem, and vice versa.

“That’s how I know it’s an illness,” I said. “Because I can feel the awful mood dives without attaching them to self criticism or things that aren’t going well. If there were a true crisis in my life or the like, it might be more difficult to tell the difference. But even though I still have times when I’m depressed, I can also tell that my life is not causing the depression.”

I inhabit a realm of privilege. I don’t need to spell it out for you. Just being able to spend time writing a blog post means I have privilege. But what I do want to tell you is that the one area in which I am certain my privilege helps other people is in being able to say depression is an illness. Yes, it can also result from circumstances: Financial deprivation, grief, disaster.

But it can also be an illness, and not only a reaction. Absolutely not a character flaw or something that makes people right or wrong, good or bad. Depression is an illness, like diabetes, or heart disease, or lupus, or so many other diseases that others can’t necessarily see. It can affect people despite their comfortable and even joyful lives. It does not differentiate between rich and poor or old and young or any other kind of human distinction. Depression does not care about your bank account or number of degrees or good habits.

Depression is not about values or judgments. It’s a terrible illness that causes our own brains to lie to us about ourselves, regardless of our status. I truly hope that I can, in some small way, help people understand that.

May you be well, may you be safe, may you be happy, may you be at peace.