Expecting People with Depression to Act as If They Didn’t Have Depression

                 Depression is often misunderstood. Many people don’t understand it is an illness. They don’t understand how real depression is. There is a misconception that people can turn off depression. This has never made sense to me. I can’t turn my depression off like a faucet. Depression is an illness. 

                  For most of my life I have functioned with depression. I earned two degrees while depressed. I spent 26+ years as a special education teacher while living with depression. I hid my illness fairly well. People expected me to just keep doing what I was doing. Even people who knew about my depression expected me to be there every day. Most days I was there functioning as best as I could. I played the role of teacher while in my head darkness swirled. Many people do what I did. We work despite our depression.

Depression is one of those illnesses that you can’t let others know is affecting you. Stigma made it hard to admit that depression was impacting my ability to work. Several years ago, when I took a leave of absence to address my mental health, no one knew that I was depressed. No one asked.  In late 2022 my mental health forced me into another leave of absence. Again, I did not let on it was depression because I feared my boss would ridicule me and that my colleagues wouldn’t understand. Teachers are expected to teach. We are expected to be there every day. Even taking one day off is difficult because we need to plan everything for the substitute. I was going to be out for an extended period and did not have the ability to plan everything to keep my classroom running without me. I felt guilty that I couldn’t do my part and that no one knew why. 

When you are depressed people expect you to smile and get through it. I’ve been told, “You have so much to be happy about. How can you be depressed?” The people saying these things don’t understand that depression is an illness. This fact has hit me harder now that I am also living with a physical illness, cancer. No one has told me to “Smile and push through the cancer.” Mental and physical illnesses are perceived differently. When cancer forced me to take a leave of absence, no one expected me to do anything for work.  I didn’t have to hide my illness. Even now as I live with both illnesses, the cancer is the one most people ask about.

No one outside of my mental health team asks how I’m coping with my depression as I fight cancer. A couple people in my inner circle have checked in on my depression, but in general people act as if my depression went away when I was diagnosed with cancer. The depression has definitely not gone away. If anything, it has become more difficult. I understand. Cancer is something people know about. It is something people can often see. Depression is something that people can’t see. That makes it harder to recognize.

When someone finds out I have depression, I’ll get responses like, “try yoga” or “you need to smile more.”  I’ve heard things like “my friend stopped being depressed when she drank herbal tea.” Another one that makes me laugh is “Have a glass of wine. It will relax you.” I understand that these people have good intentions, but would they tell me to try yoga to cure my cancer? Would a glass of wine make me cancer disappear? No. Why then is it okay to make these suggestions about depression?

People often think that I can turn the depression off and function as if nothing is wrong, as if my mind is not filled with dark thoughts. Until depression is viewed as an illness by more people, those of us who have this illness are going to be faced with expectations like this that we cannot meet. We are going to be expected to act as if we are not depressed. I know I need to work more on being honest and saying, “I can’t do that today because my depression is impacting me” or “I have depression and I need to take some time to heal.” For too long I hid my depression at work. That didn’t help me. It also doesn’t allow others to learn that depression is an illness. Reducing the expectation to act as if we don’t have depression is not going to occur until those of us with depression and the people who care about individuals with depression speak up. 
                  As a society we need to recognize depression and other mental illnesses for what they are, illnesses. They are not choices. I don’t choose to struggle with depression. I do, however, choose to live and that means recognizing my depression is real. I am not always going to be able to function as if I am well. I need to take time to heal. I need to treat my illness as an illness. People with depression don’t need sympathy from others, but we do need understanding.