i've been leaving this in my notes for the longest time, contemplating whether to post it or not in fear of appearing attention-seeking. however, i've came to notice that my reaction is exactly the reason why i need to address this issue:
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whenever i told someone that i would like to get help with diagnosing depression, the first question i will be asked would be,
“why would you want to be diagnosed with depression?”, followed by the next one,
“are you sure you are depressed?”.
i get that there’s no ill-intention in the above question, but does my feelings need to be validated by you for me to count it as a possibility of depression?
a counsellor who i’ve seen awhile ago has asked me why would i want to be labelled as someone who is suffering from depression, i told her that it’s so because next time when i have one of my episodes, it would be easier for me to direct the cause to depression, rather than trying to think for the entire time why exactly am i sad, when will this sadness ends, would tonight be possibly the last time. because i can blame it on depression, i can look forward to get over the depressive episode.
“but people i’ve counselled wouldn’t want to be labelled as someone who’s suffering from depression.”
it got me really thinking, do i really want to be labelled as someone who’s suffering from depression? after all, depression is an illness and it’s not something where you could wear it proudly.
“…not something you could wear it proudly.”
i think i’ve found the reason why the people doesn’t want to be labelled as someone who’s suffering from depression, not because they are in denial of themselves having one, but rather it’s because they are in denial of other people accepting that they have depression. then i found this Quora answer which says exactly what i'm thinking:
you see people advocating that they are a survivor of breast cancer, survivor of this, survivor of that, but you have never seen someone coming out as a survivor of depression. that is because the society shuns away from talking about mental illness, mental illness to them is not as real as your other illness like cancer. it’s all in your mind and there’s no definite cure, and because there’s no definite cure, it could means it’s doesn’t exist. you can’t have an MRI scan to see the spreading of cancer cells. after all, it’s all in your mind, right?
another reason why no one wants to be labelled as someone suffering from depression is due to the media’s portray of them. i’ve been watching TV drama ever since i was a kid, specifically your local dramas about slices of life. time to time, you would come to see a side character who has some sort of mental illness. their portray of depressive people has been of someone who’s insanely mentally unstable, who can’t perform normal day-to-day duties, always a little bit too psychotic, or maybe a little too much of wanting to kill themselves as of now and then. i wouldn’t want to be diagnosed with any type of mental illness after watching these dramas, they are so insane.
well it’s true that people with severe conditions would portray such extreme behaviours however, doesn’t applies to majority of the sufferers. most of them would still try to live their life as per normal, it’s just that some days, it would be harder than usual for us to get by. some days, maybe we would think it’s better for us to disappear, but we are not all as psychotic as how local drama has portray us as. we are normal people, just with more difficulties coping with what’s going in our mind.
i didn’t like how my counsellor initially brushed away the decision of me wanting to go to a professional for diagnose and opt for me to go for a counselling session instead. if i had wanted counselling and it actually helps, i wouldn’t be like what i am right now. i don’t need another human who tries to empathise my situation to tell me things will get better without going through whatever i’ve been through. i seek for help, however that’s not the help i wanted. someone out there will bound to disagree with my reason for not wanting to go through counselling session however, let us not push our own opinions onto another person but to be inclusive of each and everyones’. the world can’t function with everyone having the same mindset.
i will be seeing a psychologist soon, i do not know if i would want to be diagnosed as one, but whatever comes as it is.
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