I think I just have a stereotypical image in my head of “depression = alone eating very sad meals and in a dark room on the internet all the time, very lonely lives…”
It turns out sometimes people with depression are still hot!
I’ve been married to someone with severe depression for a very long time. It isn’t necessarily a 24x7 experience. During the good times, she is an incredibly happy and fun person to be with. During the bad times, it is really hard on both of us. Medicine has helped, but isn’t perfect. We do our best to get through the hard times and enjoy the rest.
Depression is a clinical chemical state; people respond to it in many different ways; some respond by chasing dopamine highs.
Many socially active people are actually depressed, and the activity is their way of attempting to deal with it.
Many introverted people aren’t depressed at all, and enjoy their own company more than that of others.
The normal way. Flirting, talking, dating.
As long as someone is addressing their depression (e.g. therapy or whatever) and not expecting a relationship to fix it then it is fine and healthy to join one.
Granted loneliness can definitely cause depression, so an exceptional case there.
In terms of dark room vs. extrovert, i can speak from experience that both can feel lonely and the depressive episodes still come and go. IMO better to have higher highs because you’re getting the lows either way 🤷.
There’s more than one kind of depression or triggers. People can be depressed but still function doing normal tasks. Some people are better at masking depression than others.
Depression has lots of ways of manifesting.
One way of describing depression is an unwillingness to engage with life and to feel, because the person has learned that engaging or feeling will lead to pain. This is the functional contextual definition.
Another one comes from Martin Seligman, who defines it as an unwillingness to try things because the person has learned that engaging in something will lead to failure.
In either definition, the unwillingness is contextual. In other words, someone might be depressed regarding work but not their partner. Or someone might be depressed regarding their family but not their partner.
I’m dealing with short term stress (law school work) that is causing some depressive feelings, but seeing new guy is the only thing that makes me relaxed and happy. it’s basically an intentional decision to turn the other parts of my brain off and not worry about what’s stressing me out.
however, when I was super deeply depressed, no I could not have managed a relationship.
Masking, baby!
Having a sad life is not the same thing as depression.
Depression is a condition that persists regardless. Bad bouts are often triggered by legit shitty things happening, but unlike non-depressives who can react appropriate to the scale of the shitty thing and remember that it’s a temp problem, depression encourages black and white thinking.
Depression is knowing in your heart that this is the worst thing in the world, is because you’re irredeemably broken, and will never change or get better. In reality, that’s not true.
Like most chronic health issues, symptoms ebb and flow, so sometimes you can be talked down or see the light yourself. Othertimes you cannot.
By dating other depressed people.
It is said that people with low self esteem or depression are drawn to people with the same issues as them and i’ve certainly found that to be the case.
Seems to be/have been the case for me. It’s like a radar, because it was definitely true of two of my relationships as a teenager. But i had no way of knowing they would be depressed when i was going into the relationships. So my subconscious must have selected them for me.
Yippee!
My partner has severe and persistent bouts of depression. We met on Tinder. Went out on a lot of dates together and had a lot of fun. Been together for about five years now.
We also had a lot of talks about what living with depression means, what kind of support I would or could give, etc. What kind of coping methods they use. I’ve grappled with depression myself here and there so I’m incredibly empathetic when they’re feeling particularly bad. We just support each other.
Depression can look really different and present differently in different people.
