Psychologist John Grohol writes, “Lots of people walk through life trying to hide their depression. People with concealed depression or hidden depression often don’t want to acknowledge the severity of their depressive feelings. They believe that if they just continue living their life, the depression will just go away on its own. In a few cases, this may work. But for most folks, it just drags out the feelings of sadness and loneliness.” Read the Blog
6 Secret Signs of Hidden Depression
12 Office Depression Busters: Tips for Work Depression
How do we get through our work days when depressed? Blogger Therese Borchard offers these 12 great tips. Read the Blog
Making Decisions When Depressed
Blogger John Folk-Williams writes, “Like so many, I experience depression in various forms, yet each in its own way knocks out the decision control center in my mind. At times, I scramble in anxiety and can’t focus enough to pick out one among many possibilities. At other times, I don’t care about choosing – or anything else for that matter – and I let the alternatives fall where they may. Or I make all kinds of decisions, even life changing ones, but none of them seems like a choice. Each one is do-or-die. If I fail to do it, I’ll go right over the edge.” Read the Blog
Doctor Burnout, Stress and Depression: Not an Easy Fix
U.S. News & World Report writes, “Awareness is growing around the stress that doctors-in-training and those practicing medicine experience. The statistics are alarming to some degree. Approximately one-third of physicians report experiencing burnout at any given point. As a matter of fact, doctors are 15 times more likely to burn out than professionals in any other line of work, and 45 percent of primary care physicians report that they would quit if they could afford to do so.” Read the News
Woman Captures the Exhausting Reality of Living with Anxiety in 2 Photos
The Huffington Post reports, “For those who don’t struggle with mental health issues, it can be hard to fully comprehend what a panic attack feels like. One woman’s powerful Facebook post gets brutally honest about the reality. Last week, British merchandiser Amber Smith posted two photos and an accompanying caption on Facebook about living with anxiety and depression.” Read the News
Wheeler: Confessions from the Ashes of Depression
News columnist Burgetta Eplin Wheeler writes a personally moving account of her journey through depression. Here is an excerpt: “The healthy among us find it unfathomable. What could possibly be so bad? We of the broken brains completely, sadly understand, though just as Tolstoy said every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way, undoubtedly every unwell person is unwell in his own way.” Read the News
Let’s Change the Conversation Around Mental Health
First Lady Michelle Obama writes in The Huffington Post, “Sadly, too often, the stigma around mental health prevents people who need help from seeking it. But that simply doesn’t make any sense. Whether an illness affects your heart, your arm or your brain, it’s still an illness, and there shouldn’t be any distinction. We would never tell someone with a broken leg that they should stop wallowing and get it together. We don’t consider taking medication for an ear infection something to be ashamed of. We shouldn’t treat mental health conditions any differently. Instead, we should make it clear that getting help isn’t a sign of weakness – it’s a sign of strength – and we should ensure that people can get the treatment they need.” Read the News
How Lawyers With Depression Disappear
One of my favorite things to watch as a child with my dad was The Ed Sullivan Show; an extravaganza of bands, comedians, and ventriloquists all hamming it up in front of a live audience and folks across America glued to their first generation color T.V. sets.
I once saw a famous magician perform, right after Liberace. He stepped into a giant box onstage that he had set fire to and then . . . disappeared. To my six-year-old eyes, that really was magic. Older, and perhaps a little wiser, I now know that it was a trick: only the appearance of disappearance.
It seems to me that lawyers with depression seemingly disappear from life. They have the appearance of being present, but they really just aren’t.
They sit at their desks and look like they are doing their jobs, but inside they are someplace far away, a place where depression has taken them to, a dark cave beneath a turbulent neurochemical sea.
Why do lawyers so often hide when depressed?
Fear
They are scared to death. They know that there is something seriously wrong with their lives and that it’s not going away. Their life, on a fundamental level, isn’t working. It is broken. They can’t concentrate. They are getting behind in their work. “What if other people realize that I’m not really as together as I seem to be?” they ask themselves. “What happens if my job falls apart?” Driven by these fearful redheaded demons, they go into hiding. They disappear. They close their doors and surf the web trying to distract themselves from the pain of depression and the long list of things they need to do for work which just aren’t getting done.
Lack of Energy
Depression is a disease of inertia. There is a limited supply of energy. It also seems as though the tank is nearing empty with no gas station in sight. Anything that isn’t judged absolutely necessary gets left behind. And make no mistake about it. Depression is a killer and most in its clutches feel like they are just trying to survive it: sometimes a day at a time, sometimes from moment to moment.
Shame
Many lawyers disappear because they feel a deep level of toxic shame; that they are to blame for their depression. They feel as if they are a big fat zero and deserve to disappear into . . . nothingness. Shame isn’t the same as guilt. Guilt is usually understood to involve negative feelings about an act one has committed while shame involves deeply negative feelings about oneself. Embarrassment deals with exposure to one’s peers or society at large; shame can be experienced secretly – and often is.
If you were to look into their eyes very carefully, you might see a very deep level of sorrow. A searing pain that they have tried to numb with food, alcohol, drugs, zoning out in front of the television to keep them going, a pain that haunts them.
They Want to Be Alone
One lawyer told me that suffering from depression and being in a room full of people was simply too much for her. It was, as she described as if the depression in her head had “turned the volume in the room way up” and she couldn’t take all the stimulation; the noise of other people. All that she wanted to do was be by herself. She didn’t want to talk to anyone. She just learned to be alone. To go to bed, pull up the covers and drift into sleep’s merciful unconsciousness. Author Ned Vizzini, author of the book It’s Kind of a Funny Story, wrote:
“I didn’t want to wake up. I was having a much better time asleep. And that’s really sad. It was almost like a reverse nightmare, like when you wake up from a nightmare you’re so relieved. I woke up into a nightmare.”
What kind of magician are you? Do you go into hiding when you’re depressed? Please share your stories with fellow readers of this site. In my next blog, I will talk about what steps we can take to “reappear” in our lives. How we can become re-engaged with the conversation of our lives.
Copyright, 2016, Daniel T. Lukasik, Esq.
Doctors Often Fail to Treat Depression Like Chronic Illness
National Public Radio reports that primary care doctors fail to teach patients how to manage their care and don’t follow up to see how they’re doing, according to the study, which was published Monday in Health Affairs. Read the News
What It’s Like to Have Your Severe Depression Treated With a Hallucinogenic Drug
New York Magazine reports, “Everyone’s depression is different, but Ted, a 40-year-old resident of Portland, Oregon, describes his as a “continuous dark veil — a foul, dark, awful perspective that informs every moment of your whole life.” He’d tried to treat it with antidepressants, therapy, visits to psychiatrists, “the whole nine,” but although the antidepressants kept him functional, they by no means offered relief. He finally got relief from the hallucinogenic drug Ketamine.” Read the News
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