I wouldn't considering depression as something in regards to personal strength or weakness. Maybe I am biased as somebody who has experienced depression on and off most of my life. In most cases of depression the dials are just turned a little wrong and there is an imbalance somewhere. Usually I don't realize that I am depressed until I am long into it and people around me notice much earlier (why are you being a dick all the time? Why don't you want to do anything? Why aren't you eating for long periods of time then eating a whole lot all at once? Where were you?). Then after awhile you notice that you don't mind moving as much, your breaths feel fresh and invigorating, and there are things you want to do, and you enjoy things again.....and it is like shit, I'm not depressed anymore. But it comes and goes. I am doing great right now, which is good because I have a lot of immediate deadlines.

I'm sure folks here who know my posting patterns are probably aware of my mood shifts. Thundercock has mentioned it. It used to be really bad, I have developed strategies.

But people have this conception about mental health that I think should change. It should be regarded as the same as physical health. People should have mental health days off for work, mental health services should be on parity with physical health services, and an anxiety attack should have about as much stigma as a broken arm. If the stigma (like the one you shown in your post) wasn't there, people might not be ashamed to seek mental health services.

This post was edited by Skinned on Oct 23 2014 07:42am

have you considered getting a puppy?

I don't want to say how many cats I live with.

They bring me great joy.

My kids are pretty cool too

This post was edited by Skinned on Oct 23 2014 08:54am

I love my lizards

i have one bengal

think he's a little too attached to me

I dealt with depression for probably five years from the end of high school until about a year ago. Recently it started coming back and I finally went to a doctor. We'll see how the medication does though, day two on an SSRI!

It really doesn't have anything to do with will power. These past year I wasn't depressed I destroyed completely loaded semesters of the hardest chemistry classes I was told I would take while planning a wedding and working, took on some research and still had a bit of time to dick around on here. This semester I'm taking 13 hours, doing no research, and have nothing special at home, and am working a record low number of hours and still barely treading water. When I'm healthy I've got a mind sharp enough to utterly decimate any academic challenge, but when I'm depressed all I can be bothered to do is dick around on the internet and maybe apply myself 3 hours a week to a school project and then I'm mentally exhausted and can't fight anymore. Depression isn't just a drain on joy, it's also a drain on energy and will-power itself. I guess you could say some people have a larger pool to drain from, but give it long enough and a bad dice throw on severity of depression and we're really all the same.

Although Viv, Tcock is trolling....

That cat is beautiful. All in to bin!

Oh I know it. Doesn't stop me from making the counterpoint.