|
What is Depression and Why Is It Vital to
Understand It?
“Depression is the flaw in love,” says
Andrew Solomon, author of The Noonday Demon: An
Atlas of Depression. “To be creatures who
love, we must be creatures who can despair at what
we lose, and depression is the mechanism of that
despair.” When we are depressed we are unable
to feel the love coming from others or to give
love. Like my father and many other relatives in my
family I have experienced depression in my own
life. For me, depression is like being trapped
within a dark cloud that allows no light or heat.
When I’m in it, I feel like I’ve always
been there and I will never come out of it.
Depression can be roughly divided into small
(mild) and large (major) depression.
“Mild depression,” says Solomon, who
is a journalist and has personally wrestled with
depression throughout his life, “is a gradual
and sometimes permanent thing that undermines
people the way rust weakens iron. It is too much
grief at too slight a cause, pain that takes over
from the other emotions and crowds them
out.”
It is mild, only by comparison. For those who
have it, this kind of depression can slowly sap all
the life energy out of a person. “On the face
of it, ‘mild’ depression sounds like a
quiet problem,” say John J. Ratey, M.D., and
Catherine Johnson, Ph.D. We think of the slightly
depressed person as an unassuming soul:
melancholic, perhaps shy, a meek and retiring
figure standing on the sidelines of life’s
parade. A person who is more trouble to himself
than to anyone else.”
I believe that this describes the kind of
depression that is more common in women. There is
another kind of depression that is more common in
men. Ratey and Johnson describe it this way. They
are “often stressed, frazzled, angry. They
feel overwhelmed and fed-up; they are the people
who have ‘hit the wall.’ They bark at
their children; they snap at their mates. They are
chronically irritable, and they are having no
fun.”
As we know if we’ve ever experienced this
kind of depression or lived with someone who has,
it is far from mild. Andrew Solomon offers a useful
contrast. “Large depression is the stuff of
breakdowns,” he says, “If one imagines a
soul of iron that weathers with grief and rusts
with mild depression, then major depression is the
startling collapse of a whole structure.” Many
men suffer from depression in silence. Many of us
don’t know we are depressed. Others of us,
suspect we are depressed, but feel we can and
should handle it ourselves.
Many of us don’t feel much hope that the
talk therapy or drugs can really solve what is
eating away at us. From my own experience, I know
we need not suffer alone. There is help that will
work for each of us. We just need to be willing to
look for it. Of course, when we’re depressed,
it can feel impossible to seek out the help we
need. Often it is someone close to us who pushes or
pulls us toward recovery.
©2010 Jed
Diamond
See Books,
Issues
+ Suicide
* * *
Wealth can't buy health, but health can buy
wealth. - Henry David Thoreau
Jed Diamond
is the internationally best-selling author of seven
books including Male
Menopause, now
translated into 17 foreign languages and his
latest book, The
Irritable Male Syndrome: Managing. The 4 Key Causes
of Depression and
Aggression. For over
38 years he has been a leader in the field of men's
health. He is a member of the International
Scientific Board of the World Congress on
Men’s Health and has been on the Board of
Advisors of the Men’s Health Network since its
founding in 1992. His work has been featured in
major newspapers throughout the United States
including the New York Times, Boston Globe, Wall
Street Journal, The Los Angeles Times, and USA
Today. He has been featured on more than 1,000
radio and T.V. programs including The View with
Barbara Walters, Good Morning America, Inside
Edition, CBS, NBC, and Fox News, To Tell the Truth,
Extra, Leeza, Geraldo, and Joan Rivers. He also did
a nationally televised special on Male Menopause
for PBS. He looks forward to your feedback.
E-Mail.
You can visit his website at www.menalive.com
Contact
Us |
Disclaimer
| Privacy
Statement
Menstuff®
Directory
Menstuff® is a registered trademark of Gordon
Clay
©1996-2023, Gordon Clay
|
