People pretend they knew the struggle of depression

[noname223]

I have two friends at college. I have other more close friends I knew from school who know everything about me. But I was able to find some "friends" at college. They know I am quite ill but know nothing about my suicidality. One of them is such a good guy. Way too altruistic, very very bright guy a great person. I think being friend with me is to a certain percentage the product of pity with my horrible condition. He never said it but I am quite sure he thinks I am insular and a little bit self-absorbed. Which is probably true to a certain point. I am very ill and I have to monitor my feelings and mood 24/7 which he notices in our conversations. I seemingly talk a little bit too much about my illness. He never said it in a condescending way but it is obvious for me. However we still have good conserversation I try to make him laugh and I try to support him. I don't think our friendship is solely based on pity. We have still a good chemistry.

But here comes the other guy. Also extremely bright guy. I need his help in some courses. He is kind of lazy but still quite young. In contrast to my other friend he seemingly does not take my mental illness fully serious. He is still very friendly and we have good conversations. However I think he is a little bit young and kind of dismissive on mental illness. I currenlty try to teach him that mental illness is very serious. First he thought I was just lazy and my depression was some sort of an excuse. I obviously did not go nuclear and straightaway told him I am a wreck who has suicidal thoughts since a decade. I tried to explain it in a more subtle way. I think he found my slow progress in college kind of ridiculous which hurt me. I feel ashamed for it too but I am extremely fragile and this is the only way I don't relapse. I think as I said he assumed I was just lazy. He asked questions about my illness and I think he checked whether I exaggerate my struggle. While doing that he explained he also had depression in the past but it went away when the winter ends. I am quite sure either this was only a very mild depression or not even a clinical depression. It sounded very harmless and he applied his own "experience" to my condition. It is kind of naive doing that. I think he probably did not have a clinical depression and I have a very severe form of bipolar. When I described some of my problems he realized yeah my condition is kind of fucked up. Though he still does not know anything how severe it really is. His assumption I was just lazy was kind of hurtful. The opposite is true and I am conscientious on a completely insane and counterproductive level.

Though I don't want to express with these stories I would regret having told them my struggle. Both of them are quite young and don't have much personal knowledge on such clinical conditions. Many believe in stereotypes which is kind of interesting because both (and me) are interested in human biases. I try to be mild on my second college friend. If I was in his situation this young with barely any knowledge on mental health I would probably be dismissive too. When I was younger I also could never understand how a mental health condition can make you unable to leave the bed.

I still like both of them very much. I absolutely prefer to be open about my condition which is almost inevitable anyway. I still try to convince the second guy that mental illness is very serious and I think we made some progress so far.

The topic of the thread finally. When I talked with other friends about depression some said they already had experience with it. In some cases it sounded convincing. In other cases I had the feeling people confused clinical depression with being sad for a long time or simply annoyance. One girl she was friendly to me but she pretended "Depression I always have that". She never had any depression she just pretended shit which made me angry. Though she was one of my only friends to that time and I had to accept her opinion. Others pretended they knew how I felt despite the fact my depression was way more severe. Either they had no clinical depression or only a very mild form. It is kind of annoying when people pretend they knew how depression felt without ever having major depression. There are different severity levels of depression. And it is kind of ignorant of people to arrogate they knew how bad this felt.

Though in the end I could be the ignorant one and not taking their pain serious. However I talked with these people a lot in real life. Judging on the internet with no personal connection is something completely different for me. I knew these people for quite some time. And I had the feeling I could differentiate between the ones who confused sadness or boredom with a real mental health condition. I know it can backfire to judge this way but as I said I only make this because I knew these people for quite a while.

Have you made similar experiences? Do you find it annoying too?

 

[DarknessAndDespair]

I think no one can really understand what other persons are really going through. They can pretend and say so but each person experience is different. And depression is invisible, many people do not understand the different levels of the condition, and how badly can affect life's individuals. As an example, I have an acute chronic illness that is invisible, yet is life destroying as I am bedbound 90% of the time. I seem mostly fine in the outside, while I am dying inside, but people cannot see it and do not think of it as a life ruining condition. Few friens told me "oh but it could be worse, like, you could have cancer or a limb cut", stupid, I know, doesnt make any sense. However, I do not think I am annoyed by their responses and attitudes. Maybe because I was not very attached to many people form the beginning, or maybe because Im too numb from the meds and I just dont care about things like that anymore.

 

[WorthlessTrash]

Normies generally mistake periods of sadness over life events for depression. The two can be very different.

 

[RandomTuesday]

When I was younger I used to think about people's experiences dictating their thresholds for things. If the hardest moments of someone's life were their parents telling them they couldn't go to a concert or taking away their car keys or something, then their threshold for suffering would be much different than mine. I'd dismiss whatever their complaints were, "knowing" that their issues were "lesser" than mine. I lived in poverty, had a drug addicted parent, was molested for years, etc. Surely they just didn't have perspective and their problems weren't "real".

However. here I am decades later spiraling out because I have more credit card debt then I think I should, or because I haven't "accomplished" what I think I should have professionally by now. My problems now are objectively way less severe then when I was a child, and yet I had more hope and self confidence then. I feel less stable now then I did then.

I guess my point is, everything is so damn complex. Even if I compare "myself" to "myself 30 years ago" it doesn't make sense. So why would comparing my suffering to someone else's suffering make sense? I think I have more empathy for people now. It seems like they way you're thinking is similar to how I used to think.

I think it's good for you to be open about it though, and talk about it. I think that's a commendable thing you're doing. Another thing to consider. How many people do you just put on a smile for, or at least don't talk about your struggles with? I wonder if some of these people are doing the same. Maybe they do have more serious trauma, but they're just guarded about it.

I've always liked flipping this line of thinking on it's head too. If someone shouldn't be sad because other's have it worse then them, then shouldn't people not be happy because someone has it better than them? Unless you're the sociopath billionaire genius riding a jet-ski around your island while having sex with a model, you don't get to be happy! I don't know, haha. That line of thinking helped me realize that "I shouldn't be sad because others have it worse" was a bullshit way of thinking. All of our experiences are subjective and personal to us.

 

[Aisley]

There will always be people like this. No matter what you say to them, they say me, too. Me always. All your life experiences, and your reactions to said experiences are exactly mine, and always were. We are the same person in every way. I don't get it, and it used to really piss me off, not that I went around telling people in real life about myself a lot. Once I just said I ate a baby to see what one of them would say. They giggled. Maybe it comes from a lonely core, i just don't know, and I've managed to develope a nice healthy indifference to it since. And maybe none of this applies to the people you know, just a little phenomenon I've noticed over the years.
BPD is something quite singular and seems terrifying to me. You won't meet many people who get it, it's one of those that people really have to have to understand. I've done some uppers and downers, seperately and together, and i imagine it's like that but deeper, of course. But I DON'T know.