How Depression Impacts Family

"You're so sad all the time! I can't stand it! Why can't you just pull through it?"

I stared at my 20 year old, 6 foot, 2 inches tall son, crying and yelling at me because I'm sad all the time. And here I thought I was a pro at hiding my depression.

We had been having a heated argument about mutual respect, of all things. But for me, when my son brought up my depression, the other stuff we were screaming about fell away. All I was left with was shame and guilt over how my depression had/has impacted my loved ones. My son suffers from anxiety disorder and knows that you can't just "pull through" mental illness. Still, it was like the yelling released a valve in my son and all this crap poured out, setting loose an underlying, and what I'm sure is a perpetual, feeling of helplessness and anger about my depression.

Does hiding depression make it worse?

[caption id="attachment_2105" align="alignleft" width="284" caption="by FrameAngel, courtesy of freedigitalphotos.net"][/caption]

I didn't think I was all that sad. Yes, it has been a gruelling 4-5 weeks. Yes, I had admittedly suffered a depression dip that lasted about a week. Yes, my dog got very ill and I had to make some very difficult decisions and yes, those few days were very emotional. Yes, I did catch a very bad cold and was laid up in bed for a few days. And yes, last weekend, as I wrote in last week's blog on motivation and depression, I was a slug, laying around in my trackies with very little motivation.

To my son, this is being "sad all the time".

To me, this is coping with depression.

We can't help it - we, the many who suffer from depression. We try very hard to keep our misery to ourselves. Honestly, we do. We may even think we're doing it well. I sure did - until yesterday. Regardless of the impact depression has on our families, it's impossible to hide it. We shouldn't even bother trying because hiding depression just makes the depression worse.