Sunny Days, Where Have You Gone?

Here on the lovely blog we've been talking a lot about learning to feel good about yourself, creating your own confidence by taking chances, and cutting out some of the excuses you give yourself for not doing things. But sometimes these things don't work for some people, no matter how hard you try, and that can make you feel even worse about yourself. With that in mind, I want to take a minute and address depression. At different times in college, I had three roommates who had depression. I also have several family members who suffer from it, and I do myself. This leads me to believe that depression is much more common than most people think, and less recognized.
I didn't realize that I had depression until I left college. Up until then, I just did a lot of wondering what the heck was wrong with me. (This is our first indication that depression is not very well understood, because believe me, all the signs were there. I just didn't know what they were.) I failed several classes that I should have aced, because I just couldn't go to class most days. I wanted to go--I loved my classes, enjoyed them when I was there, loved learning the material. I also knew how much I needed to go, and had horrible panicky feelings knowing that I would be in big trouble and probably fail if I didn't. And yet I couldn't do it. 90% of me wanted to get up, get dressed, and walk up to campus, but somehow there was a part of me that kept me from doing it, and it didn't matter how small that part was--it was in charge. I felt like the laziest, crappiest student ever. I stayed home, giant journaling and watching Pride & Prejudice, or listening to self-indulgently depressing music. I was sullen and withdrawn, and my roommates probably thought I was the pissiest person they'd ever lived with (and possibly bipolar, because when I'm in a good mood, I am in a good mood. I'm loud and funny and slightly insane.) Which probably made it all the more confusing when they'd come home and find me lying on the floor in the living room with the lights off and my headphones in with my iPod up as loud as it would go.
Anyway. The moral of the story is that if you have depression, you need to be taking a different approach to becoming lovely than women who don't. Depression is a totally different thing than being lazy, and it can be really hard to realize that you have it. If you do, then it's important to realize it so you can stop beating yourself up for not being able to do the simplest thing on your to-do list, and figure out a way to make yourself better. While we're on the subject, I would like to recommend that everyone do some research on depression, and find out what it is really about--because chances are good that someone close to you has it, and we could all do with a little more understanding.